No, you won't. Gamers are horrible designers, until they see patterns
and know what their team requires from them. Trust me, I saw people walk
into the first Student project that didn't know shit about it and just
played before, without any use of any editor in existence. The pain.
Well, by gamer, I mean someone that plays with the complete game, which includes editors and data-analysis. When you play many different genres and analyze why they're fun, that's the best way to learn, be a gamer: play games.
Well if you say that, you`ll always be @#@%^ at it.
You know, Another thing about being a game designer is you need a good
amount of confidence and determination. Hesitation or doubt in yourself
will just screw everything up.
I made a few maps for Warcraft 3. My first map was as good as could
possibly be at the time of my skill(Kinda bad;p), But afterward I was
determined to make future maps better. So, a cycle occurred, that I
would better my previous maps considerably in terms of quality and
design. Even to this day, I push myself to the very limit of my
capability, and then some more.
And not to boast or anything, but I definitely consider myself an expert
on balancing. Been doing it for ages, kept telling myself it was easy
and that Im good at it, and naturally it becomes like second nature to
you. So yeah, confidence is really important.
Well, let's be serious, I'm a lazy bastard xDDD. Well, not lazy, I just have problems on starting something. Once I do, it's awesome, but man, it's like some invisible force makes me not want to start anything.
Another problem is I have too many ideas and, most of the time, leave everything half-made. No joking, I have like 400 half-made W3 maps, maybe I never finished them because I had a Spanish mapmakers clan to teach people, but well, I laready have like 10 half-made SC2 projects, , and I don't have too much time and don't like the new editor a lot, cause if I did, I'd probably have 50.
Well, at least, I think my latest one will make to "Alpha". Let's hope so. The problem is its "challenging" part is already finished... and only balance is left :(.
Well, by gamer, I mean someone that plays with the complete game, which includes editors and data-analysis. When you play many different genres and analyze why they're fun, that's the best way to learn, be a gamer: play games.
That is not a gamer by any definition of the term. A gamer PLAYS, he doesn't think about why it's fun and most of them for sure won't touch any editor ever. He wants to be entertained, sure, he'll compare it to other games, but he won't know why Super Mario Bros. was more fun than, lets say, the old Prince of Persia Sidescroller.
That is not a gamer by any definition of the term. A gamer PLAYS, he doesn't think about why it's fun and most of them for sure won't touch any editor ever. He wants to be entertained, sure, he'll compare it to other games, but he won't know why Super Mario Bros. was more fun than, lets say, the old Prince of Persia Sidescroller.
Then replace "gamer" by "someone who exploits the game at its limit".
I follow a simple 3-steps path when designing games or parts of it:
1) Think of the general concept and what is all the awesome stuff you want to have.
2) "Envision" your game. Try to really play a scene of the game in your mind. Think of all the things that should happen. What kind of guns do you use? Is there enough action going on? Some some things feel awkward? Do you need more explosions? What kind of enemies/bosses will there be? Would it still make fun after 10 hours of play? If not, how can you make it so? Do you need more explosions? How would the controls be? Are they comfortable like that? What would the HUD tell you? Do you need more explosions?
You think of the game, in details, how YOU would like it. It's important you don't just come up with hot ideas, but that you really PLAY the game in your mind.
Since you're a gamer chances are that, if you like it, others will like it too.
Unless you have a really exclusive taste..
3) You need some empathy. Imagine how a totally new player would feel when he plays your game. Would it take time to get used to the controls? Do you have any cryptic images in your HUD? Do your skills make sense? Do you have enough time to read through stuff, or is the game just too fast-paced for that?
That's a good thing to do when the game's already in Alpha/Beta phase. Much easier to do when you can actually see and play everything.
After that you should end up with a pretty good game concept / design.
I kind of feel like a design doc is just a spec. for the gameplay. Don't need that if you're on a small team. Also, people use all kind of game development strategies, there's isn't a set way to produce games the best way - it's an art. Personally, I invent game ideas that I think would be fun AND other people will like - no need for mutual exclusion. It's normal to refine gameplay, just like good software.
...which is why I only said it's rare and dangerous. It happened a few times in the history of video games. WoW is an excellent example about it, no one ever dared doing it, Blizzard did... and everyone else trying to do a MMORPG right after that just completely screwed up.
Every other week, most of the stuff gets sorted through, at least here. Again, everyone does it their way.
You're right. We're supposed to do milestones every week or so, but I'm the kind of lazy guy who only does a milestone when something big has changed (which happens, let's say... 10 times max).
