Disclaimer: I had no idea where to put this, to be honest. When I wrote it, this spot seemed to fit. Oh yeah and, wall of text alert!
So, lately I've been bored. Bored of many, many things and quite bored at that. Basically, I can tell what I like, things I'd like to do, but I still haven't really decided on what I really want to do with my life. I've been thinking about a lot of things, and this thread probably gave me the incentive to reconsider an idea I've once had.
I suppose nobody will be shocked to learn that this idea is none other than game designing. And basically I'm curious about your thoughts on this idea of mine. Below is me going on about game designing and various related subjects that I'm about to write without any particular plans... just me going on about my ideas. Enjoy!
My background as a potential game designer:
So. I have no particular studies and not actually that much knowledge about game designing at all. I've messed with Ultima Online shard scripting and designing and I've looked into/made small mods. The one mod I've put most time on was an Escape Velocity: Nova mod. From small tweaks to attemtping a total conversion, I've tried it.
I'd qualify myself as programming-able, interested in video games and I guess I have some imagination and artistic talents in me, but I've hardly ever really worked on or put these skills/talents to good use.
My opinion on game design:
I've found the game industry, or at least the large commercial scene, has been going downhill for years now. I've gotta admit to laziness and how much I'd probably learn from looking for more underground things, but yeah, I don't know much about the more obscure realms of game design. That said, here's a couple of "rules" that I think apply when you design a game.
Fun: this is what games are all about, but honestly, there's very few games I've played recently that I've thought they were genuinly fun, as opposed to only interesting. How many games do you play because you're bored and just want to keep your mind busy with something? How many games do you start playing because they're interesting but finish only because you want to have gone through the entire experience? How many games do you play that you really enjoy? Feel like showing them to other people?
I've found many games these days are shallow and interesting is the strongest word I would use to describe their appeal. I would say most games these days seem to be happy with just having one innovative little feature and/or one interesting aspect and that's it. The rest is really just a bunch of placeholders that can be replaced with anything. Biggest example I would give is the Final Fantasy series. I'll be honest, I barely played anything remotely related to FF games. The simple fact that over ten games are named that way is a scares me away from it. To me, all good things have a beginning and an end. Everything else is just stretching, or more crudely, milking for money.
To continue on the FF franchise, to me it seems like a randomly generated game, with a known brand name slapped onto it and bingo, instant classic! What I mean by randomly generated is, you have a pool of possible mechanics, a pool of possible plots and possible characters, roll the dice and YES! You have a game.
Ok, enough hating. So, what makes a game fun? Fun is a very vague thing and it depends a lot on who is playing the game. But there is such a thing as a game that most people find fun, although it's for different reasons.
So, I ask myself again, what makes a game fun? Interesting story. A well developed story can sometimes be enough to make the game worth playing for some people. Of course, if you force story onto the player, you end up making both replaying the game or those who don't care about stories annoyed. There's something I found amazing in the third Xenosaga games, you could skip every scenes, but you could also go back and re-watch pretty much everything in the memory viewer, too. This is fun.
Gameplay mechanics. Gameplay. This is a make or break for just about any game. While being innovative isn't always important, providing something to do that you can't do in other games is fun. Something entertaining, of course. Is there someone who knows about or played Portal that has never imagined what you could do with a portal gun in reality or in other games?
Freedom: not saying that linear games are boring by design, far from it. But having choices, real ones, is a major source of fun for me. I've spent hours on games I've found otherwise rather boring because I could customize things. However, one must be sure that the freedom provided is not an illusion and that all options are actually viable. There's very few things that I find more frustrating in games than having an option that simply doesn't work in the end. Also, avoiding having an obviously superior option is also nice. In retrospect, I'd say a good game is either linear or has an interesting degree of freedom. In either case, I would avoid leaving the player with no clues as to what to do next, unless it's meant to be a real sandbox.
There, I think that sums up pretty well what I think makes a good game. OR at least, a game I'd enjoy myself.
A few words on an idea. I'm going to be shy about it here, to be honest, I don't want the idea stolen unless I'm convinced whoever steals it can actually make it happen in a way I'd be happy with.
So yeah, I've had this idea running around my brain for years now. It's actually one of my little fantasies that I like to play in my head when I'm bored.
The general concept goes like this:
It's a spaceship game. If anyone has played Freelancer and Eve Online, then I guess you could vaguely describe my idea as an hybrid of both. One of the core features would be ship customisation, something Freelancer didn't really even bother with since there's really only 3 ships in the game, copy/paste a few times, switch models and and increase a few numbers, there you go.
Eve also failed at this in my opinion. T3 is a joke at best, since despite all of the possibilities, there's very few viable options.
No, ship customisation would be the core of this game. Anyone played Robot Arena? Now that's customisation and I'd give even greater freedom than that.
Otherwise, I guess it wouldn't be unlike Freelancer, where you have a universe to explore. Your map at the beginning of the game is only one system and not even everything in that system is revealed until you go out there and find it. Something eve has again failed at, but just giving out the map and the fact that there is actually little to explore.
Unlike eve, there would be a story. There would be many stories in fact. Not just a bunch of repetitive quests.
My biggest doubt about the game is wether or not it should be an MMO or mostly single player, like Freelancer was. On one hand, MMO is both a nightmare and offers awesome possibilities. Solely single player isn't bad, but I don't feel like it would do the customisation justice if the only really customised thing in the game was the player.
