Categories
Games

What Are Games Good For?

Some high-profile people have claimed that video games can never be anything more than entertainment. Hideo Kojima said that games are not art. Roger Ebert thinks that games are inherently inferior to film, arguing that the interactive nature of games prevents “authorial control”. I may not be a famous game developer, nor am I a connoisseur of fine art, but I’m inclined to believe that games are not inherently worse than other media. I also believe that games can be artistic.

I don’t think that games will be better storytellers than books or film, however. I have played some games with great stories, but the game part of the game was quite separate from the story. Other games are different, though. The SNES game The Illusion of Gaia is an example I always give when talking about art in games. This game made me think differently by the time I was through with it. I learned a few things, but it wasn’t like playing Civilization in which I learn small facts about the creation of the pyramids or of the importance of steam power. I learned about how I thought about the world. Heck, the game had a vegetarian message! I remember thinking about the reasons for eating animals when I didn’t have to do so.

Still, we haven’t seen the video game equivalent of “The Great Gatsby” or “Citizen Kane”. I think that it would be quite a stretch to claim that Asteroids is a game about mankind’s struggle against the universe or that Bejeweled is a commentary on greed. Those games aren’t meant to tell a story, however, and I’m fine with that. Likewise, you can’t tell me that all movies are artistic. There is nothing inherently artistic about film. Some are just guilty pleasures, such as those campy teen comedies.

So what are games good for?
Painting, photography, film, novels, and television…they all have their own strengths. A painting isn’t the same as film, but I think we can agree that “Mona Lisa: The Movie” wouldn’t be that great. When the motion picture camera was invented, the original use was to record live action plays. Naturally the translation didn’t work out too well. Watching a theatrical performance live does not compare to watching it through the single, stationary eye of the camera. Eventually film found its own strengths versus theater. Adam Baratz in the book Game Design Perspectives wrote that while games may blend with other media, we need to draw the line somewhere if we want games to “advance to a level of higher cultural distinction”. Painting survived by differentiating itself from photography, which was creating realistic images to record history much more easily and cheaply. Painters couldn’t hope to survive if they insisted on competing with photographers. So they did things that painters could do that photographers couldn’t, or at least not easily.

So what about games? What strengths do games have? What can games do better than films or novels? If we can’t answer this question, games will always be considered poor versions of movies.

I think that games have a number of strengths versus other media. While Roger Ebert believes that interactivity is part of the inherent weakness of games, I think it is a strength. Games can be nonlinear, allowing the player to explore a world rather than experience it in one exact way each time. A person can exercise his/her creativity through a game.

Games are Interactive
So games are interactive; however, interactivity isn’t enough. Duncan Munro in The Lie of Interactivity points out that interactivity does not make a game. Simply adding interactivity doesn’t automatically make something fun. Being able to press a button that lights up a display doesn’t make it very fun for anyone but possibly a toddler. Clearly games should be more than operant conditioning exercises. Clicking the “You Win” button won’t keep people satisfied for long, nor can we seriously argue that it would be a good game design.

So how is interactivity a strength? Imagine that you’re watching a movie like “Spiderman”. Each time you watch it, you are seeing the same exact scenes played out. The story is great, don’t get me wrong. You really get a feel for Peter Parker’s frustrations in trying to lead two lives. But what if you played Spiderman? Yes, they made quite a few games based on the license, but I am talking about playing the role of Peter Parker. You’re trying to balance your two lives rather than watch someone else do it on the screen. You would be experiencing what Peter Parker feels, rather than just understanding that it is happening. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any of the Spiderman games that actually let you play such a simulation. The role of Spiderman, with web-slinging and wall-climbing and crime-fighting abilities, is obviously the exciting part that would sell. I imagine that focusing on the experience of being Spiderman is just easier to implement than what I described.

In any case, you should be able to see that the interactive nature of games puts the player in a unique position to personally experience the game world. What if you were fighting on the beaches of Normandy? What if you were Neo? What if you were in charge of forming the empire? What if you were in charge of destroying one? What if you were a gardener? Wouldn’t doing something be more vivid and real than reading about the experience or watching it happen to someone else? If you want to teach people about the value of planning, you could show them movies or give them books about “The Ant and the Grasshopper”. Alternatively, you can throw them into a game of Starcraft or some other game heavily focused on resource management. Want your child to know the value of a dollar? Have him/her play The Sims and try to raise enough money to buy a pool for the backyard.

