next »

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

This is an old, old (2001 old) article I wrote about game design, which I probably disagree with completely today and would write very differently if I had to redo it, but it still might be worth linking to. It's pretty long, about 250+ pages, and not actually a tutorial on a specific thing as much as a tutorial on creating a game itself (the entire process), and parts of it (but only parts) are specific to the Ohrrpgce engine, but hopefully it fits this forum's topic.

http://rinku.castleparadox.com/Septa/ohrmonthly/0701designa.html

[SplinterOfChaos]

I just want to note from the beginning that I have some constructive criticism, and that my criticism is meant to be constructive. But, some of them are, yes, argumentative. I look forward to a reply on these differences of opinion.

It seems like a quite informative, deep, and thoughtful guide. Unfortunately, I find reading it very hard. Incredibly wordy. Sometimes, you need to write a long essay for someone to learn from it, but I saw entire paragraphs that only deserved two sentences.

Who's the audience? People wanting to design games, not so much code them? People who want to code AND design games? Based on the title, I'd say coders as coders "create" things and designers just design. Based on the content, I'd say designers as you don't suggest Tetris for your first game. Not only that, but you exclude simple, abstract games from your tut by shoveling story and linearity v non-linearity into it. Writing who an essay's for is a very important part and I would've wanted to read that before the section on deciding to make a game.

"Chances are, if you are creative enough to want to make a game, you've done things like sketching in class or writing fanfics."
I know a lot of people who want to make games. Whenever I tell them I plan to make a career of it, they suggest I make Guitar Hero 3 or Halo 4. They want to make a game; are they creative? Also: I don't sketch and I write fiction, not fanfiction. I don't like the stereotype "sketching in class or writing fanfics".

One example is the third paragraph under "What is a good game?". I really couldn't stand reading that many lines about how people like things that are good more than things that are bad. You just have too many examples for things and it becomes old fast. On the other hand, most people have to few and don't understand the subjects well enough to realize it.

Variety is the spice of life, and good writing. You have variety, just not close enough together due to the mentioned issue.

Later, talking about why games are fun, you introduce some biases into the mix. You keep saying "you". Speaking to your reader like that is supposed to make it more universal and I'm supposed to find it easier to agree. That'd work if I agreed. You never admit that the biases are yours and not mine. That really bugs me. It's way too specific to be talking as if I thought it true.

I stopped reading. My core irk is I want to read this and learn from it, but it's not worth my time. It'd take months to get through and you don't have good word economy. You have great knowledge (though some is philosophical, thus arguable, and I do argue). I wish it was in a format I could learn from.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Uh, you did read the first post, saying that I wrote that back in 2001, right? I think it's unfair to criticize the writing of something I wrote so long ago, considering that I was very young then and wasn't a very good writer. I even said that I'd write it very differently today! I'm not what good criticism of something I wrote so long ago is, considering that I don't make those writing mistakes today.

[Moosader]

Maybe you should have revised it before posting it as a legit tutorial.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I think it's way too much involved to revise right now, and far more effort than it's worth, since it's 200+ pages, deals with an engine I don't use anymore, and contains a lot I disagree with today. If I had the time to revise it I'd just write a new one instead.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'legit tutorial' though. I do think there are many people who could benefit from reading it. It has some good parts. For instance, the section on maptiles is pretty good, I don't disagree with anything I wrote there: http://rinku.castleparadox.com/Septa/ohrmonthly/0701designa04b.html -- it talks about how to get terrain-border maptiles to look less grid-like:

[GregWS]

Um, OK.  If that's the case, then please highlight the "good" sections in the first post so people could just jump to those.  I might even check out that section on tiles (I think good games look like they don't use them even when they do).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'd have to re-read it all for that! But okay, when I get time I'll skim it and point out the parts I like (but anyone else could do that as well).

[tok]

I think it's a useful resource, for what it is: An intensive analysis of why various elements of games suck or don't, a bunch of general advice on how to make games that don't suck, interleavened with odd bits of philosophy and opinion, for various reasons. I don't agree with all of it, and it's huge, but it's hell of useful, or what I've read of it is. I don't think you'd get as much out of it by making rinku choose the good bits as you would if you went through it yourself, if only because what's good is subjective, and pretty much all of what I've read so far is good for somebody.

[SplinterOfChaos]

I think it's way too much involved to revise right now, and far more effort than it's worth, since it's 200+ pages, deals with an engine I don't use anymore, and contains a lot I disagree with today. If I had the time to revise it I'd just write a new one instead.

And yet, you expect me to respect it as better than my own intuition. If you want me to respect it, you have to respect it. If you disagree wit one sentence in it, you have to change it. If you're not willing to do the work to have a great resource, why should I do the 200+ pages of work to read it?

Tocky: I mostly agree. I think maybe a person could look at the particularly interesting parts and skip the subjectively worthless parts. It's just, what's helpful isn't always in the parts you think. One should read even things that might not help him/her, but when there's 200+ pages...

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

And yet, you expect me to respect it as better than my own intuition. If you want me to respect it, you have to respect it. If you disagree wit one sentence in it, you have to change it. If you're not willing to do the work to have a great resource, why should I do the 200+ pages of work to read it?

