mrfun has posted A Guide to LD48, aka, How to Not Crack Under the Incredible Pressure.
I thought it was a pretty humorous look at the intense preparation needed to succeed at Ludum Dare. Good luck!
Category: Game Development
At the Chicago Indie Game Developer Club meeting last Tuesday, Impossible mentioned the idea of making a casual first-person shooter. We both wondered how one would make such a game. What would it be like?
At first, I was just amused at the idea, but then I thought that it might make for a good thought experiment. So I started thinking about it.
Normal FPS
What’s makes a regular, normal first-person shooter? The industry-standard controls involve the use of WASD, although some players prefer the arrow keys. The mouse controls which way you are looking. One button controls shooting. The other can be used for jumping or alternate fire. Those are the basics, although some games allow you to use other keys on the keyboard to control whether you are running, walking, standing, or crawling. Other keys allow you to perform context-sensitive actions. You can switch weapons. You can taunt. You can send messages to everyone or limit them to teammates or enemies. Some keys correspond to launching flares or grenades. Some bring up different aspects of the HUD.
Now, I will admit that it just sounds complex. Most players don’t concentrate on using all the keys, after all. You can play Quake 3 Arena with just WASD/arrows and the mouse, ignoring the crouch key, for example. On the other hand, expert players will utilize whatever they can to play well. From changing the view radius to increasing the speed of mouse movement, they will simply be in a league of their own compared to completely new players. There are people who play often enough to memorize the order of player spawns and take advantage of this knowledge to kill opponents before they have a chance to move. It can be frustrating for regular players, but I can see it discouraging newbies completely.
Casual FPS
What would you change to make an first-person shooter more accessible to non-gamers? For one, change the default controls to the arrow keys. Maybe it is different for foreign keyboards, but I have yet to see a new computer gamer that hasn’t used the arrow keys and wondered why the game wasn’t responding. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets even used WASD! Children are just supposed to pick up on this control scheme? It reminds me of playing games on the Apple II in which every game used IJKM. It took me a little getting used to, especially since the arrow keys were right there and made a heck of a lot more sense.
As for controls, I think simplification can only help. For example, in Alien vs Predator 2, you can turn on the shoulder lamp. The battery would drain, and it would recharge when you turn it off. Well, for a casual version of the game, I think that you would throw out the concept of draining and recharging. Maybe even have the lamp work in a context-sensitive manner or just have it always on. Let the player worry about maneuvering and shooting rather than which key to press to turn on a flashlight. “Oops, I accidentally launched a flare. Wait, that was the key to activate the hacking tool. I’ve almost got it…no, not Gadget Umbrella!” A casual FPS would allow the player to focus on the essential parts of the interface.
I think steps could be taken to prevent veterans from having an advantage over newbies just for knowing more. For example, there is a map in Quake 3 Arena that allows a player to stand in one spot and quickly shoot opponents with the rail gun as they are spawned. Shoot at one point, then aim at the new point and wait for the player to appear. Repeat. New players are still trying to get their bearings, and this specific level is one of the worst to play for the first time. Some people might grind through and try to fight back, but casual players will simply find a new server. I am not saying that veterans shouldn’t play better than newbies. I just think that it can be annoying to play against someone who is winning for no other reason than that you don’t know the level layout as well.
And what about the idea of a shooter in the first place? Does it have to involve guns, blood, and gore? Maybe a casual title might involve construction instead of destruction. Maybe it could feature a capture the flag type of game where the object is to grab resources from a central area and return to your base without dropping them. Cooperation could be encouraged, and it would be more than simply blasting through the campaign levels together.
Hmmm…
While the above are high-level ideas to think about, I know that I am leaving out and/or forgetting many more. What do you think would make a casual FPS?
For this week’s Thousander Club update:
Game Hours: 68.5 / 1000
Game Ideas: 273 / 1000
Target: 273
I had dedicated last Saturday to game development. I didn’t actually start until 2PM since I spent the morning reading a book. Even so, I should have been able to get quite a bit of work completed. The reality of it was that in an hour I would only get 15 to 30 minutes of actual work completed. In the end, my entire Saturday resulted in at most two hours.
Looking back, I noticed that I had spent part of my time working on other tasks. For instance, I noticed that I was 15 ideas behind for the week, so I changed focus and started reading Wikipedia entries for inspiration. I thought I would only do so for 15 minutes and then go back to development. It seemed like a productive break, but it was a Big Mistake. I also talked a number of people online at once. Another small break that ended up taking up over an hour. “Dedicated” should mean dedicated. I essentially wasted my dedicated Saturday, even though I can claim to have added a book to my list, learned about special relativity, and accomplished my quota for game ideas. The point is, those things could have been done on Sunday. Saturday was earmarked for development.
On the other hand, I managed to implement some key features of the text-based board game. Things are starting to fall into place, although I believe sections of code are terribly ugly. It’s better that it gets done, however, than not done at all.
What can I learn from this past week? I need to exercise more discipline. I’m doing fine when it comes to focusing on the important features. I need to use my timer more often AND actually listen to it.