Virtual interactive experiences can provoke very real thoughts and emotions for a person. You can have first-hand experience with supply-and-demand economics. You can learn to think about contingency plans in case some event derails your current course of action. You can learn about cultural diversity. You can learn about fear. You can learn about service. All from a game.

Non-linearity
Some games are straight-through, one-way-only experiences. Quite a number of them are a lot of fun. Linear games aren’t inherently worse than non-linear games. There is nothing wrong with linearity except that movies and books already do it well. Choose-your-own-adventure books are the closest that novels have come to non-linear stories. Games can do a better job of providing a non-linear world for the player to explore.

In the original Super Mario Bros, how much fun was it to discover a floating block was invisible or that a certain pipe could take you to a room full of coins or that jumping to the top of the wall and running past the exit pipe would bring you to a warp zone? It is a delight to learn new things or discover new areas. Games can provide entire worlds to explore. There is no need to walk a person from a beginning to the end in a single path. Books already do it. Frodo always leaves his home and goes to Mordor. But what about the different areas he visits along the way? Wouldn’t you like to spend more time exploring the homelands of the various characters? No, Tolkien didn’t write such exploration into the story, and so you can’t do anything but read the story he provided. It’s a great story, but what happens when you want more?

In The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, I can go from quest to quest, or I can take the time to explore the castle or the countryside or the graveyards. I can talk to various people. I’m in control, and I can enjoy riding Epona from one part of Hyrule to another, even if doing so wasn’t necessary to advance the game or story. It’s possible to complete the game without finding all items or talking to all people, but there is no authorial control that prevents me from doing so.

In Flatspace, I get a ship and can do whatever I want. I can earn an honest living by trading, or I can steal cargo, or I can become a bounty hunter. I can fight or become a criminal. At the end of a session, I’ve explored certain sections of the universe, have been attacked by certain enemies, and lived to tell the tail. I might have learned where certain expensive items are being sold and will make plans to earn the money to purchase them. One sector might have been the home to a hidden Scarrid base. It’s my own personalized experience, separate from what another person might experience when playing.

SimCity doesn’t impose any specific goal on you. You can try to get a Megalopolis, or you can just create a beautiful park. You can experiment with a city that has eliminated residential areas or placed a police station on every block. Do you use rails or allow normal roads? The game doesn’t ask you to do specific things, and so you’re free to explore the limits of the game.

SimCity: The Movie couldn’t possibly be as interesting. It would require that someone has made a set of choices and eliminated all others. Those exact choices would be made each time you watch it. Forever. On the other hand, the game allows you to experience it differently each time.

Creative Self-expression
In Paintbox games: Games that serve as augmented creativity tools, Danc notes that games can be great for feeding the hunger of creativity. Even people who think that they have no creative skills whatsoever will find it fun to change the landscape of Populous or create a rap with Yoshis in Mario Paint. A game can act as an easy-to-use tool to facilitate creation. Rather than spend years in art school, you can click a few buttons or drag a few icons, and you’ve created something. He talks about Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set, and memories rushed back in which I created some elaborate pinball tables, challenging my sister and my cousins to play them. I had a lot of fun creating the background images with the drawing tool it provided, and linking scores with the various bumpers and spinners was equally enjoyable. Today, people have The Sims and soon Spore. Games can be tools to allow the player to be expressive and to satisfy the urge to create.

I already noted that SimCity allows you to create lush parks or urban wastelands. The Sims can sometimes be described as “playing house”. Players love decorating and furnishing their Sim-homes. Players have created everything from small tools to entire games in Second Life. From laying out entire cities and empires to decorating the outfit of the player’s avatar, players have demonstrated that games can act as a great catalyst for creativity.

Conclusion
Games have a lot of untapped potential. While we could just try to mimic movies by making games more realistic and cinematic, we’ll probably end up with mediocre film-wannabes. If you want to make a movie, make a movie. Don’t try to make a game into a movie. If, on the other hand, you want to empower your players, if you want to give the director’s credit to your players, if you want to provide your players with first-hand experiences, make games rather than movies. When it comes to such experiences, movies are inherently inferior to games.

Categories
Game Design Game Development Games

Not at the GDC Again

While a number of people will be writing their coming blog posts from the Game Developers Conference, I will be reporting the action from Chicago. Again.

