To be fair, there's probably about a billion justifyable reasons for making a game. So long as the game is good in the end, you shouldn't worry too much about why you do it. We're all dust in the wind, after all. Who cares how we waste our lives?

Alec's point is that you'll get a lot more mileage and happiness out of working on a game just because you love working on games. I know that that's a big part of why I do it, but certainly it's not the only one.

Most other reasons for getting into it (fame, fortune, recognition, revenge) just make the development feel like a chore - a means, rather than the ends. And when you don't enjoy the process of making the game, that really comes through in the final artifact.

What we need more of these days is games with soul... games which show heart, and resonate the maker's passion.

Fair enough. My main reason for getting into games was to have my revenge on CliffyB for laughing at me when I said I wanted to be a game designer, just like him.

Hmm. I guess Hoop\/\/orld is dead, then.

The last I heard it was handed over to a spanish company for some kind of re-jig, ostensibly to cut down file size and fit everything made into 50megs. That's no longer an issue, now, is it? 150 meg limit? But that's all I know.

So, never say never. The official word is that it's on the way.

I'd encourage you to start small. That way you can actually finish something. Work your way up to a bigger dream project. But small projects can be awesome. Come up with something that excites you on a smaller scale - something you can finish in a couple months. Maybe it'll even be something we haven't seen before, rather than just a mash-up of popular genres.

You'll learn a lot by doing just that small project, you'll get some attention if its well made, and you won't have wasted 4+ years of your life. If you keep at it, you'll have a nice line of small, released games that you can look back at and gain a reputation for.

I completely agree with this.

I'm another person who learned the hard way - finding out that good design isn't about throwing in every idea into the kitchin sink, and coming up with an unachievable mess. For me, it's about finding one truly elegant idea, and then doing that idea justice. (Of course, elegant ideas aren't always easy to code or less work, but that's another story.)

I benefit from failure, but if the failures weren't quite so huge I might not be the depressed waster I am today. I think that the people here want to save you from that suffering, knowing now that there are better, more enjoyable ways to build yourself up to an all-in-one game. They also recognize that they may have been in the same boat.

When I started, I started with modding. That was a great time, because there was already a base of code that I didn't have to worry about. Art assets and sound, too. However, even within that arena I got a lot more from a mod I did in two weeks than a mod that took about a year. It was just nice to have a project which didn't drag on with no sign of an end, and with a fairly dull result.

Because you're not doing this for money passion is your only fuel and unless there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that passion will be burnt up pretty quickly. You can build up stamina in that respect, but don't expect to be able to run a marathon before you've been through training.

If anyone asks me for advice about games now (rare, understandably) I tell them to take the experimental games approach. You'll learn in a far more effective way, because your ideas will be tempered by a constant reality check.

But your team name really IS important.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

10 MASTURBATE
20 GOTO 10

That's not Ernest Adams. Ernest Adams is a top hat. The body is just a symbiote.

[Team name:]

Team name:
Currently undecided, but we are working on something good.

Guys, if you really want to turn this game into a success, then getting your team name right is crucial. Sit in a meeting room for about 12 hours and don't let anyone leave until you sort it out.

[WARNING: This is a fucking boring post to read.]

I already posted in this thread, but then I took my post down because I thought it was too mastabatory. But everyone else is doing it, so whatever.

WARNING: This is a fucking boring post to read.

I'm Aubrey Hesselgren. I used to work as Lead Game Designer at 5treamline Studios on HoopVVorld. For reasons I won't go into, I left, as did Tommy Refenes, who is working with me on a game which we hope to get onto XBLA. We haven't announced the game yet, because we don't really want people judging it too early.

I started play games around the age of 6. My dad brought home an office PC and programmed a ski-ing game for me from some dense programming book. It was a welsh computer with a green screen. Not knowing that he hadn't saved the program, I played it a few times, and then turned off the machine. Never played the game again.