I think your definition of "Art" is a bit to broad in this case. I've never seen "We're looking for a Game Design Artists" in my job descriptions. We're more Visionaries, similar to what Engineers do, not really "Artists" by what we do. We have a Vision. We do not build the parts of it, we do not sculpt it with our own hands (at least not all of it). So, we're Visionaries.
Quoted for truth.
Game designers do walls of text. The word "design" in "game design" does not mean you're an artist here. It does when you're a level designer though, because the level designer actually do the work himself, he's the one making the maps you will actually see in the game. It is not the role of a game designer to take part into the production process, even though they watch over other people's work to make sure the project is doable (and/or going the right way). Game designers only know a bit about making textures, sounds, models, animations, scripts, terrains, etc... Just enough to be able to know what can be done and what can't. They sometimes have to do a preview of a game to show the concepts, but most of the time they just write tons and tons of lines to make sure the whole team knows what they have to do.
No, you won't. Gamers are horrible designers, until they see patterns and know what their team requires from them. Trust me, I saw people walk into the first Student project that didn't know shit about it and just played before, without any use of any editor in existence. The pain.
Quoted for truth (bis).
And programmers are often horrible game designers too... They often have good ideas and know how to code them, but they forget about the game mechanics because they don't even know what it is. This is kind of sad actually, because they ruin awesome ideas with a completely lame gameplay... Gaming experience is a must, as a game designer, but you don't create a game just by mixing games you already played. As I said, there are rules to apply when you create a game, and it is not something you can guess just by being a player. It's something you have to learn and practice, that's why it's a job as a whole.
Same goes for being a tester, you might think you just have to play a game and tell what's wrong, but it's not that simple. You have reports to make, you need to check if the error is redundant or happening randomly, which action you did when it happened, was your computer lagging or showing anything abnormal, etc... You actually need to know what is normal and what's not (thanks to the GDDs and other documents), which is not that obvious.
I actually hate when people claim they can work in the video games industry just because they are players. Do you tell a cop you can do his job because you already held a gun? Seriously, it's not just as it looks, they did not become cops in a day. Would you tell someone you are a movie director because you already filmed your dog playing with a turtle? Just remember you can't do every job, know your limits and where you belong. I personally won't ever claim I'm a programmer, I'm a game designer. I know programmers are good at what they do BECAUSE they learned how to do it, and they trained very hard. Which I'm not ready for. Actually, to be completely honest I'm more of a level designer than a game designer. Game design is not my favorite task, but I studied it for 2 years. One thing I noticed about it is that there are 2 kinds of game designers: those who fancy programming, and those who have more of an "artistic" background (level design, painting, story-telling, etc...). It's important to know which "side" you are on.
I think I pretty much answered to SoulCarver by the way... Gorandor was not "splitting hairs", actually he's completely right. Gamers are not designers... and game designers, even though they need to play to know how a game is done, are not much of a player. They like games, but it's also their work to analyze them. Players don't analyze games... and when they do, most of them are telling complete shit. Most of them don't even know what's hidden behind the word "gameplay". They're unable to define it.
@Ultima: You don't need a GDD in a small team?! I think you only say that because what you call a "small team" is a group of people doing maps and mods using an already existing game. If you do create a game from A to Z, even when you're a small team of 3-5 guys, you can't avoid GDDs because it does not only contain gameplay infos: there are lots of technical infos for programmers, graphic designers,... even the marketing team because advertising your game is also important!
During the last year of my studies, we had to create a game from A to Z (it was actually amongst the contestants of the IGF in 2007). We were 5 on it, we wrote GDDs, milestones, did lots of models and textures, coded the whole thing, brainstormed a lot of things to implement,... we wouldn't have gone very far without GDDs, and it was a very small project. You can't go for a project such as a video game without planning every aspect of it first (even if the project is open to changes later), or you'll reach a dead end at some point. Actually, in our case, we did. We were supposed to be a team of 4 guys, the initial project reached a dead end after 4-5 months, so we joined another project and ended up as a team of 5 guys. Without GDDs, we wouldn't have even known what the new project was about. So trust me, GDDs are not an option.