I would love to see Will Wright talk about what’s next in game design, but I’ll have to be content with seeing it on GDCTV when they release it later in the year. It would also be great to be there when they announce the winners of the Independent Games Festival, but I’ll just have to read about it at Game Tunnel.

Since I’m not going, I can treat this week as any other. I’ll work on game development and might get more accomplished since I won’t have as many blogs to distract me. B-) Since the GDC is generally about sharing what we know, this week I’ll try to post about what I have been doing with game development and design.

To everyone at the GDC, have fun, and good luck to the IGF finalists! My favorites for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize are Professor Fizzwizzle, Darwinia, and Weird Worlds, but I haven’t played Dofus or Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa yet.

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: March 20th

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 53 / 1000
Game Ideas: 156 / 1000

Target: 168

I worked a few hours, but spent quite a bit of time writing a game review and managing other responsibilities. I broke the 5% mark, however, and it feels good.

I’m falling behind in game ideas. I’ll need to catch up this week.

EDIT: You know, I should also add that I was sick for a couple of days. I try not to let myself make excuses, and sometimes I forget that some things aren’t actually my fault.

Categories
Games Geek / Technical

The Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny

The following is what happens when I get sick and can’t do much else with my time. Some parts could have been better, but try to enjoy it. It was just something fun, but singing it might get tricky at parts. If someone thinks they can also make a Flash animation to go with it, go for it. B-)

The Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny
A parody based on the better written The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny which you might want to see first before reading the rest.

The old creature named Wik was hopping around
the magical forest like a big playground
when a Darwinian squad burst out of the shade
and hit poor Wik with the squad’s grenade.
Well Wik got pissed and began his attacks
but was blocked by the research physicist Max
who was about to serve a multidimensional dish
before he got distracted by the oil blob Gish

And Gish starting cracking Max’s hips
When they both got punched by Grace and Trip
But before they could return to their old apartment
a Zombie Smasher Punker jumps out from their basement
and using a zombie Nazi’s arms like a bat
he proceeded to beat them, just like that,
but his bat broke and he ran away
and an alien hominid tried to save the day.

This is the Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny.
Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see,
and only one will survive. I wonder who it will be?
This is the Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny.

So Wik jumps down and eats the alien’s gun
and Laser Dolphin ain’t having much fun
and then Max came back hobbling on his cane
but the ninja N jumped out and stole it away
and the squad turned around, trying to aim steady
when Punker came back, this time ready
but suddenly something caught his leg and he tripped
He didn’t see the resourceful tongue of ol’ Wik

but the squad did see him, and they checked their sights
but Beethro and Halph pulled down all their tights
and in the confusion they threw their grenades and they missed
but N just blocked them with both of his fists
then he jumped in the air and fell and cried
when Punker headbutt him in the side.
They both fell down, and when they got entangled
Dark Elf Feyna arrived, and they were strangled.

This is the Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny.
Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see,
and only one will survive. I wonder who it will be?
This is the Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny.

There was a great white light, and everyone wondered why
as Super Dudester descended from the sky.
He swung his arm wildly and gave a kick
and hit the face of poor ol’ Wik
who fell to the ground, writhing in pain
as Punker summoned an Uzi and Max recovered his cane
but Super Dudester saw them and did not fret
for he simply sang out and both of them wept.

Then in came Thomas and his magical words,
and Petey and Patty joined the hordes
and armed with tanks by the Federated States
came Wednesday the Witch, Glow Worm, and their mates
Professor Fizzwizzle, the Vikings, the Natives,
the Rumble Box fighters and the barbarian invaders.
And the Red Texas Four arrived from space
with the battle-ready Damocles for a taste
of a fight with the Dudester who for the first time
was the one with tears falling from his eyes.
It was the bloodiest battle the indie world ever saw
and indiegamer forum posters looked on in awe

and the fight raged on for a century
many lives were claimed, but eventually
the champion stood on the body piles
There was a yellow Chuzzle, blinking his eyes.

This is the Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny.
Good guys, bad guys, and explosions as far as the eye can see,
and only one will survive. I wonder who it will be?
This is the Indie Showdown…
This is the Indie Showdown…
This is the Indie Showdown of Indie Destiny.

