Posted by Brice on May 30, 2010
How can a game feel like it was made by the developers “out of love”? How can a game seem like the developers implemented everything that they thought would be fun and interesting, lacking nothing? How can a game feel like it went 110% to provide a top-notch experience?
There are many components to making a game. There are the Base Mechanics, the rules of how the game works. There are the Punishment and Reward Systems and Long Term Incentive, which fuel why the player plays and for how long. And there is the Aesthetic Layout, the artwork, sounds, and polish layered on top of the rest of the game that help to fill out its Core Experience.
We’ve discussed before how the gameplay, what they player is actually doing, is more often than not the most important aspect of a game’s design. But left alone, the Base Mechanics of a game are just mathematical constructs. Without aesthetics, the game feels stale to most non-engineers. These rules and gameplay blocks must be built. However, once that has been taken care of, how can a developer get their game to be perceived as the highest quality? What are the indicators of a good versus a great game?
This final, key 10% of the game is what is referred to in the industry as “polish”. It is the time in development when the game could in fact be considered “done”, but just a few more features, tweaks, and sparkles will help it to shine through to players and stand out from the crowd and breathe life into it. Well polished games are described with words such as “charming”, “engrossing”, “fascinating”. Well polished games are loved by their players. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on May 16, 2010
Great Dungeon in the Sky is a fun little indie game that made its rounds online a while back, “little” describing the size of the character on screen and not the depth of the game. If you haven’t played it, it’s a simple action sidescroller with an expansive world to explore and conquer in rapid fashion. But in addition to being an enjoyable indie title, Great Dungeon in the Sky stands out as a stellar example of one of the most important lessons in game design: how to cheaply extend game length.
By “cheap” we mean some design that doesn’t require a great deal of work on the part of the programmer or developer. And for student developers who are busy with school and other pursuits, cheap development is essential. Sure, you could make your game twice as long by putting twice as many hours into new features and artwork, but if you can get that same amount of length without the effort and without lowering the quality of the experience, that’s a big win. 20% more work for 80% more game? That’s a trade that every developer should be searching for.
Lengthening a game is an art, however. Stretch the features too thin and the game becomes stale and boring. A good developer will be able to pull the game’s design right up to the point of breaking; a fully realized and fully explored system that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Hours of fun for the player and hours of development time saved for the creator.
Great Dungeon could have easily been a game that took only 10 minutes to complete. You jump around attacking enemies and advancing through the levels, and you’re done. But the game doesn’t stop there. Many games have character select screens, but this game’s character select screen has something…unusual going on… WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on December 20, 2009
Run for your life! That’s the Core Experience delivered by Adam Atomic and Danny B’s hit browser game, Canabalt. Created for the Experimental Gameplay Project, Canabalt was designed to use only one button. That’s right, only one button. Our intrepid survivor runs automatically to the right of screen, while the player presses a button each time they want to jump. By dashing over buildings and avoiding obstacles, the player runs and runs and runs as birds leap off the rooftops and military ships fly overhead. The game really is a thrill.
Canabalt was an absolute breakout hit in the indie game world, so what can other developers learn from it? How can we apply the principles that made Canabalt so popular to our own games? Why, by breaking out our old friend, the Game Design Canvas!
Breaking it Down
As we said, the Core Experience of Canabalt is to make the player feel like they’re running for their life. Games that achieve their Core Experience well are the ones that we dream of and latch onto, and so the trick is to understand exactly how they did it.
Careful choice (and elimination) of Base Mechanics. To begin, you’ll notice that in Canabalt, the player’s character runs automatically. There is no Base Mechanic for making the character move forward; that was purposely left out. The effect? A sense of urgency, a feeling that you have little control. He’s going to run right into that wall in just a moment unless you do something! This simple subtraction of control is a beautiful example of design through simplicity. By causing the avatar to move automatically, the player becomes panicked from the first second the game is being played. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on December 3, 2009
Caster is a fantastic little indie game that I got into several months ago. You play as a small character in a large, expansive world with some incredibly heavy firepower. Acting as savior for the forests, you run around the level at sonic speeds, firing in all directions with a wide range of lasers and energy orbs. By upgrading your stats and abilities as you complete levels, you fill out your character’s stats, increasing speed, power, and your destructive capabilities. Over the course of several levels, your stats inevitably max out and your resulting impact against each enemy is monstrous.
The game has since been released on the PC, Steam, and the iPhone and has been well received by the independent games community. While I don’t have specific sales figures, it would appear that the game has been successful for a title of its size. It was reviewed positively on many of the major indie sites, and even appears in one of the editor’s choice categories on the iPhone for a time.
