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Better than the worst: a newbie's guide to sidestepping ridicule (part 2) |  |
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By: Pepsi Ranger |
In part one I talked about the importance of being patient when it comes to releasing games. I wrote that it’s better to keep your game to yourself while it’s still in the unpolished and unfinished stage, thus saving your reputation from the bonds of laughter (when your game is not supposed to be a comedy). Granted, what I didn’t talk about was the fact that sooner or later, if you want the public to see your game, you will have to release it. But, where does the line lie in separating readiness from ridicule? When is the best time to set a release? I don’t know, but here are some helpful things to think about when trying to make your game a little better.
Lesson #2: Do Some Research.
What? you may ask. "Research? Are you on something? This is creative juices time. This is draw, paste, and post. This is a lousy video game, not a term paper." Yes, these things are very true. But, is your goal to mess around or to make a game? If you just want to mess around, then feel free. I know there’s a lot of fun in that too. If anything, making an OHR game can be like washing a car -- it’s not something you really planned on doing when you woke up this morning, but since there was nothing else to do, you may as well draw some ugly pictures and make them talk in Pig-Latin. Psychologists may agree that there’s an escape in that. But, if that’s your goal, do you really plan on releasing your "doodle pad" for the world to see? Probably not, so if you care about releasing something, you might want to make sure you have some knowledge as to what you’re doing, so research is now all of a sudden important.
Now, lesson two does not deal specifically with researching content for your game. Even though you can start reading books about the way knights ate their steak and potatoes back in the 16th Century, it’s not really the most important thing to know. What’s important now is learning the engine design to its fullest. I’m not suggesting that you should be on your way to making the plotscripting model of the ages, or the best looking thing since Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, but at least get an idea how to do things effectively. This means reading everything available from the tutorials, to the message boards, to other people’s plotscripts. The more stuff you put into your head, the more stuff will come out into your game. You will find that game designing will pan out a lot easier when you know what you’re doing before you start creating your masterpiece.
Of course, just as faith works with action, so does knowledge work with experience. This means you should be willing to practice what you learn as you learn it, which brings us to --
Lesson #3: Create Your Own Practice File.
That’s right. If you want to make better stuff, you have to put in the time to practice it. Now, the practice file can be the base of your future game if you want, but it will ultimately take less work if you start your game from scratch with a clue in your head. So, if you want to start off on a better foot, it is perhaps a good idea to make a file that’s exclusively designed for learning the tricks of the OHR. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be looking for them when making your game, since you will discover more interesting things when you’re actually making the story you want, but the basics should definitely be practiced on a file you don’t care about. The custom file comes with two examples in the pack, and you can feel free to make more. Of course, this is merely a suggestive lesson, and may not work for everyone, since some people learn better when they learn the tricks on a project they care about. But whether the practice is done on a separate file, or the one that counts, be sure to remember lesson one before thinking the practice session is over.
"Okay, so what if I’ve done all the practice I’m going to do? Can I release my game now?" That’s a good question and a stupid one. You can release your game now if you want, but do you really want one of the hard-core reviewers tearing it up and spitting you out? Most likely not, so maybe it’s time to write something down.
Lesson #4: There is No Shame in Pre-Planning.
Odds are that if you want to make a game in the first place, then you probably have an idea in your head. For some authors, the idea for a game is all that is needed to transform nothing into a great piece of work. These authors are known as prodigies, and are a small, but gifted group of people. Most authors cannot dare to dream to pull a one-sentence idea out of a hat and design an entire trilogy of games from it, and actually make them awesome. Most people can’t keep their thoughts organized long enough to believe something like that is even possible. This is where pre-planning comes in handy.
Like lesson three, the pre-planning lesson is merely an option, and not necessary to make a newbie into a genius. However, if a story is to have the right kind of cohesion and continuity, then planning things ahead of time is a good way to start off.
"But, what’s so important about that? Doesn’t a game just need graphics, sound, and battles?" you may ask. If you are asking that, then you may as well stop reading because these points are not helping you. For those who are still reading, then you know the obvious reason is "no." Why is it no? Because stick figures are considered graphics, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" is considered music, and game show games don’t have battles. No, the idea of pre-planning is to get an idea how your game is supposed to work.
Okay, now this is the time that we can incorporate real research into the lesson phase. Naturally, if we’re to have an immersive game, then we need to have some depth to the content to immerse us in. Therefore, if your hero is a police officer, it might not be a bad idea to find out what the standard arrest quota for a department is for each month. If that’s asking for too much specificity, then it might be better to find out if there is even an arrest quota for each month. Such knowledge may be useless in the long run, but who is to say the information won’t become important at some obscure moment. Maybe such a small fact can turn into a powerful catalyst that ultimately drives your story. Example:
Frederick Harris -- police officer by day, convenience store clerk by night, gets ready to set out for his routine patrol around the department store district of Major Metropolis City. As he sets out, his chief informs him that his arrest quota is five below par level for the entire month. If he is to get his raise, he must haul in at least five perpetrators before the end of his shift. Thus begins his quest.
So, what happens next? Perhaps research will tell you that patrol cars are painted a certain color for a reason. What’s that reason? Maybe Frederick Harris -- police officer by day, convenience store clerk by night, will discover that reason after he busts his first criminal. But, why would a criminal know why police cars are painted a certain way? Maybe that criminal is a shady cop. Ooh, now there’s a story brewing.
So, what did we just learn from that brief, two-paragraph example? We learned that not only is research important in the area of pre-planning, but so is character development. How so? The answer is simple. Without a good character, you can never have a good story. Think about it. Did Barney the Purple Dinosaur ever have a good story? I doubt it. Did Luke Skywalker ever have a good story? Heck, yeah. How are Luke and Barney different from each other? It’s a simple matter of substance. If your character doesn’t have an interesting life, or interesting things interrupting his life, or a personality to act on his so-called life, then why does anyone want to follow his antics? It’s all a matter of researching a subject (if only a little bit), and writing something down when you think you have something.
The same goes for plot development as well. Even though I don’t encourage the creation of plot before character, since plots happen as a result of character actions (if Adam and Eve didn’t ignore the commandment to stay away from the forbidden fruit, there wouldn’t be many stories of good versus evil to tell), there is a point when a plot must have direction. It’s one thing to have Frederick Harris -- cop in the day, clerk in the night, leave the office to do his patrol, but it’s another to have him dismantle an entire underground criminal syndicate before he goes home for the night. How does Fred get from Point A to Point Z in one smooth motion? Perhaps a chart would be effective.
"A chart? Is this some sort of business meeting?" you may ask. I hope you’re not asking that, but if you are, here’s where a chart will come in handy -- statistics. That’s right, a world has statistics, so maybe your game can too. When creating a game world, you’re creating a potential travel plan for your character. That’s great and all, but what happens when your character walks the world? Are there places that have their own mysteries and ideo-syncracies? Are the people your character interacts with going to try to sell him fake watches? A chart is a good way to keep an overall perspective of what’s going on, and acts as a reference guide when the game is in development. This way, your character never gets lost in a rapidly dismantling story, nor does he force the player to realize that he or she is wasting his precious time. So, now that we newbies have a few guidelines to build from, maybe now we can take our game designs a little more seriously. But how seriously should we take them? We still don’t know when the best time to release our game is. We still don’t know what justifies a finished product. Well, part three should help out with these questions.
Operation: OHR is owned and maintained by Kevin W. (Aethereal)