[PornoCon]

-Attend at least one of each: Anime Expo, E3, IGF, ComicCon, and PornoCon. Preferably costumed and ready to rock. Oh, and a game jam sometime soon, when I can make it plausible.

Interesting...

Well, I have a lot :

Game-related :
- Finish my game
- Acquire fanbase
- Have people make fan art of my game
- Have people create mods of my game
- Have people translate my game in another language
- Have people create a TV tropes page of my game
- Have people make a Let's Play of my game
- Have someone make a game they say was inspired by my game
- Be able to make a living out of my game (damn that'd be nice)
- Get recognized on-line
- Get recognized IRL
- Win an IGF award

Not Game-related :
- Learn how to ride a bike
- Learn how to ride a boat
- Visit : Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia, Central Asia, North Korea, Japan, India, Nepal, Borneo, New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, Saudi Arabia, Jerusalem, Dubai, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Greenland, Canada, New York, California, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina and Antarctica (yeah that's a lot )
- Have a house with a modern design, something like Richard Garriott's Britannia Manor
- Go into space
- Travel to another celestial body (that is, a planet, a moon or an asteroid)

...Yeah that's quite ambitious, but, hey, one can dream. ^^

Call it selfish, but I want to make a game that people lose their
social lives to play. Something that they decide will be their new
life. Its been done before, and its still being done now. (I have had
friends who haven't left their houses due to Minecraft)

ASnogarD brings up some valid points on how to keep a player from
raging, which is also a way to immerse the player... but if a game
makes you mad, isn't that a good reason to keep playing? I've known
many a people to break their laptop on a game called Super Meat Boy,
yet promptly pay to get it fixed only to continue on..

...Yeah, okay, you freak me out a little bit, but I'm going to give
you my opinion anyway.

First off, I disagree with the general consensus in this thread. Graphics, music, story, characters, etc, all play a part in creating this feeling of immersion, but it's far from being the most important. The most important part is if the player likes your game.

I mean, it sounds silly but it's true. Just like every guy who grew up in the '90s, I was very into the Harry Potter series for a while. I could sit on the couch for an entire day barely eating and drinking, and I would get so into it that I would shut down everything around me. Yet to my knowledge, Harry Potter doesn't have high-resolution graphics, 3D particle effects, or a soundtrack composed by Harry Gregson Williams.

So, to answer your question, how do you make a game so addictive that it makes people put it over the real world ? Well, you don't. According to Parks Associates, there is about 135 millions gamers in the US alone, and each one of them is different. You mentioned Minecraft : some people love it because for them it's the ultimate sandbox, and they like the emergent gameplay the game offers. Some people loathe it because they have no idea what the fuck they're supposed to do, and they prefer a linear game. Some people love FPS because they like the competition aspect, and they're always trying to better themselves. Some people loathe them because they think it's always the same thing. Even MMORPGS, commonly considered the most addictive genre out there, cannot please everyone. (I played WoW. I quit before reaching level 60. I didn't see the point of killing the same enemies and taking the same quests over and over again just to see a halo of light surrounding my character and the words "Congratulations, you have reached level XX !" popping up on the screen.)

I think you see my point : you can't make a game that's going to be addictive for everyone. First, determine what your target audience is, then try to make the best game for them.

The greatest game is a social life, it is just too hardcore for
many players who struggle with its control scheme and don't like
grinding for experience.

That is one of the most beautiful quote I've ever seen. You're going in my signature.

Damn, didn't saw that thread when I created my account. Oh well, better late than never.

My name is Maxime, I'm a 20 year old french student in computer science. I've been meaning to do games for a LONG time, even though my taste changed a lot throughout the years. I grew up mostly with adventure games from the '90s, so I was really into very linear games that focused mostly on the story and the characters. Then I discovered Dwarf Fortres, Minecraft, and I started enjoying sandbow games which allow emergent gameplay. I'm currently working on my first game, which, weirdly, tries to find a compromise between those two completely opposed types of game.

I've been lurking here for a while now, ever since I realized I'll never be able to make the games I want to make if I became a professional game designer. I hope I'll meet some fellow indie devs. ^^

Every game that lists Dwarf Fortress as one of its inspiration is a game to watch out for in my book I also like the art style. Very Knytt-ish

And I would have to side with Claw and peous : B looks much better

Edit : Wait a minute, there's a C and a D ? How come I didn't saw them on my computer ? o_O Well, in that case I'll have to settle for C instead. Maybe D but it's not blocky enough.

Here are things. They have shiny.

As a guy who grew up with the NES and one of the few who actually preferred the second Zelda over the first one, that screenshot just sent waves of nostalgia surging through me. I don't know if it was made on purpose, but it looks just like the game's dungeons.

I'm pretty sure I'm not being really original stating this, but your artwork looks absolutely amazing. I'm downloading the game right now, gonna try this out.

Thanks for your comment ! Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, I got kinda busy those last couple of days.

About the forests : the density of trees is going to be a parameter : the further you go into the forest, the more trees you'll have, the more enemies you'll encounter, etc... Also, I just added lakes and swamps, so there'll be even more diversity. Now the next step is to create what I call "Points of Interests", that is, all the interesting stuff that will be placed at random on the map, like caves, wells, springs, haunted mansions, etc...

[Canvasser.]

