Game Development

  Game Analysis - GemCraft This is a subsequent post from part 17. Chasing Shadows Hard to get to the end, but hell of a fun. Frozen Wrath Three difficulty settings for all kinds of players.

Stealth It's really hard to make a good stealth system in a video game. Why? Because it requires a great difficulty curve and outstanding AI. Most stealth attempts I ever made in a game ended in shooting encounters.

The Art of World Design This is not a sales pitch for a book, neither can I give you the rules of making great levels and worlds but I'll try to get as close to the optimal as it gets. The title of the post points to making a good game world is an art-it's hard to make but very rewarding to mental, personal and financial growth. It is also not meant solely for level designers, but for all profession of the game development. How would a great game world look like then? Here are some things to consider: you should make a different kind of secrets: they need to be hard to figure out but some of them have to be easier otherwise people give up-especially because you need to collaborate with game designers on the GDD: level design belongs there size is very imporant-not too big to wander indefinitely and not too small to discover everything A great game world be: not the standard green jungle, white shores and half-transparent water with secrets to find: I'm sur...

A Song is a Cure for the Soul Music is an essential part of our lives, as it heals emotional wounds. This is no different in games. The songs in the game don't have to be orchestral, professionally sung and don't need expensive music editing tools and quality music types. I think good music can significantly increase the quality of the game. I think Linkin Park has music which could easily belong into action games and action RPGs. So how would one make a good music for a game? Just select a theme for the song from the game. A game with a very appropriate music would be Need For Speed Underground 2. I think music is more imporant in the game than graphics, as it can actually be described in the GDD (game design document). Since music heals emotional crysis and helps the hardship of life, it is important for it to be done responsibly which means making quality music. This returns us to why games have to be quality and lack of thereof can be a threat to human ki...

Programmer's Role in Game Development -part 3: Why is Coding Hard? This is the last of the three part miniseries which describes the programmer's role in the game development process . So how come it's so hard to code something? One of the main reasons is the need to be well-prepared for it which most programmers are not. In other words preparation-one or more of the following reasons include lack of being prepared for the task: the programmer is coding by the most difficult thing they learnt, which means they don't do what is in their capability but overstretching lack of test-driven development "determination" to make an average game, which can be boring in both terms of development and playing incomplete GDD lack of problem-solving attitude lack of a productivity plan So mental preparation is the main problem here: prepare yourself to code better and faster! go step by step, and work with what you have learnt so far, not of what you are ...

Programmer's Role in Game Development -part 2: Bug-less and Glitch-less Game It's not remotely easy to make a game which contains zero bugs and cheating glitches, but the rewards are awesome. If you manage to make one, it would mean the players wouldn't ever complain about the game mechanics. It's one of my goals for my game for it to have bug-less game-play and AI. AI is especially one of the reasons to make a bug-less game. All games have at least one bug in artificial intelligence which greatly degrades and dumbs the Artificial Intelligence. On the other hand, a very good AI doesn't include any bugs. You have to both prioritize your bugs("critical", "essential" and "trivial" in example), and make sure you solve them all. How do you make a bug-less game then? Not remotely easy, but it involves having a decent amount of alpha/beta testers. Also you need to be persistent, determined and decide fully you're going to h...

Programmer's Role in Game Development -part 1: Better Code Organization This will be a bit different blog post compared to the previous. It will be a sub-series of the role of programmer in the game development. The first part of the sub-series will explain how a game programmer is more effective alone or in a team. Code organization is in my experience essential, as the amount of code quickly increases, especially if the game has many features. It includes: knowledge of the programming language, APIs, dev kits and make sure you know the techniques with which will you finish the project  list of steps to get there a clear to read and understand GDD a clear task list don't rush to learn everything about everything related to your project-set to make a project which you can actually handle(=have learnt 98%-100% about it) There you go, one step closer to understanding how to make a classic game.

Good Difficulty Before we dive into the main subject, I want to remind you I'm still on a mission to make a definition of what makes a game a 100% classic. One of the main problems with games is difficulty curve. Which leads to very steep learning curve. The curves are in relation between each other. Let me make a couple examples of the difficulty and learning curves: - Painkiller: good difficulty four settings, but the game relies on finding secrets, which can take months to solve, and it kills the tempo in the game  - Unreal Tournament: like many other games, there is a high jump in the difficulty-earlier levels are easily beatable until you reach a level which you can't beat for half a year plus(literally) I think I have to say I prefer a learning line instead of a curve. Same goes for difficulty. Why? Because an exponential curve is the opposite of a well-balanced game. So what's the solution? In my opinion as constant as possible line, not too flat no...

