Posted by Brice on May 22, 2010
“You should definitely check out the first game. But ignore all the ones after that. They’re all crap.”
“I enjoyed the first movie, but by the time they got to the second and third film, it was just more of the same, and I had already seen the same. Boring.”
“The first one had such soul, but the second was just an attempt at a cheap way to make more money.”
How often have you heard phrases like this? Welcome to the hazardous world of sequels.
Super Mario Galaxy 2, the latest massive title in the world’s most successful video game franchise, is currently on track to match the seemingly impossibly-high quality bar set by its predecessor. Reviewers are floored by the first ever 3D sequel to a Mario game on the same platform, calling it a “dazzling high water mark in Mario’s career”.
While making a game like Super Mario Galaxy is an incredible feat in itself, following a successful title up with a sequel or spin-off is often a far greater challenger for a game developer. Sequels are seldom seen from members of the student or independent game development community for several reasons. First and most distressing, many student game projects never get completed in the first place, much less built into a sequel or follow up title. There is less of a profit incentive for young game developers to create a sequel; it’s seemingly much more interesting to come up with an entirely new idea. Out with the old, in with the new.
Second, many independent developers have a bitter view of sequels. While original new titles are often viewed as artistic visionary products, sequels can be seen as money-grubbing attempts for a corporate machine to pump more dollars out of what used to be a piece of art, turning it into a soulless hunk of code. The marketplace is flooded with poorly executed sequels that not only fail to please their original fans, they tarnish the name of the original product that was once praised. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on December 29, 2009
Hello readers! I wanted to take a moment to THANK all of you for making The Game Prodigy such a success in only its first three months. There have been over 3,000 unique visitors to the site and I’ve gotten great feedback from many of you fellow game developers, via comments on the blog, videos, and email. It’s been a great learning experience for me and I hope I’ve been able to give some of you some useful information about game development as well. Thank you so much!
Many of the emails I’ve gotten have started some fantastic dialogues about game design and development, and so I wanted to create an opportunity to interact with readers a bit more by sharing some of the discussion with the rest of you in a mailbag post. I love answering game development and career questions, so please feel free to submit your own.
Our First Mailbag Question
I find that, for some strange reason, I’m not confident when I’m designing games. Sometimes it feels like I’m designing in a void, and don’t exactly know how to piece things together. I’m wondering if it’s because, in the last ten years, I haven’t played/completed that many games at all. I keep starting then giving up in the first hour or so.
So, just like if you’re a writer, you gotta read, I’m wondering if the reason I’m finding game design so difficult is because I haven’t played that many games recently, *especially* in the genre I’m working in. I’m hoping that playing more will make things go more smoothly.
Another thing. How do you game designers. Do you sit down and play, say, Metal Slug with a ‘YEAH BOI GONNA SHOOT SOME BAD GUYS’ mentality, or do you pay more attention to design . I remember playing Lufia 2 with a notepad at my side, but I’m not sure if it did any good.
Thanks guys!
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Most of what everyone else has said is correct. I like to think of it as research. If I am working on a game, then I need to know what else is going on in the genre. There was a really good article on Gamasutra a while back about how to go about doing this kind of research, pick up some different games and notice exactly how they work.
So for example, if you’re doing a platforming shooter and you want to do a charge-up, then you’ll want to check out games like Megaman, Contra, and indie games with similar mechanics. How long does it take to charge? Do they limit how long you can do it? How powerful is it? Once you establish what has been done, you can decide what YOU want to do.
A lot of big game companies actually have free game libraries for employees to use exactly for this purpose.
And you don’t need to finish the game, but you should be able to pick apart exactly what’s going on and hone in on what you’re looking for. If you want to learn about a combat system you probably don’t need to play more than an hour or two. But if you want to learn story progression then you’ll want to play through most of it. AAA Games are made up of many things; if 80% of another game has nothing to do with the one you’re making, then you probably don’t need to play it.
“I find that, for some strange reason, I’m not confident when I’m designing games. Sometimes it feels like I’m designing in a void, and don’t exactly know how to piece things together. I’m wondering if it’s because, in the last ten years, I haven’t played/completed that many games at all. I keep starting then giving up in the first hour or so.
So, just like if you’re a writer, you gotta read, I’m wondering if the reason I’m finding game design so difficult is because I haven’t played that many games recently, *especially* in the genre I’m working in.”
Answer
You are very right in your hunch; I like to think of it as game design research. If I am working on a game, then I need to know what else is going on in the genre. If you are working on a brawler title, then you will want to play other brawlers to see what they do and how they work. If you are working on a mystery title, same deal. You need to know what other developers have done so that you can get a head start on where you want your game to go. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on November 10, 2009
If my Dad is going to teach me anything, he could use some lessons in game design.