Your game's name has the merit of being original, but the problem with names like that, is that you can't instantly know what it's about. Very few people know Kandinsky, it won't evoke anything to them. Just a thought.

I'm glad!

Great thread ! I have tons of ideas for my game's name, but I can't choose.

Are you open to suggestions? How about Generation Quest?

That's actually a very good idea ! I'm not sure about "Generation", but Generated Quest sounds nice. The only problem is that I googled the term and 24 millions results came up...

I'm making a game about Canvassing. It's called Canvasser.

Simple and efficient. :D I can't wait to see what a game about canvassing looks like ^^

[Quest²]

Great thread ! I have tons of ideas for my game's name, but I can't choose.

It's a text-based, randomly-generated adventure game. First of all, I want to make something with the word "Quest", because all the classics from the '80s used it. (King's Quest, Space Quest, Quest for Glory, etc...)

I came up with Quest², the intended meaning being that adventure games take a new dimension, or something like that, but it just looks weird. I don't want any special characters in the title. So I came up with Fortuna's Quest, based on the roman goddess of luck and randomness... but it reminds me more of fortune in terms of wealth, so... not good.

The current working title is Alea's Quest, even though it doesn't mean anything because Alea is neither a goddess in real life, or in-game, but that's the best title I could find...

Help me out here guys

Okay, I created this thread mostly to get some feedback, so why not start now. I'm currently working on the generation of the map itself (kind of important in a generated game). I made a graphical version to better realize what it will look like. Try to imagine that all the « squares » of the map below will be game areas (like this)



Here's another one :



Brown is mountains, blue is water (rivers and ocean, soon there'll be lake), yellow is beach/sand, light green is grassland, dark green is forest, purple is haunted forest.

I don't really like the way the forests look, but I don't know if I can find a better solution. The rivers look kinda weird too, but it doesn't bother me as much. They're obstacles you'll need to cross, so the more convoluted they are, the better in my opinion. What do you think ?

[Now, hold your horses, Missy. A randomly-generated adventure game ? Isn't that... a bit weird ?]

Alea's Quest is the working title of a project I've been meaning to do for a very long time. It's quite ambitious, hence this DevLog. It'll help me keep up with it.

On the surface, AQ is just like your average 80's adventure game. You play an AFGNCAAP (Ageless-Faceless-Gender-Neutral-Culturally-Ambiguous-Adventure-Person, for the heretics out there), you just landed on an uninhabited island/peninsula, and your quest is to find 3 currently-undefined MacGuffins. There is a major difference however : all the features of the map, its buildings and the items they contain are generated at random.

Now, hold your horses, Missy. A randomly-generated adventure game ? Isn't that... a bit weird ?

Yeah, I can understand your confusion. Most adventure games are very linear : every obstacle can only be overcome in one way, and every item has only one use. They focus mostly on the story and the caracters. A few years back, those were for me the characteristics of a good game. Then I discovered Dwarf Fortress.

DF changed everything I thought about games. It's a sandbox game, which means there is no plot, and it's randomly generated, which means the setting and the story will never look as good as if it had been designed by a real person. But it doesn't matter. The gameplay is so vast and so complex that the story literally creates itself as you're playing : you're really living YOUR own adventure.

Here's an example : one day, while playing the game in Adventure mode, I received a quest to kill a giant. It was way too powerful for me, so I devised a plan : I would ignite a tree to start a forest fire, then drag the giant out of its cave so it would get caught up in the smoke. It was rather laborious, and I almost killed myself in the process, but I succeeded. It was wonderful, because it was not planned. It was me, who chose among all the resources the game offered me, and came up with a solution to find my way out of this.

That's why I created Alea's Quest : I want to take this concept up to eleven. Every object in the game, rather than having a specific use, has a set of attributes (for example, its size, or the material it's made of), thust they can be used anyway you want, and each obstacle you'll encounter will require you to come up with an original solution. The walls of the temple are closing in on you ? Quick, pick up an item that is long and solid enough to hold it. Need an extra bag ? Why don't you grab that potato bag over here, pierce it with that bronze pick you got earlier, pass a rope through the hole and use it as a shoulder strap. A troll is blocking your path ? Set the bridge on fire thanks to an improvised molotov cocktail made off a bottle of whisky and a burning silk scarf as a fuse. Etc...

I don't know if I'll be able to go that far, but that's what I'm striving for.

Sounds intriguing... Would it be possible to see what it looks like ?

Well, the graphical interface isn't done yet, and besides, the game is still in french. But if you want to see what it will look like, here you go :



Yes, it's text-based. No, don't run away.

It will have a relatively simple interface, because it needs to display the in-game time, and stuff such as your hunger and your thirst. The text will be colored (dangerous things will be written in red, the description of your surroundings in blue, etc...) But that's it. I don't want to put real graphics, first of all because it would be too damn long (it's already going to take some time sticking with the current plan), and it would prevent me from putting everything I want in the game.

And when will it be out ?

That's a damn good question. I have no idea. I have never work on a project of such a scale. I'd like to say I'll be able to give you a beta version in early 2013, but I'm not really sure... Maybe a bit later. Or maybe it will be out by the end of the year. Or maybe not. (I'm not being really useful here, am I ?)

The only thing I can tell you, is that I'll post more updates here as progress is being made. Stay tuned. Oh, and I'll also try to update this Twitter page, and this Facebook page. I said "try". I don't ususally use those things very often.