What can we attribute the fun and fury of Caster to? The graphics? The controls? The story? While all these elements are important, we’ll have to turn to our trusty Game Design Canvas to really see what makes Caster tick. To begin, we’ll start with the game’s Core Experience. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on November 24, 2009
Photo: DeeKnow
[In this guest post by Rodain Joubert, he discusses ways that independent developers can spread the word about their game with no money in thebank. You can find this and more of Rodain's articles at Dev.Mag.]
Today’s game market is, by all accounts, saturated. There’s simply not enough time for people to play everything that’s on offer out there, even if everybody dedicated their lives to hunting out – and playing through – as many titles as humanly possible.
Because today’s gamers are so spoilt for choice, it’s easy for new limelight seekers to be intimidated by the teeming throng of “play me!” titles and quick fixes that constitute the marketing rat-race. In the worst case, a particularly shy indie dev may just upload a small demo, paste the link in a small corner of his/her personal blog, tentatively approach one or two friends and basically just stay put and hope that somebody with media clout walks by, shouts, “oh my word!” and wakes up the digital neighbourhood for you.
That’s not to say that such windfalls don’t occur. They are, however, incredibly unlikely. A lot of people regard these success stories on the Internet as the norm, unaware of the fact that for every runaway success they hear about, there are at least a thousand other less exposed games still hiding in the shadows. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on November 13, 2009
[In this guest post supplied by Chris Denyer, he discusses simple ways that anyone working on an indie title can make their game look prettier with some sleek pixel art techniques. His article originally appeared on The Daily Click.]
There is absolutely NO excuse to make an ugly game.
NONE whatsoever.
So often, we see examples of games that are just plain ugly. There’s so little attention to detail, it’s nauseating.
In art circles it’s a fairly established fact that ability isn’t a huge limiter. Obviously some people have more talent than others, but talent is simply a jumpstart. Like some people can do larger, harder sums in their head because math is their talent. For the rest of us mere mortals, we learn techniques that enable us to work out that same sum on paper.
At the end of the day, the answer is the same, just worked out using rules and logic as opposed to natural ability.
The principle with making a good-looking game is similar. Not everyone is going to make a game with glorious pixel art and smoothly framed animations. However, when you look at some of the games posted here, the authors simply have no idea.
This article’s purpose is to rectify that situation, and point out a few hints and techniques that should enable anyone to make a game that looks PRETTY! 
(wooyay) WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on October 28, 2009
Following your gut can be your best compass. Photo: geebee2007
Learning to follow your instincts is paramount to becoming an experienced designer. But to learn how to do that, we need to delve into two fundamental questions: What is the purpose of a game? What is the job of a game designer?
There are a million answers to these two questions; everyone has their own opinion of what games are, what they currently do, and what they should do. Likewise, “game designer” is one of the most ill-defined job titles in the world, with people thinking that it means everything from just “coming up with ideas” to god knows what else.
As a designer, I’ve talked with countless people about these questions. I believe that the clearest answers are as follows:
The purpose of a game is to create an experience for the player. The job of the game designer is to craft that experience.
Every game provides an experience, making the player feel a certain way. This is the core of game design; every decision flows from this core feeling, and when it is achieved, it is a beautiful testament to the power of games. Learning to focus on this feeling and use it as your decision maker will give your games a stronger focus and a more consistent theme, and it will help pull your games out of the mediocre and into the realm of remarkable. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Brice on October 16, 2009
If you’ve played an independent game title, the kind made by one developer working part time with a dream, then chances are you’ve seen a game made using pixel art. For the uninitiated, pixel art is where the artwork and art assets in a game are drawn pixel by pixel, in the style of classic 8-bit or 16-bit video games. Of course all games use pixels in truth, but art pixel games tend to exaggerate the size of them and stick to a limited color palette. Spelunky is a recent indie game that uses this style:
Your gut reaction to these games is probably one of two things: WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by admin on October 10, 2009
Making independent games is a fun but difficult business. There is so much to think about: bringing together all the artwork, implementing the scripts and programming challenges, crafting a good story and gameplay design. You have to focus on the player, the project, your team and yourself, a juggle all of these to make a finished product.
In my many years of independent game development and watching with other indie teams, most everyone remembers to come up with a kind of cool design. Most everyone remembers the artwork, sound, and engineering too. However, there are three main crucial points that I see young game developers completely miss over and over again.
But when followed correctly, these three tips dramatically increase the chances of the project being considered a success by everyone involved. And being successful sounds pretty exciting, doesn’t it?
Crucial Key #1: Set Clear Goals for Your Game
When designing out your game project, it’s important to be clear about your goals. This is absolutely crucial, because your goals will impact the project, whether you are aware of it or not. Even if you don’t write out your goals, you still have them in your head. Best to be certain and get them down on paper so that you know exactly where you’re going. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »