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[Paul Eres]

@c.a. sinclair - yeah, i wasn't disagreeing with you, just with geti -- he seems to imply that if a game isn't fun for the developer, that means they don't enjoy making that game. but that isn't the case, you can enjoy making a game even when playing that game isn't fun

[Geti]

just because your own game isn't fun for the dev to play doesn't mean they don't have fun making games. they have fun *making* games, not playing them

@c.a. sinclair - yeah, i wasn't disagreeing with you, just with geti -- he seems to imply that if a game isn't fun for the developer, that means they don't enjoy making that game. but that isn't the case, you can enjoy making a game even when playing that game isn't fun

Clearly the enjoyment someone derives from any activity is contingent on far too many factors to make absolute claims, but for me it'd take a lot of the enjoyment out of development.

I don't play many other games these days because I'm too busy making them as well, but playtesting has always been a crucial part of development for me - If I wasn't having fun jumping around/exploring/collecting/shooting/whatever I'd try and find what was making me not have fun and rip that bit out. If the thinking involved in finding the crap bit lead me to the conclusion that the sheer premise my game wasn't enjoyable, I'd stop working on the game.

Knowing how a system works has never put me off enjoying what that system does. There was a point in my life where I could take apart a bike and put it together again, and that didn't stop me riding it.

There's nothing to explore when you created all of the maps, designed the placement, and placed all the vegetation meticulously by hand.

Sounds like elf talk to me

Moreso than elf talk though, it's bringing me to realise that perhaps if you spend several times longer to make the game than your more-dedicated-than-average player would spend to play it, you're likely end up not really enjoying the end product.

Most of the heavily content driven games that I've started working on, I've given up on for precisely that reason - I stopped having fun with it.




It's late and I doubt I'm explaining myself very well, but I'm fairly sure there's a lost garden article on that last point somewhere... http://www.lostgarden.com/2010/12/steambirds-survival-goodbye-handcrafted.html basically you get more fun from less work by not meticulously placing that piece of grass there and that piece of grass there.

This is getting wildly offtopic and rant-y so I'll stop typing now, I'd like to have a discussion about this in real time at some point (IRC?). It just seems that it's backwards to get to the end of building something that's meant to be entertaining and engaging and say "bleh, not playing that again!"

[C.A. Sinner]

yeah it's great that you enjoy playing your own games but i dont

i guess part of it is that when i finish a project i've already played the game for hours upon hours due to playtesting etc. i have a ton of games lying around that i haven't finished/played thoroughly yet so when given the choice between playing a game i made that i've already played to death and a fresh (to me) game made by someone else i'll choose the latter.

[Psy]

I don't think there's anything weird about not enjoying your own game. Yes, if you NEVER enjoyed playing it then that may point to something wrong with the core concept. However, if you've been working on the game for weeks/months on end, the fun factor is going to diminish quite quickly as you've been playtesting the same thing hundreds of times over.

[baconman]

yeah it's great that you enjoy playing your own games but i dont

i guess part of it is that when i finish a project i've already played the game for hours upon hours due to playtesting etc. i have a ton of games lying around that i haven't finished/played thoroughly yet so when given the choice between playing a game i made that i've already played to death and a fresh (to me) game made by someone else i'll choose the latter.

That's when you get a feedback group of buddies here, and have THEM do your playtesting. So you can playtest their junk, too.

[gunswordfist]

He looked like he'd fit in a sort of Castlevania type game, so I started with that. Now, 2 months later, I've got an armored guy with a whip of fire fighting zombies & skeletons in castles and swamps with a sort of neoclassical setting & 8-bit soundtrack.

I busted out laughing during that part.

I worry about that all the time. I almost didn't want to give a certain game credit for it's influence of a future project because I was worried about idiots screaming ripoff but that was two or so days ago and now I'm using my better judgment and embracing it's influence.

The key is to make it your own. Except for the fact that the character is on the run and he will only use his shield and sword with little to no use of shops, I plan on making a game that's basically "The perfect version of Zelda."  I'm going to focus on making the combat, interactivity, world design and the dialogue system I'll use my own vision and never look back. I suggest you add your own feel to your games and do the same.

[gunswordfist]

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to."

I might have to steal this quote.
Source: http://www.moviemaker.com/directing/article/jim_jarmusch_2972/

[1982]

Jim Jarmusch hasn't experienced great artists.

[st33d]

yeah it's great that you enjoy playing your own games but i dont

I usually have this trouble at work (nothing surprises me and I'm usually demanded to create some horribly boring to write tech that everyone will insist I develop further - eg: the rope in final ninja).

And the opposite problem when I'm working on Red Rogue at home (I end up getting sucked into the game instead of fixing the bugs).

[C.A. Sinner]

i can't play my own games without analyzing them. i really hate playing games "analytically," it annoys me to no end when i play a game and all i can think about is code and design decisions and shit.

it's also why i don't enjoy playing games that feel like they were made by "game design theorists," such as portal and braid. i don't want to see the tools at work.

[Paul Eres]

one thing i do find fun though is watching other people play my game. my suggestion to those of us who are finding playing our own games to be boring would be to get others to play your game and watch them play it; even aside from the benefits of doing that (finding things to improve upon) it's just fun to do, and would increase your motivation to finish your game

[Gimym TILBERT]

 @casinclair
Portal was more like empiricist than theorist, it's more like try, test and keep what sticks. It's pretty much anti theorist. However you need at least a boit of theory for large scale project to plan ahead and have a margin.

[eiyukabe]

I don't understand the "everything is a copy/clone/remix/stolen" stance. Is it because one can always break things down enough to recognize common elements (hurr hurr, every video game uses bits!)? Or am I taking it too literally? I watched the "everything is a remix" videos and all I got out of it was that sampling happens a lot in the music industry.

On the other extreme, I say that all art is original. Even if I repainted the Mona Lisa pigment for pigment and atom for atom, mine would consist of (likely) entirely different atoms from da Vinci's. And even if they somehow are the same atoms, they definitely would be atoms arranged in the Mona Lisa formation at a different _time_, thus having a different temporal tag. And hey, I couldn't help it if some Italian rip off decided to clone my work of art before I ever made it .

Anyway, my stance on the matter is in line with the stance of authenticity and sincerity. If you are really passionate about a genre and want to improve on it, it will show. If you see a genre as making cash and just want to rip it off to try to get some of that cash, that will show too. If you are sincere, there is nothing to worry about, especially if you are open and keep a dev diary in case by some freak event you are ripping off a game you didn't know of.

[Tokinsom]

one thing i do find fun though is watching other people play my game. my suggestion to those of us who are finding playing our own games to be boring would be to get others to play your game and watch them play it; even aside from the benefits of doing that (finding things to improve upon) it's just fun to do, and would increase your motivation to finish your game

This really is a good idea. Any time I start getting bored with or questioning my games I just send them to some friends and see what they think. If the feedback is good, I'm reminded that my negative feelings for the game just come from working on it for so long and/or testing it over and over and over again. It can happen with anything. Plus the good comments are motivating.

[C.A. Sinner]

@casinclair
Portal was more like empiricist than theorist, it's more like try, test and keep what sticks. It's pretty much anti theorist.

Portal still feels like a dry exercise in "clever game design" to me. A lot of puzzle games do.