Game Analysis - Gem Craft Let us continue our journey into figuring out what does a good game consist of, and therefore make an attempt to save the world suffering from less than 10/10 games. It is indeed a threat to all human kind-it would not be an end of the world, but entire world would suffer lack of fun which comes from not having classic games. To me everything that is below 10/10 rating(or 100/100) is not optimal, no matter how "good" the game is. This lack of fun could soon affect the other types of media which take inspiration from games. This blog post is about Gem Craft, a tower defense game and it's analysis. Chapter 1 - The Forgotten This is not the first story chapter but the first part in the Game Craft series. It is the easiest part in the series, but still challenging for some. It has a score system for advanced and hardcore players, cool bosses and unique spells to upgrade. You have gems of different colors which you socket into towers and traps ...

Street life After seeing so many repeating themes in games(FPS competition and war-theme, strategy, tactics, teamwork) I have of making a refreshing one. While I have likes for many themes in games, I thought adding a new, refreshing theme would be nice. Why street life? Because I have so many bad memories with street fighting, being broke and cold blood pumping trough my veins-the last one because of heavy schizophrenia, and it is not a pleasure feeling. How would you implement it in a game? I'm not sure, but I can readily it was cool in GTA San Andreas. So many rappers draw inspiration from it. The street life, not GTA. If we conclude, GTA is based on street life. I think this is important to notice, as many people(including myself) live many kinds of street life, so it would probably smart to fix this hole in games. Let me talk about my schizophrenia: ugliest form of schizo. When I first had it(12 years ago), I could see colors flying around me, demons, ... on th...

Lesson in physics I think distinction of whether game physics will be real or fantasy/sci-fi is an important to make. This is in my opinion an important aspect of a good game. Either way gravity is a law of gravity you just have to understand and same goes formula. It's good if you know about friction, fraction, quantum physics, and most importantly, even relativity of time, and electricity works. Gravity is important in space games as well. How much do you remember of this from high-school? Either way if you remember a good deal or not, this is an important reason why you should Wikipedia and Google for thorough research on math, chemistry, physics, literature, art, music and poetry. This is the lesson I tried to get across: research your problems and you'll have much better chances at making a game. That and if you're still in school/college, don't cheat at tests and actually listen to the professor: so keep learning, no matter how much you have mastered ...

Basics of level design What is difference between "overall" game design and level design? In my opinion a good game designer should be well-skilled in basics of level design and vice-versa. What should a "in-general" game designer know then about level design? First of all, how to use a 3d modeler, 3D paint, the game engine if one exists. What about the other way around: what should a level designer know about game mechanism design? A level designer in a RPG(role-playing game) should be very well-informed of the story and quests. Furthermore, a level designer should understand how to make levels which encourage replayability. What kind of levels would encourage it? -the hardest form would be non-linear quests, which we already described -an easier form would be a well-calculated difficulty system -wide open large manually created world(like Darkfall Online) -lots of Achievements which would prove player's skills even after one has beaten the campaig...

Structure of a game A game normally consists of some challenges to overcome. This can appear in the terms of a campaign, chapters or skirmish(battle-only) levels. Challenges can be single-player or multiplayer. On the development aspect, this means the Game Design Document must include the core game mechanics. Furthermore, games include a certain quality of graphics, while some have no emphasis on graphics whatsoever. But have would one implement graphics in a GDD? Myself I find it an impossible task. While I'm not saying some games don't have remarkable graphics, I don't think they have a place in the Game Design Document. Another example is game physics. They can be described even if they are set in normal ("real") physics environment. Let's try to describe graphics in a GDD by an example: All levels need great textures, lightening effects, weather system, beautiful models and landscapes. Let's try to incorporate this into test-driven devel...

Unreal Tournament 2004 - Game Analysis Keep in mind I'm not making a review, and no review score. I thought I would analyze a good game I enjoyed a lot; because it should get us closer to understanding. Let's start with the no lying fact I never used any version of the Unreal Engine, but I can readily says it's complicated. Graphics are awesome, but they only distract you from really immersing yourself. What about the difficulty curve? I have to say it's awesome beating on Adept mode, even though it takes a very long to beat. But to beat a single level on Godlike, it's impossible unless you've played a long time and even more time on having superior reflexes and puzzling skill. Which I don't imagine myself doing it even though it would mean learning a new skill. Why not? Because it would take a very long playing it to achieve basics competence with other elite players. Also I have great reflexes(I train Shaolin Kung Fu), but I can't win on Godl...

