[@baconman]

@baconman I'm thinking of saving the presentations for private get-togethers (hang-outs) and making it more casual with the more professional people

Don't do that. No one wants to "hang out" and then have their job explained to them, especially not by the new kid. You should really pay attention to what mewse told  you.

It's okay to hang out with your coworkers and talk about game design but instead of trying to impress them try asking them their thoughts and let them impress you. They're the ones with the experience and they can probably teach you a lot you don't already understand.

And there is a lot you don't understand, vilheim3, which I know because I am reading your list of techniques right now.

You write "completist" when what you mean is completionist.

You make a lot of assumptions and say a lot without backup.
 

Players will want to explore the whole world because of how interesting each new world is.

You haven't explained what makes the world interesting to begin with. Why are you so certain the player will want to do anything? I hope you don't think it's because of powerups. I don't like searching for powerups because while I'm searching for them I'm not playing the game anymore, I'm playing a different game and it's called "Boring Treasure Hunt".

If you've played any good adventure/RPG game that has a lot of content, by the time you've completed the game, you'll be exploring even more, leveling even more, to do absolutely everything you can in the game.

Actually when I am playing an RPG by the end I'm exploring less because I don't care anymore. The rewards of exploration have become smaller than the tedium of doing the actual exploration.

The easiest way to lengthen play time...

Extending playtime through artificial means like making a list of items to find does not make a good or fun game, nor does it make a game worth playing.

When you think popular MMORPG, you think..

.
Don't tell me what I think. I know what I think. (It is a bad writing technique to tell your audience what they think, even if it's just hypothetical.)

Well obviously if it's got such long play time, it's doing something right, right?

No, it isn't. Length of play does not equal quality.

Course they are, MMORPG's that are good, are simply addicting.

You keep talking about making things addicting like it's something desirable. Making a game addicting is a cheap, and I think unethical, way to design a game since it psychologically manipulates people into thinking they're having fun long after the fun has gone away. Games shouldn't be addicting they should be fun and there is a huge difference between the two. If you want to be addicting go be a drug dealer, don't make games.

You talk a lot about completion lists, and skill trees, and branching paths and these are all just artificial ways of making a game seem longer not actually make it more fun to play.

Here's a link to a short blog post at Wolfire, the guys that made the indie game Lugaru. It's about leveling up versus having the player increase his own skill naturally.
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/09/character-stats-vs-player-skill/

In that blog post I found a link to another Wolfire post that you should read:
http://blog.wolfire.com/2009/07/creating-the-illusion-of-accomplishment/

There are more posts out there on these topics (EDIT: written by other people in the game design community) but I happened to find these.


Ultimately, you should follow mewse's advice. Don't try to impress anyone; don't try and show them how much you know about game design. Just work hard and eventually you'll be one of them.

I don't worry about genre. I just work on whatever made me excited about the game in the first place whether it's the story, some central mechanic, or the levels' design and atmosphere. I work on what keeps me excited and new ideas spawn from that for other facets of the game. If I hit a dead end or lose my inspiration I let it go until inspiration strikes again or until I can use the ideas for a different project.

who cares

this guy

I like that.

Anyway, the stars could mean anything, maybe nothing, and if you look at it the right way you can see them as not being part of the actual game at all.

They could mean nothing. The speedrun you unlock in Braid was originally added simply to meet the Xbox Live requirement that all games must have achievements. I can't find the interview to corroborate this but I do remember Blow mentioning that. The stars might similarly be just something to add gameplay without adding meaning.

They could add to the game's overarching meaning. I don't want to get into a discussion of what Braid is but for sake of argument let's say Braid is about how throughout life you will encounter similar obstacles but they will have different solutions because they're in a different place (figuratively) and you are a different person (than who you were when you faced that obstacle in the past) and therefore there are different rules for overcoming them. We are taught these rules throughout life/the game. In this example the stars could represent how some things in life are achieved through rules we are never taught and how there are things in life we aren't even aware of nor are we aware that we can chase after them.

Ultimately it is something to be interpreted and you have to find  your own perspective on those stars; I doubt Blow will ever reveal the real meaning of their inclusion.

I can't tell if the initial post is supposed to be ironic.

Shooting your enemies is common to... you guessed it, 11 shooters all shooters.

Just eleven? I think anyone familiar with games would guess a much higher number than that, unless they were making a joke.

Shooting games are so simple to make because they're classified down to a science.

Hold on. What?! Who is classifying them? Scientists presumably. Still, where can we read this classification and study the science of shooting games?