@Serius: Creating a game for having fun is kind of dangerous... The fun factor is only a part of the work. Your vision is quite accurate though, you're asking the right questions. But don't forget that you can't base a game only on what is fun. There is a VERY important step in the game design which is pretty much "handling the player's frustration". So... fun is OK, but stressing the player helps a lot! Addicting games are not just fun, you need CHALLENGE. ;)
@Serius: Creating a game for having fun is kind of dangerous... The fun factor is only a part of the work. Your vision is quite accurate though, you're asking the right questions. But don't forget that you can't base a game only on what is fun. There is a VERY important step in the game design which is pretty much "handling the player's frustration". So... fun is OK, but stressing the player helps a lot! Addicting games are not just fun, you need CHALLENGE. ;)
True, but for me a game without challenge isn't fun. It only gets real fun when you have to run for your live, or have to cut corners everywhere in order to win.
Maybe, I don't disagree it's a good practice. Any documentation is good really, but sometimes when you're starved for resources you do what's practical and can be achieved. For small projects, you can probably get by with good communication and minimal docs b/c you doubled your work writing over-detailed specs when the game is still changing. Games changes during testing, gotta go update the doc, remember what needs to be updated, etc. Don't know what the new project is about? -> go play the project or ask someone. Again, don't take that argument to the extremity, doc-ing is always required to some extent.
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Well, by gamer, I mean someone that plays with the complete game, which includes editors and data-analysis. When you play many different genres and analyze why they're fun, that's the best way to learn, be a gamer: play games.
Well, let's be serious, I'm a lazy bastard xDDD. Well, not lazy, I just have problems on starting something. Once I do, it's awesome, but man, it's like some invisible force makes me not want to start anything.
Another problem is I have too many ideas and, most of the time, leave everything half-made. No joking, I have like 400 half-made W3 maps, maybe I never finished them because I had a Spanish mapmakers clan to teach people, but well, I laready have like 10 half-made SC2 projects, , and I don't have too much time and don't like the new editor a lot, cause if I did, I'd probably have 50.
Well, at least, I think my latest one will make to "Alpha". Let's hope so. The problem is its "challenging" part is already finished... and only balance is left :(.
TOO LATE UR THREAD IS NOW HIJACKED :P.
That is not a gamer by any definition of the term. A gamer PLAYS, he doesn't think about why it's fun and most of them for sure won't touch any editor ever. He wants to be entertained, sure, he'll compare it to other games, but he won't know why Super Mario Bros. was more fun than, lets say, the old Prince of Persia Sidescroller.
Then replace "gamer" by "someone who exploits the game at its limit".
@Gorandor: Go
I thinking your splitting hairs here.... there are more then one kind of gamers
I follow a simple 3-steps path when designing games or parts of it:
1) Think of the general concept and what is all the awesome stuff you want to have.
2) "Envision" your game. Try to really play a scene of the game in your mind. Think of all the things that should happen. What kind of guns do you use? Is there enough action going on? Some some things feel awkward? Do you need more explosions? What kind of enemies/bosses will there be? Would it still make fun after 10 hours of play? If not, how can you make it so? Do you need more explosions? How would the controls be? Are they comfortable like that? What would the HUD tell you? Do you need more explosions?
You think of the game, in details, how YOU would like it. It's important you don't just come up with hot ideas, but that you really PLAY the game in your mind.
Since you're a gamer chances are that, if you like it, others will like it too.
Unless you have a really exclusive taste..
3) You need some empathy. Imagine how a totally new player would feel when he plays your game. Would it take time to get used to the controls? Do you have any cryptic images in your HUD? Do your skills make sense? Do you have enough time to read through stuff, or is the game just too fast-paced for that?
That's a good thing to do when the game's already in Alpha/Beta phase. Much easier to do when you can actually see and play everything.
After that you should end up with a pretty good game concept / design.
Replace it with "Starcarft nut".
I kind of feel like a design doc is just a spec. for the gameplay. Don't need that if you're on a small team. Also, people use all kind of game development strategies, there's isn't a set way to produce games the best way - it's an art. Personally, I invent game ideas that I think would be fun AND other people will like - no need for mutual exclusion. It's normal to refine gameplay, just like good software.
...which is why I only said it's rare and dangerous. It happened a few times in the history of video games. WoW is an excellent example about it, no one ever dared doing it, Blizzard did... and everyone else trying to do a MMORPG right after that just completely screwed up.
Quite true. :)
You're right. We're supposed to do milestones every week or so, but I'm the kind of lazy guy who only does a milestone when something big has changed (which happens, let's say... 10 times max).
Quoted for truth.