"I make games and I'm proud of it" This is another interesting quote from Raph Kostert's "A Theory of Fun for Game Design". It represents a very important aspect every good game developer should understand. If you make games in pride of the processes, you'll enjoy it and most importantly, you'll realize you're contributing to humanity. Why is that true? Because of what I've stated in the first part of the series. If we continually don't fight for a better game design and quality of development of every role in the process, world will not keep up with the need for really good games, the influence of games on other multimedia, books and all types of arts and sports will be affected. Which means the world is in small-chance, but high-potential danger. I really am proud to call myself a game developer.

What is a game designer? Another difficult question, yet important one. As I have already stated, game designer has an important role. What is interesting to notice however, is the fact the entire development team should add to game design documentation. What is a role of game designer then? I think a good one would make a design which would also affect all the other documentations(level designer's especially). What would a good GDD(game design documentation) consist of? In my opinion, it should cover: -all the quests -level design -coding style(inputted by programmers) -world design -core and expanded game mechanics How would one design a good game then? Let's try to explain it by an example: I once made a game in 30 minutes and it was a good game. But it had a major problem: it was an average game, and nothing more than that. And I couldn't possibly build on it because I'd be creating more of the same. So the question arises how long would it take to cr...

Immersion I believe immersion is rare to get by these days. But considering it is an ecstatic state(I was in such a state three times and can guarantee if feels good) we should at least explore it. How can we better immerse ourselves? You can immerse yourself in your work, observing art, while listening to music, in enjoying the texture and taste of good food, but most importantly for us, in a video game. How many times have you really immerse yourself in one? Me neither. But jokes aside, I have never really been immersed by a video game. No lies. Since it's such a good feeling, let's take a look at how we could better immerse ourselves in a game: -drink some water while playing, I don't think there's another substance(except energy itself) which can stimulate our brains positively as much -daydream about our games -try to find some inspiration in a game for an artwork we are doing -make your life an adventure(do things you like, have a playful attitude, re...

Non-linear quests I have shared so far my thoughts on non-linear stories, but let's expand on it and actually define how would it be used for quests. I have once tried to make a game with non-linear story, but when it came to actually making lore quests, I ran into a major block: how could one possibly make a dynamic story? The game design documentation for my game is already 30 pages long the quests would make it even longer. So there had to be found another approach. I was stuck there for months. Until I read about test-driven development. TDD or test-driven development strives to make game development process shorter, with less computer resources usage. But how would one create a quest which would connect to 20 different quests? Here are my ideas: - use Lucid Chart for diagrams of the quest structure tree - better organize your code - small amount of connections for each quest - read on object-oriented programming - make it more than a chore, the point is to have...

"The way it's meant to be played" This is something I've been wondering about a lot lately. It is a trademark from Nvidia company which created Geforce. You have probably seen it in the Unreal Tournament 2004 intro. Most people see it, but just take it for granted. To me it is an interesting pattern as I love to see details consciously and this one is the most interesting one to me as it provokes so many thoughts about the topic I'm writing about, which is how to make better games. So what do you think it means? Fair play? By the rules(no cheating)? Unreal is a good game to play? Perhaps a thrilling challenge at hardest difficulties? I think all of the above would be a good example of directions for a better game: fair play means a healthy competition while respecting opponents and teammates. By the rules means no cheating. I think I find cheating bad for the gaming atmosphere. A thrilling challenge can be a great. But most important one is a "a go...

Roles of game development team members I think it's important to understand the various roles of a game developers of all kinds in order to understand what would a good game consist of. How can you can make a good game if you don't collaborate well with other teammates? This happens mostly if the workers have no clarity how the entire game process happens in detail. I will also explain my experiences as a member of an indie team, and my time of being the only developer in my team(which is at the time of writing and posting this). Project Leader Must be on top of the entire development process and is(but not exclusively) in need of understanding all other aspects and roles of the game development process. Lead Programmer Takes care of the coding process. Must be good at coding games. And has to code the game too. Programmer Coding is hard. It has to be done right, productively and requires making fast algorithms. Which is neither easy to learn, neither to do. One...