Then we got an Amstrad, and I would play Microsoft FlightSim (because my dad liked planes), a truely horrible port of Ghosts and Goblins, Elite (my brother did the trading and I did the flying), and Pinball Construction set. My dad also tried making a simple shooting game, where random blocks are drawn on the screen, and you have to click on them as fast as possible. It was basically the same as an onrails shooter, just completely abstract.

I stopped playing games (apart from the occasional go on my friends' brothers Amiga and Atari - hours of Magic Pockets, Rainbow Islands, Kick Off, The Chaos Engine, leisure suit larry, BatMan: The Movie: The Game, SpeedBall/2, Llamatron) until the Master System came out. Then I had a hissy fit until my parents got me one (spoilt brat). Alex Kidd, Sonic the HedgeHog/2 (I could finish the first level going so fast that sonic wasn't even on the screen for half of it. 17 in-game-seconds), Cloud Master (shite), Rampart, Rampage, Shinobi, Transbot (on a card!!), MicroMachines (Codemasters glory days), Psycho Fox... erm, And some football game where you could win every time by running straight up the pitch, and curling your shot from the penalty box. EVERY TIME.

My sister and her trendy friends introduced me to Doom, which was a real landmark for me. I mean, yeah, it's this really angsty Heavy Metal themed game (which I'm no fan of) but it gave me the impression that games were growing up in line with their audience. And it flowed so smoothly that all I wanted was a 486 to play it on.

My sister knew a guy who worked in the Covent Garden Exchange (famous british videogame shop) (who, incedentally, shared a flat with Charlie Brooker). He gave her lots of really lovely games to play on my machine... but not Doom! He sent Tie Fighter (oh lord that was good), Sam and Max hit the Road, System Shock (which I think I was a bit too noobish to understand at the time), and some other stuff I've forgotten.

I learned Mouselook on Jediknight, and racked up huge (200 quid) phonebills on that BT FreePlay or whatever it was called. I still sucked, but it was my first introduction to the internet.

At school, me and some friends took over the school computers to play Quake 2 at lunchtime, and I ended up modding. My grades dropped drastically as I focussed on learning how to code, and how to be a total dick to people on online forums. I got 3 mods on PlanetQuake, 2 of which got Mod of the Week accolades (Matrix Quake and Leper Quake).

In my gap year, I went to GDCE, but didn't have much fun because I was very shy. I had read Chris Crawford's Art of Game Design, and became a really pretentious lover of games. Watching Ernest Adams was fun as he did his Dogma 2001 speech (though in hindsight some of the stuff is a little off... not hugely, though).

I then went to university (UMIST), had a crappy time until the third year where I started to make friends, and got to pick my own thesis (on non-photorealistic rendering and animation). I ended up doing a bit of writing for something awful. It was mainly bad. Lowtax no longer speaks to me. I also wrote a bunch of ludology articles, but I think they are pretty inconsequential and unprofessional now. I got into GDCE again, this time after being in the IGDA Student Scholarship program. That time around was much better.

During the last year of uni, and for 6 months after, I worked on a full 3D abstract shmup called "K". I never got to finish it because my mum threw me out of the house. I stayed in southampton while trying to find a job. Did a bit of boring data entry at a train depot in southampton, failed to get into Climax Solent (but thanks for getting me the interview, anyhow Haowan!) and then begged and pleaded to get into 5treamline Studios.

Nuke the forums from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

That was a really useful read, fost! Thanks from me, too!

Regarding marketing: I think (speaking as someone who hasn't released anything yet) it's interesting that a lot of us here probably believe that our games will be so awesome that the only marketing we need is word-of-mouth.

There are examples of this happening (i.e. the quality and appeal of the game are just so right that people can't help recommending them to others), but if we're being realistic, they're the exception that proves the rule, right?

Sorry.. I'm trying to be realistic here, without really knowing the realities.