Anyway, going along with what I think is the initial intent, here is my suggestion for altering a first person shooter:

Slow projectiles:
Have bullets, rockets, and such move incredibly slowly but do incredible damage (perhaps even insta-gib). Have them move slower than even the players. Obviously for this to be fun the rest of the game would need to be well designed. Perhaps levels would be labyrinthine so that the players could not see bullets coming from a distance away. Perhaps projectiles could blend in  with the environment so that players have to deliberately move slowly to be able to spot them (or move quick but risk being surprised). Ultimately I think if this shooting element was properly implemented it would create a very thoughtful type of gameplay as you set up several trajectories of projectiles in such a way that it tricks and traps your enemies into getting killed. I can also picture that after several minutes of play a typical map will be filled with an obstacle course of slow moving projectiles everywhere and that players have to become a lot more careful when moving around the arena.

I think it is worth noting that some older games have some clever takes on shooting. I know Duke Nukem had a shrink gun and it would make your enemies tiny so you could step on them. Unreal tournament had a teleporter which you could use to move around the arena and also telefrag your opponents. A quick bit of research shows that an FPS game called Blood had a weapon that was a voodoo doll that you could use to blind your enemy or make him drop his weapon. Half-life is a series with many unique FPS weapons such as the Gravity Gun, Snarks (small aliens that when thrown eat your opponents), and Pheropod (which summons aliens to fight for you). Also Portal's portal gun, Metroid's Freeze Gun, and Gears of Wars' Hammer of Dawn.

So, there you go.

I think the best advice you've gotten here is "Make games you want to play". Anything you make creatively should be something you yourself would enjoy if someone else had made it.

That being said I think your initial process of "ripping off a game" is absolutely valid. You need to engrave the physical/mechanical aspect of creation into your muscles before you can get to the creative facet of creation.

The problem in your first post seemed to focus on how you're disappointed or bored with your games and then give up and you don't know what to do ("um, a moving platform here?"), but you don't mention actually thinking about why they're boring. You need to think about things; introspection is another piece of good advice people have given you.

However, I believe you shouldn't think about mechanics. Focusing on mechanics and design is nonsense. Mechanics are just tools for achieving a certain goal. You need to focus on your goal.

My suggestion would be to focus  on 'feel'. What do you want the game to feel like? Follow gut instinct. Think about why you had fun playing that game you ripped off. If you didn't enjoy playing it then don't rip it off. As you rip off the game make sure to include the parts you enjoyed (like jumping on guys, jumping over gaps, finding treasure in blocks) and experiment with taking out some parts you don't enjoy (gathering coins, stairs). Now look at what has happen. Is your game fun? Does it feel like the game you want? (If I remade Mario I'd make it really fast, get rid of most of the platforming which slows things down, make it so as long as you have coins you can't die, and I would call it Sonic.)

This is the point you should start thinking about design and mechanics. Why did you achieve that particular feel? What makes your game fun or not fun and how does that compare to the original? What parts of your game work or don't work; why do you think that is? Change that part and see what happens.

As for inspiration, there is no way to go out and find inspiration, it finds you. Some people have certain things that tend to inspire them (music, concept art, other games, books, conversing with people, walking in the park, exercising, looking for things to fix) but no one can force inspiration to come. At some point that Greek muse will descend and light you on fire so that ideas are  flying through your head faster than you can get them on paper and you never know when that'll happen. So, as people have advised, keep a notebook handy.

But FIRST, just learn that physical act of creating until it is second nature. You're just starting at this and it's okay to copy the people that came before you even if it's an exact replica (nearly all great painters, writers, and game designers started this way) and eventually the inspiration will come, the creativity will come, and the understanding of what you're doing will come as well.

You are a college grad with an archaic computer only good for word processing and cruising internet forums. You start up a wry and witty gaming blog. You think internet people should check it out because they might enjoy it. The twist ending is that you were me, all along.

I live in Ukie Village so I could make it anytime this month, coolcats.

Maybe this isn't what you were hoping for but,
recently I finished reading Don Juan by Byron and Byron is oozing with clever language and jokes.
Here are a couple excerpts that I like:

Canto 10
"I.
When Newton saw an apple fall, he found
In that slight startle from his contemplation-
'Tis said (for I'll not answer above ground
For any sage's creed or calculation)-
A mode of proving that the earth turn'd round
In a most natural whirl, called "gravitation;"
And this is the sole mortal who could grapple,
Since Adam, with a fall, or with an apple.

II.
Man fell with apples, and with apples rose,
If this be true; for we must deem the mode
In which Sir Isaac Newton could disclose
Through the then unpaved stars the turnpike road,
A thing to counterbalance human woes:
For ever  since immortal man hath glow'd
With all kinds of mechanics, and full soon
Steam-engines will conduct him to the moon"

And this which takes place after a Turkish city fights off an assault by a Russian army.
Canto 7
"XLII.
Our friends, the Turks, who with loud "Allahs" now
Began to signalise the Russ retreat,
Were damnably mistaken; few are slow
In thinking that their enemy is beat,
(Or beaten, if you insist on grammar, though
I never think about it in a heat,)
But here I say the Turks were much mistaken,
Who hating hogs, yet wish'd to save their bacon."