TheMessiBeast

I'm Going to Make a Game

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Honestly, I din't really like The Walking Dead. The gameplay was too slow for my liking - but thats my own 2cents.

Good luck in your game.. Do keep us posted progressively so we can check it out too ;D

Yeah, I'm still working on learning the basics these days. I got stuck trying to figure out how to make my space ship shoot projectiles in a shooting side-scroller tutorial I'm following. So I really hope you guys aren't expecting great things from me, because while I'll eventually make my game for sure, it'll definitely be a while.

 

And about the walking dead, I like it, but I definitely was let down a couple of times with certain aspects of the game. Often I was hoping the game would let me solve certain problems my own way. I was also frustrated in a certain part with the way the game sort of cut down on the importance of my decision making (ATTENTION WALKING DEAD EP. 1 SPOILERS, FEEL FREE TO STOP READING).

 

It happened when I had to make a choice to save one of two characters being attacked by walking dead. One of them had a gun, so I thought to myself "save the one with the gun, and it's easier to help out the other after (i.e. pick off zombies quickly from afar)" however the game didn't really acknowledge that possibility. The other character died, and the grateful gun-wielder asked me in a somber tone how I could make the choice between saving one of them. I would've been glad to explain that it was a pragmatic decision based upon making sure the only firearm present in the scene would be safe, and hopefully useable. However, the game didn't really let me explain that (I admit, it would've been tough, because that's basically reading a single player's mind). While in the moment of the decision it was exhilarating, tense, and forced me to think quickly, after I was let down by the fact that the pragmatic reasoning I had based my decision on was completely useless. It was really sad to find out that my decision didn't lead to me being able to save them both (from what it seems, one was destined to die no matter what), and it was almost even more disappointing to not be able to communicate my reasoning when asked how I made my decision.

 

This is an example of the sorts of things I'd like to perfect in my (theoretical) game. I want everything to matter. Even if it's simple stuff. Because in the end, that scenario in which I had to choose a character to save was really simple: both were being attacked, and one of them had a gun. However funnily enough, there's the possibility that if I had chosen the character without a gun, I would've saved him, and the gun-wielder would've finally stopped panicking and popped some caps in the zombies coming after her therefore saving both. But, I doubt that's the case (let me know if it is). 

 

Are my ambitions too high with wanting to make the player have complete power their interactions, and also having the game acknowledge which choices they're making, why, and ultimately rewarding/punishing the player with varying logical and probable reactions to various events which the player has affected?

 

I hope that what I'm saying makes a bit of sense. All of my writings and ramblings like this tend to be put out on my unvisited blog. I'll cut down on ramblings here for everyone's sake (less pattering on for you guys to read through, more material for me to post on blog). Also, I still really like The Walking Dead despite my complaints, it's fun stuff.

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Well as someone who has roommates in college that study computer physics in their 4th year ... well good luck, making a game is not as easy as some might think. Making a game is not exactly a "game", it's actually serious stuff if you start from 0

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Dont get discouraged. I started learning Unity about a year ago, having no previous programming experience except some basic web stuff. The first six-seven months were extremely frustrating, I had to consult Google for every little thing and even rage-uninstalled a few times, but once I reached the point where I started spending more time working than learning I discovered that coding can actually be fun.

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I started learning to program a few months ago using Processing and a book called Learning Processing. It's a really good 'programming for dummies' type book that starts from the absolute basics, but it also quickly takes you into more advanced territory. It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's worked for me. I now feel confident that I can program pretty much anything I can think of given enough patience and/or opportunistic Google searches. Basically it got me through that initial intimidation wall that programming can have.

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This is an example of the sorts of things I'd like to perfect in my (theoretical) game. I want everything to matter. Even if it's simple stuff. Because in the end, that scenario in which I had to choose a character to save was really simple: both were being attacked, and one of them had a gun. However funnily enough, there's the possibility that if I had chosen the character without a gun, I would've saved him, and the gun-wielder would've finally stopped panicking and popped some caps in the zombies coming after her therefore saving both. But, I doubt that's the case (let me know if it is). 