So, lately I've been bored. Bored of many, many things and quite bored at that. Basically, I can tell what I like, things I'd like to do, but I still haven't really decided on what I really want to do with my life. I've been thinking about a lot of things, and this thread probably gave me the incentive to reconsider an idea I've once had.
I suppose nobody will be shocked to learn that this idea is none other than game designing. And basically I'm curious about your thoughts on this idea of mine. Below is me going on about game designing and various related subjects that I'm about to write without any particular plans... just me going on about my ideas. Enjoy!
My background as a potential game designer:
So. I have no particular studies and not actually that much knowledge about game designing at all. I've messed with Ultima Online shard scripting and designing and I've looked into/made small mods. The one mod I've put most time on was an Escape Velocity: Nova mod. From small tweaks to attemtping a total conversion, I've tried it.
I'd qualify myself as programming-able, interested in video games and I guess I have some imagination and artistic talents in me, but I've hardly ever really worked on or put these skills/talents to good use.
===
My opinion on game design:
I've found the game industry, or at least the large commercial scene, has been going downhill for years now. I've gotta admit to laziness and how much I'd probably learn from looking for more underground things, but yeah, I don't know much about the more obscure realms of game design. That said, here's a couple of "rules" that I think apply when you design a game.
Fun: this is what games are all about, but honestly, there's very few games I've played recently that I've thought they were genuinly fun, as opposed to only interesting. How many games do you play because you're bored and just want to keep your mind busy with something? How many games do you start playing because they're interesting but finish only because you want to have gone through the entire experience? How many games do you play that you really enjoy? Feel like showing them to other people?
I've found many games these days are shallow and interesting is the strongest word I would use to describe their appeal. I would say most games these days seem to be happy with just having one innovative little feature and/or one interesting aspect and that's it. The rest is really just a bunch of placeholders that can be replaced with anything. Biggest example I would give is the Final Fantasy series. I'll be honest, I barely played anything remotely related to FF games. The simple fact that over ten games are named that way is a scares me away from it. To me, all good things have a beginning and an end. Everything else is just stretching, or more crudely, milking for money.
To continue on the FF franchise, to me it seems like a randomly generated game, with a known brand name slapped onto it and bingo, instant classic! What I mean by randomly generated is, you have a pool of possible mechanics, a pool of possible plots and possible characters, roll the dice and YES! You have a game.
Ok, enough hating. So, what makes a game fun? Fun is a very vague thing and it depends a lot on who is playing the game. But there is such a thing as a game that most people find fun, although it's for different reasons.
So, I ask myself again, what makes a game fun? Interesting story. A well developed story can sometimes be enough to make the game worth playing for some people. Of course, if you force story onto the player, you end up making both replaying the game or those who don't care about stories annoyed. There's something I found amazing in the third Xenosaga games, you could skip every scenes, but you could also go back and re-watch pretty much everything in the memory viewer, too. This is fun.
Gameplay mechanics. Gameplay. This is a make or break for just about any game. While being innovative isn't always important, providing something to do that you can't do in other games is fun. Something entertaining, of course. Is there someone who knows about or played Portal that has never imagined what you could do with a portal gun in reality or in other games?
Freedom: not saying that linear games are boring by design, far from it. But having choices, real ones, is a major source of fun for me. I've spent hours on games I've found otherwise rather boring because I could customize things. However, one must be sure that the freedom provided is not an illusion and that all options are actually viable. There's very few things that I find more frustrating in games than having an option that simply doesn't work in the end. Also, avoiding having an obviously superior option is also nice. In retrospect, I'd say a good game is either linear or has an interesting degree of freedom. In either case, I would avoid leaving the player with no clues as to what to do next, unless it's meant to be a real sandbox.
There, I think that sums up pretty well what I think makes a good game. OR at least, a game I'd enjoy myself.
===
A few words on an idea. I'm going to be shy about it here, to be honest, I don't want the idea stolen unless I'm convinced whoever steals it can actually make it happen in a way I'd be happy with.
So yeah, I've had this idea running around my brain for years now. It's actually one of my little fantasies that I like to play in my head when I'm bored.
The general concept goes like this:
It's a spaceship game. If anyone has played Freelancer and Eve Online, then I guess you could vaguely describe my idea as an hybrid of both. One of the core features would be ship customisation, something Freelancer didn't really even bother with since there's really only 3 ships in the game, copy/paste a few times, switch models and and increase a few numbers, there you go.
Eve also failed at this in my opinion. T3 is a joke at best, since despite all of the possibilities, there's very few viable options.
No, ship customisation would be the core of this game. Anyone played Robot Arena? Now that's customisation and I'd give even greater freedom than that.
Otherwise, I guess it wouldn't be unlike Freelancer, where you have a universe to explore. Your map at the beginning of the game is only one system and not even everything in that system is revealed until you go out there and find it. Something eve has again failed at, but just giving out the map and the fact that there is actually little to explore.
Unlike eve, there would be a story. There would be many stories in fact. Not just a bunch of repetitive quests.
My biggest doubt about the game is wether or not it should be an MMO or mostly single player, like Freelancer was. On one hand, MMO is both a nightmare and offers awesome possibilities. Solely single player isn't bad, but I don't feel like it would do the customisation justice if the only really customised thing in the game was the player.