Tocky: I mostly agree. I think maybe a person could look at the particularly interesting parts and skip the subjectively worthless parts. It's just, what's helpful isn't always in the parts you think. One should read even things that might not help him/her, but when there's 200+ pages...

Why do you believe I want you to respect it as better than your own intuition? It's a tutorial, not a bible. Tutorials are meant for people to look through, take what's useful out of it, and ignore the rest.

I think it's nonsensical to say that if you disagree with a single sentence in something, that it should be changed, even eight years after it was written. Should we all constantly go back to every game we ever made 8+ years ago and change every little bit that we feel that we could do better at today? Should we do that for every piece of music we've ever written, every drawing we've ever drawn?

[Melly]

Personally Rinku, if you don't agree with it anymore, I don't think you should have posted it.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I didn't say I don't agree with it, just that I don't agree with it completely, and would have written it differently today. I don't think anyone can be expected to agree 100% with something they wrote so long ago. I think a lot of it is good and useful.

[Hajo]

250 pages looks intimidating to me. I'm not sure if a beginner will read a 250 page tutorial.

Maybe you should advertise it differently. If I read "tutorial" I want something that helps me to get into a topic, and gives me results in ... 10 minutes, but not much more than 30. I'm impatient.

If you sell this as "complete in depth guide to games and their philosophy", I'm more inclined to read it. Then I'll not try to get a grasp in ten minutes, but make a hardcopy of it, and read a bit of it every evening. Tutorials I'm looking for if I need quick help. 250 page books I read if I feel a need for a deeper understanding of a topic.

[GregWS]

250 pages looks intimidating to me. I'm not sure if a beginner will read a 250 page tutorial.

Maybe you should advertise it differently. If I read "tutorial" I want something that helps me to get into a topic, and gives me results in ... 10 minutes, but not much more than 30. I'm impatient.

If you sell this as "complete in depth guide to games and their philosophy", I'm more inclined to read it. Then I'll not try to get a grasp in ten minutes, but make a hardcopy of it, and read a bit of it every evening. Tutorials I'm looking for if I need quick help. 250 page books I read if I feel a need for a deeper understanding of a topic.

Very astute point. 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't think posting it in the tutorial forum constitutes advertising it as a tutorial...

And, even though I said it's a good idea to skim it and look at the table of contents and only read the parts that are relevant to your game, I disagree with the idea that a beginner would not read 250 pages. When I was first learning game development I read pretty much every book out there on the topic, including some that were nearly a thousand pages long. I think you underestimate the ambition of a beginner.

As an aside, I started outlining what something like would look like if I were to rewrite it today, so maybe one day I'll write another book-length text on independent game development. Probably not soon, though.

[GregWS]

Maybe just add in the topic line, in brackets, "(small book)" or something to similar effect.

The only people who would avoid it would be the ones who wouldn't want to read it anyway, so no loss.  Then no one would come to the thread and be taken aback by the fact that it's 250 pages.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I don't see a problem with that, will add in [250 pages] or something. But really, it's meant to be skimmed, not read through from beginning to end! More of a collection of individual articles.

[Skofo]

Come on, guys. Don't be so hard on the dude. Writing 250 pages takes a lot of work and dedication! All you people are doing is criticizing the fact that it's big, that it has strong opinions on abstract topics, that it contains arbitrarily bad writing practices and that he didn't revise it today when he wrote it seven years ago and instead just posted this because he thought that someone out there by some chance might find a big chunk of old game design opinions and tutorials useful or something.

Why let something like this go to waste? Even if it does have all the bad things everyone's pointing out, here is one good thing: it is organized! Reading different perspective on abstract topics like "What is love?" and "What is a good game?" helps you refine your opinions on those things, and if you wanted to read about something specific then you could easily find it via the neat tables of contents. Also, the later parts are so specific and closed minded that this might as well be titled "Creating an Old Japanese RPG", which doesn't really appeal to indie game developers who love to really bend the traditions of game development much, but that does not mean that this is useless. Much to the contrary. There are many interesting tidbits to be found in this, and it is actually pretty damn useful in some parts. I've particularly learned quite a bit from the spriting sections, they're a lot better than most specialized spriting tutorials out there today.

I say, kudos to you, Rinku, for making this back then and posting it right now! If I kept an online museum of indie gaming and its history, I'd definitely put this on display in the lore section.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

The reason it may seem specific to jRPGs is that it was written for the Ohrrpgce community, which is an engine focused on creating games like jRPGs. So it kind of assumes that genre for most of it.

I also wouldn't say that that genre of game doesn't appeal to indie game developers, because even today it's one of the more popular genres for indie developers to create games in -- two recent ones are the Aveyond series and Barkley: Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden.

[Skofo]

I also wouldn't say that that genre of game doesn't appeal to indie game developers, because even today it's one of the more popular genres for indie developers to create games in -- two recent ones are the Aveyond series and Barkley: Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden.

Yeah, I worded that wrong. I meant to say that the thought of creating an old-school jRPG doesn't always appeal to indie game developers, so I thought the title might've mislead some people and that might have been a partial cause to the animosity towards this. All tutorials that introduce concepts and instructions for creation on an artistic medium will always be biased in some way, though, anyway. Anyway, that wasn't all that relevant to what I was talking about either way so my bad.

The rest of my points still stand, though. Shame on [almost] all of you!