I drove up north to visit ol’ pop yesterday. After grabbing a bite to eat he asked me, in classic father fashion, if I knew how to replace a bike tire. Though a professional designer in his twenties with a college degree, I couldn’t claim to have replaced bike tires before. I’m just not a biker. Thus, my Dad was eager to share an important life lesson (and replace his bike tire), so we grabbed a wrench and headed out to his garage.
As my Dad tried to instruct me and teach me this skill of replacing a bike tire, my mind couldn’t help but wander. The thought crossed my mind of viewing this learning experience as a game, with myself as the player. These were the same patterns that my Dad used to teach me throughout my childhood. However as a scrutinized my experience as an painter would scrutinize another’s artwork, I realized something: this game was very poorly designed, and I wasn’t really learning very much at all.
Games are essentially teaching devices. With their roots in behaviorism and other areas of psychology, games can be seen as a kind of “black box” which the player must interact with to figure out. A well designed game will convey its meanings, its functions, and its possibilities effortlessly to the player and, given some time, will make the player fluent in its systems. A poorly designed game will confuse the player and leave them frustrated or bored, with no real learning experience occurring at all. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on October 19, 2009
Almost everyone who is in the game development industry came from the student game development or indie world. Creating virtual worlds in their spare time, they dream of what it would be like to finally do for a living what they do in free time. And after months or years of networking, resume submissions, and job interviews, they finally land themselves a job with a game company and are welcomed to the world of electronic entertainment.
While working in the games industry certainly is a dream come true, many talented students and hobbyists become professional game developers only to be surprised that the job wasn’t exactly what they thought it was. They are used so working solo or at most with teams of two or three; now their teams consist of an entire office building floor. They are used to understanding every single line of the code in a game; now they specialize in a certain area or module, while no single person knows the entire code base in complete detail. They are used to doing what they think is fun or right for the game; now they are learning to work as a team and sell other team members on their ideas, or back off as superiors drive the vision.
The differences I’ve listed so far are small, but they are examples of the kind of culture shock that new entrants to the games industry can experience. Beyond these, there are four more major differences between working on your own project at home and working on someone else’s project at a company. And if working in the games industry is your ambition, then you should be ready and prepared for the changes that will one day come.
You can’t “quit” the project.
While working on independent projects with other students, you can quit with no major disaster. You get busy with other things, your exam schedule doesn’t allow you any programming time, or you lose interest in the idea (or the group). The project is essentially a hobby, meaning that your primary motivation for doing it is your own enjoyment, and so if things start to not work out in your favor for one reason or another, you can stop working on it and move on with other parts of your life. Other indie developers have a bad habit of not completing games. Before one indie title is even half way finished, they are already so excited about the next idea in their head that they scrap it.
Some independent game development organizations have fantastic group cohesion to prevent this, but more often than not, an independent project is abandoned without much fanfare. But when game development is your full time occupation, your nine-to-five, then quitting is not an option (unless you actually want to quit your job and lose your livelihood). This is true all the way through the project: it is true in the beginning when the design of the game is new and exciting, and it is equally as true eighty percent of the way through the project when you are bored to tears of implementation. When things get slow, you can’t quit. When your teammates are being unprofessional or downright unbearable, you can’t quit. When the tools or the tech isn’t working, you can’t quit. When management steps in and obliterates your vision for the game’s last chance at artistic integrity, you can’t quit.
I’ve described a lot of unhappy scenarios here that might cause you to want to quit, but realize that not quitting is also encouraging. Knowing that your team is going to get it done on time, no matter what, can help you through those dark times, help you grow as a person, and give you a sense of determination that will help you on future projects as well as other areas of your life. And during those late night long hauls, when everyone has banded together under the mission of creating a fantastic game, those are the times when heroes are made, another experience that rarely appears in indie game development.
Most everyone is probably as talented (if not more) than you.
At your local game development club, you may be the top dog. Everyone wants to have you on their project because you get the job done. You are a coding genius, a master designer, or a killer artist. Or perhaps you go solo, doing almost everything yourself, and are used to people being wowed that you could create something as complex as a video game all by yourself.
When you go to work for a game company, especially if it’s a good one, then you will have the experience of feeling very average. That’s not to say that you aren’t incredibly talented, because you are. It’s just that everyone else you will be working with is similarly talented. You were the president of your respective game development group? So was everyone else. You finished your first game in middle school and by graduated had worked on over 20 different titles? So has everyone else.
This doesn’t mean that you should hang up your shoes and retreat back to the indie world. Instead, take a bite of humble pie and put on your learning cap, because you are in one of the best laboratories on earth for mastering what you love to do. So when you first start at a game company, be sure to stay confident in yourself, but realize that the people around you are your co-workers and partners in this experience.
Game development is your primary time commitment.
Lots of indie developers are familiar with the hobby approach to game development. You have your normal job or class in the day, and at nights and on weekends then you work on your own little game project. It is a labor of love that takes up your free time. While you may be making great progress on your game over the weeks and months, your primary activity in life is separate from making a game. This gives your life a certain cadence which is very different from being a professional developer.