Categories
Game Development Games Geek / Technical Marketing/Business Politics/Government

Draconian Copy Protection Not Necessary for Games

Stardock, creator of Galactic Civilizations 2, released a news item recently about the reasoning behind the lack of copy protection on its latest game. In it, Avatar Frogboy writes about better ways to combat piracy, namely by making it more attractive to be a paying customer than to download a copy illegally. It’s a refreshing viewpoint since most developers these days seem to believe that copy protection is a “vital” part of game development.

We realize that some people or companies might feel threatened at any evidence that implies that draconian DRM schemes or CD copy protection may not make that big of a difference in sales.

For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I’m not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it’s troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary

Way to go, Starforce. Not only do you have a bad reputation for leaving behind junk on PCs when a person installs a game, but you go ahead and make yourself into quite a nuisance for companies that don’t fall for your marketing. Good job! You will continue to earn the scorn of gamers. Stardock should be commended for doing right by its customers and for keeping the moral high ground on this issue.

And look at the responses on that news item!

I bought the game for the sole reason you dont treat me like a criminal.

If anything knowing you can easily create a working backup of your games is what made me become a devout follower of Stardock in the first place.

Well Stardock I can tell you that ‘not’ putting DRM on your product is the reason I bought this game. I didnt buy ‘just’ because there is no copy protection, I also enjoy 4x games and GC2 is a good game. There are alot of games to choose from and I can only buy a few, so when it came time to decide what my next game was going to be I saw no copy protection for GC2 and my decisoin was made.

looks like I have to take might and magic 5 off my list too, I didn’t buy silent hunter 3 and X3 either just because
of that dreaded starforce

In some cases, the lack of draconian copy protection on a game made the purchasing decision easier for people. If you have a choice between buying two great games, one with DRM and one without, which would you choose? And isn’t it eye-opening that people are refusing to completely buy some games because of the type of DRM being used? If you want to increase sales, you make your product more valuable than a competitor’s offering. I haven never bought much music, but I have bought music at Audio Lunch Box because they promise me .ogg or .mp3 files without DRM. I don’t have to worry about copying my music to a second machine and having my music player accuse me of piracy. Why would I use anything with the misnamed FairPlay on it?

One poster referenced Rip Rowan of ProRec.com who wrote about the frustrations of so-called Digital Rights Management in Waves Native Gold Bundle 3.2 Featuring PACE Interlok. It’s sad how common a practice it is to purchase licenses and then use cracked versions for convenience.

In the best case, copy protection can be a mild annoyance for the customer. He also documents some worst case issues with PACE Interlok, including instances where uninstalling one “protected” package on a machine can invalidate the authorization to use another unrelated package, or installation reboots the system spontaneously, or the inability to use software due to downtime with the company you need to “phone home” to.

But the very worst part:

Within weeks of the commercial release of Native Gold Bundle 3.0, pirated versions of the software were available everywhere!

So all of my pain and suffering was for NOTHING! NOTHING! That’s what makes me so unbelievably ANGRY! It was all for NOTHING!

Now, why would you want your paying customers to feel this way? Why force them to jump through hoops, making cracked copies of your game all the more attractive? When you release your second game, or your fifth, what could you possibly offer to your customer to make him/her deal with your DRM crap rather than download a copy that can be played without effort? Why should I buy a music CD and risk having it ruin my computer when I can download the MP3s and know that they will just play?

I don’t like this sentiment, however:

Finally, I implore everyone who reads this article: do not steal software. That is why we are in this mess in the first place.

I’ve already written about how copyright infringement isn’t stealing, but that last sentence is what bothers me the most. Are you really supposed to believe that it isn’t the company putting you through painful copy protection? You’re supposed to just assume that it is the person who infringes the copyright that is at fault? Let’s take some responsibility here. Stardock isn’t forcing draconian copy protection on its customers. It’s game is not always legally acquired. If those darn pirates are the reason we’re “in this mess”, how does Stardock manage to take the high road?

Let’s put the blame for overbearing copy protection where it belongs. Yes, someone “stole” your game. That person shouldn’t do it, but he/she did it. At the same time, we already know that two wrongs don’t make a right, so don’t tell me that copy protection that punishes the paying customer is out of your hands. You have a choice, so when your customers complain, you can’t just say, “Well, if it weren’t for those pirates, we would make it easier for you, but we can’t.” Aren’t you supposed to please your customer? You know, the person who actually buys your projects? Increases your sales numbers? Improves your cash flow situation? If not, then who are you trying to please?

Categories
Games Geek / Technical

Great Gaming Moments: Homeworld: Cataclysm

Homeworld:Cataclysm wasn’t a sequel, but it was a great extension to the story of the original Homeworld. Basically, you’re in charge of the Somtaaw’s ship, the Kuun Lan. The Somtaaw keep to themselves, researching and mining, but they are bound to aid and protect Hiigara when requested. Cataclysm made references to “The Beast” periodically in the documentation, and so I had a vague idea that there was some Borg-like enemy to fight.

The game starts with such a call to protect the homeworld from the attacks of the Taiidan. Providing support wasn’t too difficult in the first mission. The second mission involved saving and protecting a Manaan destroyer, the Bushan-Re. To research repair technology, you jettison the mining container and create the Engineering Module. I managed to protect the Bushan-Re from the Turanic Raiders, even though they sent some Mimics in pretending to be friendly support.

At this point, a distress call comes from a nearby object. I sent a worker out to return it to the ship.

Later, I reach the Somtaaw’s research frigate, the Clee-San, in another sector. They may have the ability to shed some light on the alien artifact. They docked with the Kuun Lan. We had to escape to deep space to avoid an attack, but once we were in isolated safety, they procede to experiment.

But something goes wrong. Power fluctuations, biohazard warnings, and screaming further the confusion. The research module turns an ugly shade of red, apparently from a biomechanical infection of some kind, and to save the rest of the ship, the hangar module is jettisoned. What just happened? The Clee-San will investigate, but wouldn’t move until I provided an escort of “10 fighters”.

Now, if the infected research module was going to attack me, I didn’t think I would send just 10 Acolytes. So I sent 30, just for good measure. After all, I was in the Cub Scouts. I was being prepared. If I was going to be attacked, I was going to have overwhelming force involved.

So I sent my fighters in as an escort for the Clee-San. Slowly the ship approached the module, as the Kuun Lan hung back. The Clee-San docked with the module while I watched in anticipation. It started to download the data recorders. That data should help in determining what happened.

Suddenly a particle beam shoots out from the module! The Clee-San‘s last transmission was for the Kuun Lan to stay clear. Screams from the fighters becoming infected horrified me. I moved as quickly as I could, but the infection spread too quickly. Any ships I ordered to retreat moved only moments before becoming infected. My efforts were futile. It was terrible. I just sent 30 fighters to their deaths! I didn’t know! I didn’t know!

I then realized that those infected fighters were going to be coming after the Kuun Lan. I didn’t have any ships left for defense. I spent a lot of my resources on those 30 ships!

Luckily for me, a group of raiders appeared, demanding the Clee-San. Unluckily for them, they ignored my pleas to avoid it and were infected. I used that distraction to hyperjump out of the sector. I was safe for now, but forever impacted by that moment.

Throughout the war with The Beast, I never forgot those 30 ships. Technically, they weren’t more than digital bits running through memory on my computer, but the screams were terrible. The drama was real. The details of the names or types of ships involved in the above story might be remembered incorrectly, but the feeling of dread when I realized that I had just caused the deaths of 30 good people will stay with me. It wasn’t a cut-scene or a FMV movie to watch passively. I participated in it. Logically, it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t have known what was going to happen without cheating. Technically I could have restarted the mission and tried again. I normally prefer the challenge in similar situations, but the reason for not restarting this time was different. I didn’t want to dishonor the memory of the loss. Oddly, those 30 fighters were identical clones of each other. It wasn’t like you normally would have a tie to any one of them.

Still, I had made a bad decision, and the consequences were very real to me. My fight wasn’t just to play a game anymore. It was for honor. It was for redemption. Neither of these ideals were communicated directly by the game. There was no “Honor Meter”, for instance. I simply had a strong desire to make things right again.

Categories
Game Development

Game Developers on IRC

When you’re a lone wolf indie game developer, it’s easy to slack off. No one is there to tell you that you should be working on your games instead of watching television or checking your email for the one millionth time today. You’re on your own to motivate yourself and make sure that you’re making progress.

Which is why communicating with other indies can be so great. Each of you may work independently, but collectively you can keep each other on track. If you’re wasting time, someone can point it out to you. If you’re floundering, someone might be able to shed some light on why. If you’re family isn’t enthusiastic with the idea that you’re “playing on the computer” when you should be doing something “productive” with your life, the encouragement from other indies can be the oxygen you need to breathe. It’s that important.