Game designers do walls of text. The word "design" in "game design" does not mean you're an artist here. It does when you're a level designer though, because the level designer actually do the work himself, he's the one making the maps you will actually see in the game. It is not the role of a game designer to take part into the production process, even though they watch over other people's work to make sure the project is doable (and/or going the right way). Game designers only know a bit about making textures, sounds, models, animations, scripts, terrains, etc... Just enough to be able to know what can be done and what can't. They sometimes have to do a preview of a game to show the concepts, but most of the time they just write tons and tons of lines to make sure the whole team knows what they have to do.
Quoted for truth (bis).
And programmers are often horrible game designers too... They often have good ideas and know how to code them, but they forget about the game mechanics because they don't even know what it is. This is kind of sad actually, because they ruin awesome ideas with a completely lame gameplay... Gaming experience is a must, as a game designer, but you don't create a game just by mixing games you already played. As I said, there are rules to apply when you create a game, and it is not something you can guess just by being a player. It's something you have to learn and practice, that's why it's a job as a whole.
Same goes for being a tester, you might think you just have to play a game and tell what's wrong, but it's not that simple. You have reports to make, you need to check if the error is redundant or happening randomly, which action you did when it happened, was your computer lagging or showing anything abnormal, etc... You actually need to know what is normal and what's not (thanks to the GDDs and other documents), which is not that obvious.
I actually hate when people claim they can work in the video games industry just because they are players. Do you tell a cop you can do his job because you already held a gun? Seriously, it's not just as it looks, they did not become cops in a day. Would you tell someone you are a movie director because you already filmed your dog playing with a turtle? Just remember you can't do every job, know your limits and where you belong. I personally won't ever claim I'm a programmer, I'm a game designer. I know programmers are good at what they do BECAUSE they learned how to do it, and they trained very hard. Which I'm not ready for. Actually, to be completely honest I'm more of a level designer than a game designer. Game design is not my favorite task, but I studied it for 2 years. One thing I noticed about it is that there are 2 kinds of game designers: those who fancy programming, and those who have more of an "artistic" background (level design, painting, story-telling, etc...). It's important to know which "side" you are on.
I think I pretty much answered to SoulCarver by the way... Gorandor was not "splitting hairs", actually he's completely right. Gamers are not designers... and game designers, even though they need to play to know how a game is done, are not much of a player. They like games, but it's also their work to analyze them. Players don't analyze games... and when they do, most of them are telling complete shit. Most of them don't even know what's hidden behind the word "gameplay". They're unable to define it.
@Ultima: You don't need a GDD in a small team?! I think you only say that because what you call a "small team" is a group of people doing maps and mods using an already existing game. If you do create a game from A to Z, even when you're a small team of 3-5 guys, you can't avoid GDDs because it does not only contain gameplay infos: there are lots of technical infos for programmers, graphic designers,... even the marketing team because advertising your game is also important!
During the last year of my studies, we had to create a game from A to Z (it was actually amongst the contestants of the IGF in 2007). We were 5 on it, we wrote GDDs, milestones, did lots of models and textures, coded the whole thing, brainstormed a lot of things to implement,... we wouldn't have gone very far without GDDs, and it was a very small project. You can't go for a project such as a video game without planning every aspect of it first (even if the project is open to changes later), or you'll reach a dead end at some point. Actually, in our case, we did. We were supposed to be a team of 4 guys, the initial project reached a dead end after 4-5 months, so we joined another project and ended up as a team of 5 guys. Without GDDs, we wouldn't have even known what the new project was about. So trust me, GDDs are not an option.
@Serius: Creating a game for having fun is kind of dangerous... The fun factor is only a part of the work. Your vision is quite accurate though, you're asking the right questions. But don't forget that you can't base a game only on what is fun. There is a VERY important step in the game design which is pretty much "handling the player's frustration". So... fun is OK, but stressing the player helps a lot! Addicting games are not just fun, you need CHALLENGE. ;)
True, but for me a game without challenge isn't fun. It only gets real fun when you have to run for your live, or have to cut corners everywhere in order to win.
@ZealNaga: Go
Maybe, I don't disagree it's a good practice. Any documentation is good really, but sometimes when you're starved for resources you do what's practical and can be achieved. For small projects, you can probably get by with good communication and minimal docs b/c you doubled your work writing over-detailed specs when the game is still changing. Games changes during testing, gotta go update the doc, remember what needs to be updated, etc. Don't know what the new project is about? -> go play the project or ask someone. Again, don't take that argument to the extremity, doc-ing is always required to some extent.