It seems obvious, but some people are surprised to find that when they start working at a game company, then game development is no longer a hobby. It is their primary focus. This will be a time when you realize how much you really love game development. If this is really what you want to be doing, deep down inside, then this is great. You’ll come in to work thrilled to be working on a real video game and the time will fly as you soak up as much knowledge and experience as possible. However, if it goes above your “equilibrium” for game development (meaning that you really only enjoy it enough to spend 2 hours, not 8 hours a day working on it) then you may find yourself disappointed.
Along with this is the fact that you’ll need to redistribute your passionate energy, per se. Since you’re working on your game project during the day, what are you doing to do at night? You could work on the game more (overtime), but most people will likely find that exhausting. Some developers continue to work on their own side projects in their own time, but this isn’t recommended, because it’s keeping your real energy and passion for yourself and your own project, and giving your teammates at work the leftovers. It’s better to learn to direct your passion into your job so that you can learn and grow at the highest level, not at a small indie project.
Overall, this change will be an opportunity to learn more about yourself and what you like to do, at your job as well in your spare time.
You are making a game in order to make money.
One final main difference between non-professional games and professional games is the core purpose. Ask yourself, what is the purpose of making a video game? If you are working on a project with friends or by yourself, then chances are that your motivation is:
To make a cool game idea that you think would be fun
To learn about game development for career growth
There’s nothing wrong with this, in fact these two reasons are great motivators to give you the skills you need to get into a professional gaming gig one day. However, when you are doing professional development, then your motivation is:
Make a game that will sell and make the company money
This is the purpose, and it is the only purpose. If you make a 96 Metacritic game that wins all the Game of the Year Awards, yet it only sells 200,000 copies when the forecast was for 5 million, then you have failed. No if’s, and’s, or but’s. The game was a failure. An inspiring work of art? Sure. But for the purpose it was created? A failure. Your team, your department, maybe your entire company, is now in jeopardy. You may go out of business, and all of that talk about game mechanics and aesthetics goes right down the drain along with your paycheck. Go check the job listings and tell your family no more dining out for a while.
This change in purpose will influence decisions made during development that few indie developers are familiar with. Let’s say that one particular feature of the game, such as the platforming action, doesn’t really feel right. If your motivation is to make a cool game, then you might sink a couple more weeks into making it work. If your motivation is to make money for your company, then you might cut the feature, realizing that players will still love (and purchase) the game even without it. Of course different companies have different strategies to approach this, but even the Valves and Blizzards and Nintendos of the world need to keep the sales coming. That is priority number one. Critical acclaim is a distant second.
Let me make a statement to the indie cynics out there: the purpose of making a game in order to make money doesn’t mean that you have sold your soul. There is still plenty of room to create games that inspire, games that push the envelope, and games that innovate. Legendary game developers and studios are those who can create something beautiful while still being financially successful. Just realize that if you want to make a business, not an art project, not a hobby, but a successful business, then your game has to make money; there is just no way around it.
Learning to adjust
Getting used to the professional video game environment takes time. Be prepared for confusion at your team’s decisions and a bit of bewilderment at processes as you learn the ropes. Be prepared to work hard and change your priorities as you begin to see the larger picture. And most of all, be prepared for the ride of your life, because there is nothing better than living the dream with those who have done it for years.
Things are different in the big leagues. (Photo: a4gpa)
Almost everyone who is in the game development industry came from the student game development or indie world. Creating virtual worlds in their spare time, they dream of what it would be like to finally do for a living what they do in free time. And after months or years of networking, resume submissions, and job interviews, they finally land themselves a job with a game company and are welcomed to the world of electronic entertainment.
While working in the games industry certainly is a dream come true, many talented students and hobbyists become professional game developers only to be surprised that the job wasn’t exactly what they thought it was. They are used so working solo or at most with teams of two or three; now their teams consist of an entire office building floor. They are used to understanding every single line of the code in a game; now they specialize in a certain area or module, while no single person knows the entire code base in complete detail. They are used to doing what they think is fun or right for the game; now they are learning to work as a team and sell other team members on their ideas, or back off as superiors drive the vision.
The differences I’ve listed so far are small, but they are examples of the kind of culture shock that new entrants to the games industry can experience. Beyond these, there are four more major differences between working on your own project at home and working on someone else’s project at a company. And if working in the games industry is your ambition, then you should be ready and prepared for the changes that will one day come.
You can’t “quit” the project.
While working on independent projects with other students, you can quit with no major disaster. You get busy with other things, your exam schedule doesn’t allow you any programming time, or you lose interest in the idea (or the group). The project is essentially a hobby, meaning that your primary motivation for doing it is your own enjoyment, and so if things start to not work out in your favor for one reason or another, you can stop working on it and move on with other parts of your life. Other indie developers have a bad habit of not completing games. Before one indie title is even half way finished, they are already so excited about the next idea in their head that they scrap it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