 

Are my ambitions too high with wanting to make the player have complete power their interactions, and also having the game acknowledge which choices they're making, why, and ultimately rewarding/punishing the player with varying logical and probable reactions to various events which the player has affected?

 

yes.

 

your ideal game design sounds concrete in your head, but that's the quiet + immense power of conceptualization. @_@ In strictly logical terms (ie. designing & programming a set of systems) it's basically meaningless. Which is why you need to - as quickly as you can - start actually making a game. Like, mspaint a sprite and background in 5 minutes, get them displaying, then get a dialog window to pop up and display text when you click the sprite. These are the absolute basics, and I guarantee it will take WAY longer then you expect (because making video games is hard).

 

if you need help just post! I started messing with gamemaker a couple months ago myself. I'm still mega rookie, but can probably field even rookie-er questions (maybe)

 

 

edit;  a great resource is http://www.youtube.com/user/999Greyfox/videos'>Shaun Spalding's youtube channel. He puts together a bunch of basic demos and walks though his making of them.

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edit;  a great resource is Shaun Spalding's youtube channel. He puts together a bunch of basic demos and walks though his making of them.

 

 

That looks like an amazing resource, thank you very much for sharing! The past couple of days have stalled my progress my game making progress slightly due to other commitments, but with these tutorials I'm pretty excited to get back into understanding Gamemaker better.

 

Lately I've also been worrying about the artistic side of my work. I'm definitely no artist, and it shows from the few sprites and backgrounds I've attempted to make thus far. I feel like I lack a basic understanding/education about art, how/which colours go together, and how to make things have enough representation through simple/minimalist pixel art to make them symbolize what they're supposed to. Basically everything I've been making is pretty ugly, but I guess that's pretty standard if you're not used to visual art.

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See, I think that's the problem: the adventure design philosophy put forward by Monkey Island forces the format of the game to allow you to do clearly idiotic actions with no consequences. There's a reason why LucasArts adventures are all broad comedies or have extremely constrained interaction like The Dig - because if there's no such thing as a wrong choice then there's no reason to try to avoid it.

 

It's certainly more foolproof, but I think most of the problem with Sierra's output is poor playtesting. KQ7 revived you from death right back where you were, but it had a completely ridiculous pixel-hunt puzzle that to my mind is the second-worst puzzle in the series outside of the original Rumplestiltzkin puzzle.

 

If you're going to make an adventure game in 2013/2014, you need to understand the problems with LucasArts' output just as much, if not more, than Sierra's output, and that's hard to do if only one style of game is the 'right' one.

I guess I don't see that as a problem that originates from deaths but instead originates from both the genre and choice of puzzle design. I can't think of any adventure game that uses death (and doesn't restore) where the consequences are fair to the player outside of Kyrandia 1 and 2 (3 has insta-restore). In my opinion, pretty much every Sierra game with deaths and without a insta-restore has at least 50% stupid and illogical deaths. There isn't a King's Quest in existence without stupid and poorly designed deaths encompassing most of the game design. The most fair Sierra game I can think of without insta-restore is Gabriel Knight 1, which is pretty much the last of the sort they made like that. If I recall correctly, actually getting to the deaths is somewhat difficult and the ones that are obvious give you fair warning (the zombie parts).

 

The inherent problem of adding death to an adventure game is that you can get the player easily stuck if they are not constantly juggling between 5-10 saved games. This is compounded when such a game also has a bunch of dead ends that are dependent on having gotten some kind of object 2-3 hours back. I've had so many issues with adventures like this where I had saved near a death and had no way of escaping it, thus ruining my current saved game. Even worse, some games allow you to save while you are dying, which isn't so good when you have to constantly remember that F5 is save and F7 even is restore, even though you are frequently doing both. Mixing up a save with a restore at the wrong time is bullshit. Even in the better Gabriel Knight there's a bullshit part at the end in the voodoo part where if you didn't do something before you enter the underground maze, you are screwed. The problem with that is you are thrown in to a situation where you are saving often and the game didn't give much precedence before then as a type that you could get stuck in. It might be the single way you can get stuck if I remember correctly.