It’s why I really enjoy the #gamedevelopers channel on Starchat. Just point your preferred IRC client, like Gaim, mIRC, or my personal favorite, bitchx, to irc.starchat.net and /join #gamedevelopers. While I enjoy going to ##C++ on freenode for programming assistance, #gamedevelopers was great for keeping game development at the front of my mind. Like I said, when you’re on your own, it can be really easy to let laundry, dishes, dinner, and bills force development time to tomorrow.

Stay on topic, anything game development related, this includes no religious/political discussions and nothing that could cause a flame war. Keep in mind that programming chat is allowed but we’d really like to keep it game-specific, or at least something related to something that’s related to games (for example, website authoring for your shareware games business). And you can keep it on any games topic, board games, crossword puzzles, console (video) games, pc games, mac games, pen and paper rpg’s, if it’s a game, you can discuss it!

People in the channel have shown screenshots of works in progress, announced new major projects, or discussed game design. I’ve made it part of my game development presession checklist to connect to #gamedevelopers. While you would think that the last thing a person needs is an IRC channel to distract from work, I’ve found that it helps motivate me. I don’t want to go to the channel and admit to the people there that I’ve wasted time.

If you’re an indie working either alone or with a small team, you would do well to come to #gamedevelopers. Say hello. If no one responds right away, we’re probably being productive at that moment. B-)

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

Thousander Club Update: March 13th

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 49 / 1000
Game Ideas: 142 / 1000

Target: 147

Last week I was at 24.5 hours, which means that I accomplished my subgoal of working at least 10 hours in a week. I managed to work about 11.5 hours in one day alone. I’m dead tired as I write this post, however.

I didn’t code much with Oracle’s Eye, however. I’ve been working on a text-based board game. I applied for a position at a company, and they asked me to write up solution to the problem following the requirements they specify. Since Wednesday, I’ve written a ton of code. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s coming along very nicely.

Almost 5% of my 1,000 hour goal! w00t!

Categories
Game Development Personal Development

You Can Make Games

A lot of people still think that the best way to make it in the game industry is to create a great demo, show it to a large company like EA or Microsoft, and get hired. People have dreams of working on MMORPGs or “teh best game ever!!!!1!” and getting paid for it. Even if they can’t work on the game they’ve been designing since grade school, they can still make a living by making games. What’s not to love?

Almost every article or book you’ll find about breaking into the industry will tell you the same thing. When the video game industry was born, it wasn’t out of the ordinary for a single person to be producer, designer, programmer, artist, and musician. Games were simpler back in the day, and one person could do it all. Today, you need teams of possibly hundreds of people to make a single game over the course of years. And the game might fail to make enough money to pay for itself. It’s a big business, with big money, and you can’t just hack out a small game and hope to compete.

Companies like EA will talk about how next-gen games are going to have to cost more to pay for the bigger budgets. Lots of people agree. The bar for production values just keeps going up, so more and more money is thrown at game development.

I’d like to point out that they’re right. If you want to make big-budget productions with little chance of doing well in the market with the latest technology and high quality graphics for long hours, then you will need to work with a big company in order to get funding for the large team to make your “game”. Good luck being a cog in that wheel.

On the other hand, if you want to make games, there is no law that says you can’t do it yourself. There is no principle of game development that says it is physically impossible to make a game today that is fun, innovative, and even profitable without a large team and millions of dollars. You can make games on your own.

I repeat: You can make games on your own.

Can you make the next Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 on your own? Maybe, if you had a LOT of time on your hands and wouldn’t mind working on it for decades. I refuse to answer no to this question; however, I will suggest that you should scale down the MMO that you have planned, especially if you want to finish it anytime soon.

Big, established companies want to convince you that going on your own is uncertain, scary, and risky. EA wants you to believe that games cost a whole lot more to make today than ever before. Microsoft wants you to believe that the bar for quality has been raised to the point that small developers can’t hope to compete. These big companies want to scare you into either working for them or avoiding the industry altogether. Either way, they get less potential competition for the cost of a PR statement. Good deal.

