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Things learned from your newbie game
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Meatballsub
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:56 am    Post subject: Things learned from your newbie game Reply with quote

After having finally released my first game, I learned of several things that I should keep in mind for next time I make a game. If I had to choose just a few things to remember, it would probably be this:

- Don't release a demo prematurely. I released two demos of The Omega, both of which pretty much sucked. It is exciting when you finally have some playable content for a game, but it isn't always a good thing to release it immediately thereafter.

- If you spend X amount of time creating the game, spend X times 2 debugging and testing it. Even though I ran through my game at least two dozen times before official release, and even had the help of a couple of playtesters, we all failed to catch a decent amount of stuff. I am not knocking anybody, but it just goes to show that you can never be too thorough when it comes to playtesting.

The next time I release a game, the testing phase will be much more thorough than before.
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LeRoy_Leo
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Things I learned from Turtle Quest...

-No matter how good your idea is, no one will think it's good if you don't take the time to include any of those great ideas into it before releasing the demo.
-If you suck at drawing, your pixel art is probably going to mirror that.
-Explain the story at the beginning of the game, unless your game is addictive and fun enough that you can explain it as the player is playing.
-Throwing a whole bunch of useless dialog in the mix will distract from the game and drive people away.
-On that note, dialog should be simple and organized. Use plenty of space to create breathing room in between lines of text.
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hm, the main thing I learned myself lately is that if the graphics suck it is because you don't put enough effort into them and not because you have no talent or something. On that note I learned that doing a single good 20x20 graphic takes 2 hours.

But I learned hundreds of things about player opinions, how they see my games, what they dont like... I used a lot of the knowledge I gained from the Fatal Maze discussion for Gerania actually.

My really first completely finished RPG was a German Text-RPG, I mainly learned from it that I tend to make games extremely hard when I do them for myself. I also learned that it's more intelligent to make any game in English, even if your English isn't so good because you eventually always meet a person you want to show your game to that doesn't know your mother tongue.

Quote:
- Don't release a demo prematurely. I released two demos of The Omega, both of which pretty much sucked. It is exciting when you finally have some playable content for a game, but it isn't always a good thing to release it immediately thereafter.

Demos aren't necessarily bad, but they need to be well thought-out. They also need to be treated like a full release, that means, bugtest it a lot although it's only a demo (after all finding bugs early also means much less work usually). One more thing that should be considered when released a demo is backwards compatibility. It's a big spoiler for players if they have to restart the game each time a new demo is released because you changed a major mechanism in the game. That's why before releasing a demo it's always good to make sure you got all the main system implemented and tested already and don't want to change anything with them in the future. This also includes calculating future hero stats and checking if they'll still work out with the gameplay balance.

The main reason why I release a demo is actually because I'm not sure if I even finish a game. Another reason is to get some hints early on so I can improve the game before it's too big and improving would be too troublesome.

Quote:
- If you spend X amount of time creating the game, spend X times 2 debugging and testing it. Even though I ran through my game at least two dozen times before official release, and even had the help of a couple of playtesters, we all failed to catch a decent amount of stuff. I am not knocking anybody, but it just goes to show that you can never be too thorough when it comes to playtesting.

As a programmer you learn that getting the first full version done is only 10% of the development time. The remaining 90% are testing, fixing the found bugs, retesting, fixing, etc. until no more bugs are found. I still found it a bit weird that nobody found out that complete skills aren't working, though.

Quote:
-No matter how good your idea is, no one will think it's good if you don't take the time to include any of those great ideas into it before releasing the demo.

I'd extend that and say that people will only really accept that you have talent if you provide proof.

Quote:
-If you suck at drawing, your pixel art is probably going to mirror that.

As I said above I personally think it just means that you need to invest more time into it and maybe read some pixel guides if you never have.

Quote:
-Explain the story at the beginning of the game, unless your game is addictive and fun enough that you can explain it as the player is playing.

I disagree on this one. Games that don't reveal the story to the player at all can be much better. Just look at Orchard's games. Even if you finish them you can only guess what they are all about and I think they all have an awesome story.

Quote:
-Throwing a whole bunch of useless dialog in the mix will distract from the game and drive people away.
-On that note, dialog should be simple and organized. Use plenty of space to create breathing room in between lines of text.

I personally hate games that have a lot dialog, it's one of the reason why I often like amateur games more than professional ones, but there are many people that like lots of useless dialog, like all the people who think Grandia is a good game.
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TwinHamster
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
On that note I learned that doing a single good 20x20 graphic takes 2 hours.


Effort does not simply mean an investment in time.
If you are working on 400 pixels for two hours, no matter how nice it looks, you are using up too much time.

I would think that effort also measures the amount of attention and focus put into a work.

Along with learning to draw better, everyone should also try to learn how to work more efficiently.

[edit] And as a tip...

* Don't start a tileset with a floor tile in the first slot.


Last edited by TwinHamster on Sun Jul 27, 2008 2:11 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah I guess:
Skill * Time Invested = Result
You can raise either, though I think that at some point you reached the maximum skill level that is possible for you and then you can only raise the invested time. I once asked Orchard / Friend how he can make maptiles that are this awesome and he replied investing more than one hour per maptile. That's how I realized this. I always thought I suck at graphics and will never to any good ones, that's why I only made text-based games, but now look at Gerania, I reached a really high art level in it, though I probably invested 10 times more time into them than someone that is talented with graphics would.

Also, I have yet to see someone who is able to create awesome graphics in no time.
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Newbie_Power




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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 11:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Working within a 1 hour time frame for each tile, while a long time, is efficient compared to working until you are satisfied, because you set both a reasonable time to draw something amazing, and also a time which you must move on to a new tile.
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Chenzi
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My newbie game was Bahamut Breath, which I started developing when I was in 8th grade (I'm 24, going on 25 now). The OHR was still new, I had the AWESOME 100 Map version of the editor, and shops were just implemented.

I learned a good deal about game making and myself by working with the OHR back then.

- Don't try to jam as much dialog as possible into a text box. Split it up.
- If you're going to have spells, make them more useful than a normal attack.
- When drawing walkabouts, make sure you consider the concept art of the characters. In the first release of Bahamut Breath, Drake's walkabout was about twice the size of Knightshade. Knightshade was supposed to be 8ft tall.
- Think through your story first. If you're not going to explain things to the player right away, make sure that you do it soon. Or atleast if you release an early demo, let the players that "ALL THINGS WILL BE REVEALED SOON".
- If your music is going to be ripped, admit to it, and make sure it's the most badass music you could possibly rip.
- DBZ and Final Fantasy are not acceptable concepts to rip off, especially if you mix the two together.
- Contribute to the community. Though Bahamut Breath received C's and D's for review scores, I had about 20-30 people emailing me every week asking for more information about it (ie, interested in the concept). Once I started being active in the community, people were very interested in helping me out.

Things I picked up from other people in the community
- Do _NOT_ overhype your game. SoJ was "near release" for several years, and though it isn't the only thing that defined the communities hatred towards Fyre, it definately contributed. In retrospect, if you overhype, it may take years for you to redeem yourself.
- Don't pretend to be a different person (ie, post something fucktarded and say it was your cousin).
- Don't post ads similiar to "Looking for musician, storyteller, pixel artist, and programmer for upcoming awesome project!". People are simply going to laugh at you, because if you're looking for all of those people, what exactly are you doing in this project? Barking out orders?
- DO work with others. If you have been working for a few years and you still can't cough out a single good song, graphic, or other, look and see if anyone would like to work on something with you. Protip: See next bullet for info on how to get help.
- Participate in contests. Contests are an excellent way to meet members of the community and learn how to work as a team. Professional game design is very seldom a solo effort. The games that I have worked on with other people have been the most enjoyable, and most successful projects I've ever had the honor of working on in my life.
- Use IRC. Other than meeting people, you pick up on a lot of things before they even happen, such as contests and game releases. I've picked up a few friends on IRC myself (not tooting my own horn, but ask me how the OHR irc channels originally got big).
- Listen to other people. If they tell you something sucks, 99.9% of the time they're generally not trying to hurt your feelings. Don't take anything personally, listen to what they say and ask if it makes sense to you as a person, and if it would make sense if you were somebody else.

I've got a ton more, but I don't want to dominate this thread.
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LeRoy_Leo
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TwinHamster wrote:

* Don't start a tileset with a floor tile in the first slot.


Oh, man. I have got to know why, because I always do that.
Is there a tutorial on making efficient tile sets?
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Chenzi
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh wow, yeah, that's a good one. To this day, I still screw that one up.
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't necessarily say it should NOT be a floor tile, because it strongly depends on the map. "Choose the first tile in a tileset wisely" would be better if you ask me.

Quote:
- Don't post ads similiar to "Looking for musician, storyteller, pixel artist, and programmer for upcoming awesome project!".

Isn't that what you are doing, too?
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Moogle1
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's been a very long time since my newbie game, but here it is:

Your newbie game is going to suck. Don't get upset when people point this out.

There are ways to make your newbie game not suck, but it's pretty much faster to just release your sucky newbie game and move on to something better. The criticism will help you grow.
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Onlyoneinall
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rya.Reisender wrote:
I wouldn't necessarily say it should NOT be a floor tile, because it strongly depends on the map. "Choose the first tile in a tileset wisely" would be better if you ask me.

Quote:
- Don't post ads similiar to "Looking for musician, storyteller, pixel artist, and programmer for upcoming awesome project!".

Isn't that what you are doing, too?


I think he meant not to say that the game is going to be AWESOME! If I remembered correctly, he simply just asked people to help him, without the THIS GAME WILL BE AWESOME!
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 5:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Onlyoneinall wrote:
Rya.Reisender wrote:
I wouldn't necessarily say it should NOT be a floor tile, because it strongly depends on the map. "Choose the first tile in a tileset wisely" would be better if you ask me.

Quote:
- Don't post ads similiar to "Looking for musician, storyteller, pixel artist, and programmer for upcoming awesome project!".

Isn't that what you are doing, too?


I think he meant not to say that the game is going to be AWESOME! If I remembered correctly, he simply just asked people to help him, without the THIS GAME WILL BE AWESOME!

He said he wants it to be as epic as Cave Story. >_>
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moogle1 wrote:
It's been a very long time since my newbie game, but here it is:

Your newbie game is going to suck. Don't get upset when people point this out.

There are ways to make your newbie game not suck, but it's pretty much faster to just release your sucky newbie game and move on to something better. The criticism will help you grow.


I completely agree. I learnt that the hard way, about 2 years ago. lol
But I've grown now...MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Rya.Reisender
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 5:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In the end you need to realize that your skill will always improve. Even if you think now "Man I'm a genius" it could be that in some years you think "Man, how stupid I was back then".
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