 

Gobliiins had a useless energy system but 2 and 3 got rid of that completely and are much more fondly remembered. I just can't think of a way that any game benefits from this virtue.

 

The question is whether Messi wants to study adventures for historical value, regardless of quality.

Well that's why I said he'd be better off reading about them or watching a Youtube playthrough of the bad ones and therefore save a bunch of sweet, precious time.

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Well that's why I said he'd be better off reading about them or watching a Youtube playthrough of the bad ones and therefore save a bunch of sweet, precious time.

 

Again, it depends on exactly what Messi wants to get out of the research - games being an interactive medium, they should really be studied in that manner. It could be helpful to experience the bad design first-hand, to help divine why it is bad for the player experience and whether it's a good idea badly executed or had some positive elements to it. For example, that thing Tim Schafer talks about where sometimes you want the player to be a little frustrated in order for them to empathise with the character, but you have to get the time and depth of frustration correct! This is stuff that a long-time adventure game player will probably know instinctively, that can't necessarily be inferred from watching videos.

 

But you're right, Messi isn't writing a PhD in adventure games, it wouldn't be practical to play all these games cited. In fact, it would probably be more helpful for Messi to just get on with making games and learn lessons by making bad decisions!

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The more I read from you guys, the more I realize that I basically know nothing about adventure games. I'll probably have to resort to Youtube playthroughs for some games, but hopefully by the summer I'll have played through most core adventure games (including some of the ones recommended in this thread hopefully). 

 

I also had a question which I was hoping someone here could help me out with - after recently reading James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia I was absolutely amazed at all the twists and turns the story took. So I got to thinking about how "aha! detective-discovery moments" could be implemented in games. There's one big factor to consider about this, that in the book it's almost impossible for you to reach the final conclusion before reading it. There's so much information kept from the reader until the right time (aside from slight foreshadowing), that it doesn't really translate to gameplay. In a way it's like a scripted cutscene. So my question is, are there any games which manage to successfully have that same sort of "aha! moment" without it being scripted (aka have it built into the gameplay, the user makes the discovery while playing when things click together in his/her mind)? And I don't really mean moments where you realize "Item A + Item B = Solution" but something more like actual detective work, coming to conclusions using observations, details, etc.

 

There seem to be a lot of challenges with trying to implement that sort of moment, and maybe it's impossible to make it as powerful as it is in books. A follow up question would be: if that sort of "aha! moment" is implemented in games, how do they deal with not knowing when the player will figure out the solution? What if they figure it out too early? 

 

Was just a bit curious to see if there are limits to puzzle design right now, or if anyone has managed to give the same sort of satisfaction as actually being a detective and figuring things out. As usual, the feedback I get from you guys is truly one of a kind, so if you don't know the answer I'm still interested in reading your thoughts about it.

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The more I read from you guys, the more I realize that I basically know nothing about adventure games. I'll probably have to resort to Youtube playthroughs for some games, but hopefully by the summer I'll have played through most core adventure games (including some of the ones recommended in this thread hopefully). 

 

I also had a question which I was hoping someone here could help me out with - after recently reading James Ellroy's The Black Dahlia I was absolutely amazed at all the twists and turns the story took. So I got to thinking about how "aha! detective-discovery moments" could be implemented in games. There's one big factor to consider about this, that in the book it's almost impossible for you to reach the final conclusion before reading it. There's so much information kept from the reader until the right time (aside from slight foreshadowing), that it doesn't really translate to gameplay. In a way it's like a scripted cutscene. So my question is, are there any games which manage to successfully have that same sort of "aha! moment" without it being scripted (aka have it built into the gameplay, the user makes the discovery while playing when things click together in his/her mind)? And I don't really mean moments where you realize "Item A + Item B = Solution" but something more like actual detective work, coming to conclusions using observations, details, etc.

 

There seem to be a lot of challenges with trying to implement that sort of moment, and maybe it's impossible to make it as powerful as it is in books. A follow up question would be: if that sort of "aha! moment" is implemented in games, how do they deal with not knowing when the player will figure out the solution? What if they figure it out too early? 