Kieron Gillen wrote an article a while back about the Journo/Developer relationship from the Journo's point of view. He made strong mentions of how quite a lot of journos are really willing to go to bat for an underdog (which describes most of us here) because it's the equivalent of a human interest piece and whatnot, and it makes them look cool for championing something niche. So long as you're forthright with information about the game, and give them "good copy" (i.e. saying something interesting, or saying something boring, but while doing something interesting, like pissing on a copy of World of Warcraft - anything newsworthy) then you'll be their best mates, and they'll push the game around their media circles, and get articles going.

But again, I speak from a position of zero knowledge on this, so it could all be bollucks, eh?

Oooh, does this mean that if he jumps in the water he'll kinda drop into it a bit, but then, he'll bob up to the top? That'd be nice. I don't know what I'm saying. I have to get bakc to work bye honey!

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=74037

Anyone tried these?

I sort of don't have the bandwidth to download all the associated stuff (/me kicks satellite. Satellite stops working again. /me reverts to modem.), so maybe someone else can silently judge them instead.

If you like BoC, you *really* should check out Redpoint

I think Redpoint consistently rocks harder than BoC.

I like this! Thanks for the headsup!

Acceleration in a game where it barely shows still makes it look good. It's cosmetic, but a DAMN NECESSARY ONE. 

I do not disagree. I'm just always watchful in design whenever anything is added purely for aesthetics' sake. I try to figure out if there's a way to make it impact gameplay interestingly. If it can't, or shouldn't, then I do my best to make sure it doesn't affect gameplay in a negative way.

In GBQ's case it's not a problem, but hopefully the diminishing returns on acceleration might work out feeling a little smoother. Hard to tell until you try it. It might be shite! I do know that exp screwing requires lots of tweaking of magic numbers to get the immediacy vs. the gradualness right.

Heh. N (as well as parkour) was pretty strong inspiration for HW's movement funnily enough. Not that you'll ever know. Last I heard they were toning it down. Oh well.

Raigan's a lovely chap, although he's stopped returning my e-mails :/

Let's make out!

I love the movement! This is sort of quick acceleration is what I was trying to suggest for guy balding... I guess it wouldn't quite fit GB as well, but some feel of accelerating would be nice.

I don't understand... Are you saying GB doesn't accelerate fast enough, or that he does too fast?

'Cause there is acceleration in there.  You'd feel the difference if you played it without.  And I did slow it down a bit recently... though not by much -- it's still only about 1/10th of a second.

You'll notice it more when you're slipping on ice. 
[/quote]

I know there IS some acceleration there. I guess that it felt a little... "binary", like, you're either moving or you're not. The acceleration feels like it's only there to smooth it up a bit, but doesn't have much impact on gameplay.

In underside, acceleration matters. In GB, much less so. Does that mean I think you should make acceleration more of a factor? I don't know! Up to you guys!

I guess my ideal acceleration curve is a sort of ... speed_increment = exp(-fabs(speed) * C), so you can get quite quick almost immediately, but if you keep running in a direction you gradually pick up speed above and beyond that immediate speed. Diminishing returns on acceleration, basically. Certainly, when speed is "soft bounded" like that, it feels a bit less robotic... bit more natural and flowing.

But it's your game! Make fun of my suggestions now, okay?

[do]

No problem . I know parkour is all like really "hip" and therefore "doomed to be overused" right now, but if you do want fluid motion, then it's certainly the best place to look. Even if it's in a 16x16 character, I think the motion can be "characatured" into animation well enough. It's really not about "copying" parkour, ofcourse - it's just about making the acrobatics he gets up to sort of... understandable and believable, even if not realistic. Verisimilitude. Parkour is all about motion, so you start to see the real life movements which would make his movements possible and believable.

I don't think I said anything of interest there. *Sigh*.

P.S. -- Now who's drunk?

P.P.S. -- The game looks cool!  But I think the ship should bend its knees and roll as it hits the ground.  You know what I'm sayin'. 

Touche. That was one of my more drunken suggestions, sorry man. Wouldn't suit GB at all. Worked well in HoopVVorld, but every game is not HoopVVorld. GB is also unlike HW in that it will actually get released! *sigh*.