Categories
Polishing Passes
In the #gamedevelopers channel, the topic of game development contests came up. I mentioned that I would like to join one. The last one I was in was GiD #13 in June of last year, so I should do something similar again. One person mentioned that she didn’t like such contests as she didn’t have time for them. I argued that I could get some good practice in, but she responded with:
<turbo> no practice. just do and redo
<turbo> we like to call them polishing passes 😀
…
<turbo> it does get better every time round
I really liked this idea. It’s basically how I was treating Oracle’s Eye. When I started it, it was just supposed to be a quick project to give me more experience with game development. Eventually, I realized that I could make a commercial project with it.
Now I was aiming for a bigger target. I assessed what I already had, and I realized that I needed to up my game (no pun intended…ok, it was) in more ways than one. So I updated and changed and added and deleted until I had a better version.
Was I gaining experience? Yes. But I didn’t consider it practice. I was simply doing. And when I revisited some aspects of my code, I ended up making it better most of the time. Each pass made it better. It is kind of like writing a term paper for class. If you get it done early enough, you have time to go through it and check for errors, awkward sentences, and possible confusing ideas.
Polishing passes. Do, then do again. Each pass should result in more polish.
EDIT: Now I no longer misquote turbo. B-)
For this week’s Thousander Club update:
Game Hours: 65 / 1000
Game Ideas: 252 / 1000
Target: 252
I managed to get to 64 hours earlier in the week. Somehow, even with an extra day this weekend, I had trouble getting to 65. I was hoping to even do another five hours to get to 7%.
I start a new job today. I won’t know what it will be like as far as the impact on my time, but the worst case scenario is that I’ll have to increase my effeciency and effectiveness. The commute is much better than my last job, so if I trade an hour on a train for an hour of work, it shouldn’t make much of a difference.
There is a new podcast at the Indie Game Developer Podcast site. It’s an interview with Rohit from Maw!soft.
Rohit talked about how he got into game development and what his favorite games are. He talked a little about Boxen, the newest version of which I’ve seen evolve at the Chicago Indie Game Developer Club meetings. He also gave his views on the need for a single leader for a project.
By the way, I didn’t know that Maw!soft was pronounced that way.
Why We Need a Corporation for Public Gaming argues that we need a publicly funded organization dedicated to making high-quality, educational games for the public good.
The author, David Rejeski, made comparisons with the television industry, noting that noncommercial programming did not do very well without government involvement. A Corporation for Public Gaming would fund the educational games that aren’t as commercially viable as another FPS.
…The interactive nature of games, their ability to present complex and dynamic information, and, increasingly, to allow thousands of people to meet in sophisticated virtual environments means games can accomplish what TV never could in terms of addressing educational and social challenges.
However, serious games, like serious TV, are likely to remain a sidebar in the history of mass media. Non-commercial television floundered, despite millions of dollars of investment by the Ford Foundation, until the government stepped in and created a viable and long-lasting alternative. With similar vision and foresight, and a relatively small amount of funding, this could happen with video and computer games.
Some people complain that public television holds a political agenda, and so people might worry that games will be made that also express certain political viewpoints. “Not with my tax dollars!” is the cry. I haven’t really looked too much into public television’s supposed problems, but I believe that unpopular viewpoints need to be expressed. Unpopular pretty much means that it wouldn’t have funding from anyone.
If the industry is going to go where the money goes, then it isn’t likely that many serious games will get the funding they need. The CPG would also be an interesting development because it would also raise awareness in the general public about the nature of video games. Most people still believe that video games are just for kids, for example.
For this week’s Thousander Club update:
Game Hours: 63.50 / 1000
Game Ideas: 221 / 1000
Target: 231
I only did a few hours of work this week, and I fell behind in game ideas again. While this week was packed with errands and projects that were not related to game development, I think a big part of the problem is that I haven’t been waking up as early. I used to wake up around 5:30AM, which gave me time to work on game development before going to my day job. In the past two weeks I have been getting up late. Sometimes I didn’t get up until 7:30AM, which is when I usually finish getting ready and start coding.
I think it is because I haven’t been going to sleep as early, either. When I wake up late, I always feel that I need to make up for the development time in the evening, which means I might not go to sleep right away. It’s a terrible cycle, and it is one that I intend to break.
Categories
Indie Game Podcasts
Action decided to be a party-pooper and do something beneficial for April 1st instead of playing pranks. He’s renamed it April Enlightenment Day. He started the first April Enlightenment Day with a new podcast show: Indie Game Developer’s Podcast.
The first podcast was with Tom Robertson of Aggressivegames.com. It’s a 16MB download and a little over 30 minutes long.
In this podcast, Tom talked about the obstacles that faced him when choosing to leave the mainstream game industry and go indie. I liked hearing his opinion on the difference between “revolutionary” and “innovative”.
I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to more indie game podcasts! Thanks, Action!
For this week’s Thousander Club update:
Game Hours: 60.75 / 1000
Game Ideas: 212 / 1000
Target: 210
I didn’t get much work done this week, but it wasn’t as if I slacked off. I just didn’t get much time on the computer this week in general, let alone time to work on game development. I helped a friend move this weekend, which was when I was originally planning on making up for the week. Oh, well. I still made 6%. B-)