 

Was just a bit curious to see if there are limits to puzzle design right now, or if anyone has managed to give the same sort of satisfaction as actually being a detective and figuring things out. As usual, the feedback I get from you guys is truly one of a kind, so if you don't know the answer I'm still interested in reading your thoughts about it.

 

If you wanna see someone getting that AHA moment over and over and over, go read through the LucasArts playthrough thread!

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edit;  a great resource is Shaun Spalding's youtube channel. He puts together a bunch of basic demos and walks though his making of them.

 

These are really great.

 

Can anyone else recommend GameMaker tutorials / youtube tutorials? 

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Shammack made a text adventure that requires you to combine different pieces of information to create deductions, which is in the ball park of what you're asking about (and was very enjoyable):

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/6706-plug-your-shit/?p=170572

 

Oh yeah, I guess that sort of tries to do that (although the mechanic is still pretty much just "Item A + Item B = Solution" dressed up a little differently). But in case anyone finds it useful, I've just uploaded the source code for that game (contains spoilers, obviously). It's kind of a mess, but do with it what thou wilt.

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Are you in a big city?  Global Game Jam is later this month and honestly they're one of the best ways to get started.  There's nothing like seeing people plow the broken mess that is making a game over the span of a weekend.

 

The most critical thing you do right now IMO is finish something.  It's very easy for your dream project to become some white whale you chase for years.  If you start off with a silly game jam game, or try cloning a few existing simple arcade games you'll get a lot more comfortable with your tools without constantly over-thinking your design.

 

Good luck.

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Are you in a big city?  Global Game Jam is later this month and honestly they're one of the best ways to get started.  There's nothing like seeing people plow the broken mess that is making a game over the span of a weekend.

 

The most critical thing you do right now IMO is finish something.  It's very easy for your dream project to become some white whale you chase for years.  If you start off with a silly game jam game, or try cloning a few existing simple arcade games you'll get a lot more comfortable with your tools without constantly over-thinking your design.

 

Good luck.

I'm in Vancouver, and it looks like the Global Game Jam here happens right at the University I attend, so that's definitely something I'll be wanting to do. Thanks for letting me know about it! However I'm worried, I'm really new to making games and I don't want to waste people's time, is the Game Jam still something I can attend? 

 

I checked their FAQ and their pretty vague about it, and the last thing I want to do is drag down a team of others (or just be useless) who have the potential to make something really awesome.

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I would imagine as long as you are very forthright about your skill level/being there to learn folks would be happy to take you under a wing

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I'm in Vancouver, and it looks like the Global Game Jam here happens right at the University I attend, so that's definitely something I'll be wanting to do. Thanks for letting me know about it! However I'm worried, I'm really new to making games and I don't want to waste people's time, is the Game Jam still something I can attend? 

 

I checked their FAQ and their pretty vague about it, and the last thing I want to do is drag down a team of others (or just be useless) who have the potential to make something really awesome.

 

Absolutely.  TBH a lot of people at game jams have no idea what they're doing.  If you were prepared to take on making an entire game on your own, then I think you can go in to a game jam with the same goal and any team members you acquire are only going to be a bonus.  But don't get discouraged if you don't end up finishing something, that's hard for even experienced developers and people who are used to the short deadline.  I think the most valuable experience will be socializing with people during the event and challenging yourself to finish something.

 

The key is coming up with something really low scope.  Try to plan out a game that you can complete on Saturday, and that'll leave you till Sunday to deal with the things that went longer than expected and polishing up.   Most people at game jams don't "finish" their games.

 

The other major piece of advice when it comes to game jams is to not go in with a new engine/technology.  I like that rule, but I think it's a bit misleading.  I prefer to say don't go in with new technology and expect it not to dominate your time.  If you're going to be using it as a learning experience (which i think is definitely a major part of game jams), then alter your goals and don't aim for a complete game but a better understanding of the engine/tech you're learning.  Often you'll come up w/ith something small and fun, but even if it's an unplayable mess it's a really valuable experience.

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