“Make my own game? How? I don’t even know where to start!” You start at the beginning. The first step is to become aware of the possibility of making games. You can make games. You have the skills, and even if you don’t have a needed skill, you can use the skills of another person to offset your lack. Maybe you won’t be working full-time and getting a steady paycheck. Most likely you won’t. Maybe you can make games all week long, or maybe you can only dedicate 15 minutes here and there. Maybe you can create a game in 24 hours, or maybe you’ll be working on a labor of love for years.

My point is that you don’t have to believe that only major game companies make games. You don’t have to believe that game development has gotten too complex for one person to tackle. You don’t have to believe that you need millions of dollars in venture capital or publisher funding. But you can make games.

Want proof? There is an entire section of the industry comprising indie game developers! Look at Check out Pretty Good Solitaire, made by Thomas Warfield. No, he didn’t write a Quake-killer, but he is doing quite well for himself based on that game alone. I know, it’s “just solitaire”, but people also like vanilla more than any other flavor of ice cream. Still not convinced that indie games are possible? Check out Democracy, “the ultimate political strategy game” by Positech Games. Or the high quality puzzle game Professor Fizzwizzle by Grubby Games. Or Darwinia, the hard-to-describe retro-styled offering from Introversion Software.

There’s even an awards show for indie games! The Independent Games Festival is a showcase of innovation and technical excellence. Clearly, you don’t need millions of dollars to make refreshing games. Examples of past finalists include the following games: Alien Hominid, Best Friends, I of the Enemy, Trash, Reiner Knizia’s Samurai, Bridge Constructor Set, Strange Adventures in Infinite Space and its sequel Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, Savage: The Battle for Newerth, Oasis, Gish, Wik and the Fable of Souls, Dark Horizons: Lore, Lux, The Witch’s Yarn, Tribal Trouble, the MMORPG Dofus, Glow Worm, N, and Legion Arena.

Some of these games cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to make. Some cost no money at all. Some took a few weeks, while others took almost a decade. Some were made for business purposes. Some were made by students. Whatever the case, these games were independently made without a publisher. They were made by indies. And you can be an indie, too. You can make games. You, on your own or with support, with or without money. Once you believe it is possible, you have taken your first step to becoming an indie.

Categories
Game Design Geek / Technical

Design Concepts I Just Learned

I was reading through the two Game Programming Gems books I have, and one of the gems describes a game entity factory. To understand this gem, you have to understand a few design patterns, including flyweight. I never learned exactly what a flyweight was or how I would use it. I still have a slight understanding that you would use a flyweight if you have data that is constant between different entities. Ask me anything else about it, and I’ll struggle. The Gang of Four book isn’t much of a help. It’s a reference book, which means it will be a better tool when I already understand it, but it is almost useless for learning.

I pulled out the Design Patterns Explained book, but it doesn’t have flyweight listed; however, there were a few interesting chapters on design principles. It’s been years since I cracked this book open, and I might have used it for class. I thought it was just a more in-depth version of Design Patterns, so I never found the chapters titled “How Do Experts Design?” and “The Principles and Strategies of Design Patterns”. The book refers to Christopher Alexander, the original author on design patterns. He was writing about physical buildings and architecture. While his approach doesn’t directly map to software design, his principles apply quite well.

One of the things I learned is that trying to put a bunch of pre-made components together to create software is not ideal. You should have a big picture of your project, and then you can decide what smaller components you’ll need. I never thought about the effects of trying to reuse components before thinking of the full scope of the project.

Another thing I learned was the principle of designing from context. I would periodically become stressed when thinking about the best way to design a class or relationship between classes. I don’t have nearly enough experience to be able to make judgement calls about the best way to design a project. I think I have enough of a grasp of programming that I can implement anything once I decide on a good design; I just need more practice with getting to that good design. I learned, however, that you can’t know how a pattern will be implemented until you understand the context in which it exists. For example, if you have a facade pattern, you can’t know how to implement it until you know what interfaces you need to link together. Essentially, you can’t just ask, “What’s the best way to implement XYZ?” You need to ask, “Under what circumstances will implementation A be a better fit than implementation B? How do those circumstances match up with my actual circumstances?”

I still don’t think I quite grasp the flyweight or its place in the game entity factory, but software design became a bit less mysterious. Heck, William Willing’s comments on a Timeless Way of Game Design make more sense to me now!

Also, since I’ve been researching design, especially software design, I found this helpful game engine design link: Object-Oriented Game Design: A Modular and Logical Method of Designing Games