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What it takes to make a game by yourself

dillonshook.com

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Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#151

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

barrysteve wrote: post #87
TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, what's that?

Hate speech in modern use is attested by 1990. The term is found in a translation, published in 1898, of the Anglo-Saxon poem called "The Fall of the Angels," telling of Satan's revolt, where it renders Anglo-Saxon hetespraece : Dear was he to our Lord; but it could not be hidden That his angel began to be proud, Lifted himself against his Leader, sought hate-speech, Words of boasting against him, and would not serve…

Ah. So it's a contraction of "freedom of speech" and "none of my business".

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#152

Post by intelVISA »

piinecone wrote: post #105

I love reading these kinds of posts. Whenever I’m reminded that I’m not alone, I get a little bit more self-compassion and that makes me more excited to release my game and helps me appreciate all the progress and hard work to date. I’ve been working on King of Kalimpong [0] on and off since playtesting a one-week prototype of it in 2014. I had no idea how much work a networked physics vehicle/movement shooter game w…

Looks great, reminds me a lil of Vigilante 8.

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#153

Post by meheleventyone »

c0mptonFP wrote: post #141
meheleventyone wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it’s good to intentionally go between the micro and macro and define some design goals or pillars. The latter give you a razor by which to judge the game and the former stops you getting stuck in the weeds. I broadly agree with the Romero quote, getting the game playable as quickly as possible and keeping it playable is easily the most effective way of crafting a game because it enables you to routinely p…

> keeping it playable is easily the most effective way of crafting a game because it enables you to routinely playtest and understand your progress. Obviously. > A key element of that is making the game legible and for that you do need to spend some time on “polish” because it’s an intractable element of the whole. What does "legible" mean? Polishing means making something production-ready. A polished feature contain…

Legible means clear enough to be understandable and polish can be a clear part of that including selling the game feel. It’s a pretty classic move to under-appreciate how much feedback from a game players need to understand it.

Your definition of polish is much narrower than mine and I fundamentally disagree with you on the value of polishing during development through bitter experience.

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#155

Post by checkyoursudo »

intelVISA wrote: post #150
checkyoursudo wrote: post #124

Have any of you made a game, not just by yourself but only for yourself? I haven't (other than some basic terminal-based games when learning new languages, etc), but I've thought of a few that I know I would like but don't want to put in the time/effort to make them something that someone else would like. I also wonder about what to do when you have an idea that you know is way bigger than yourself, but you're not in…

Can't speak for Unity but you can make a pretty complete Unreal game solo in around a month or so if you've done it before. I'd love to release some of my work (for free ofc) but I'm never truly happy with how limited my 3D art skills are so I always shelf it after finishing all the fun programming bits.

I am in the camp of "if a game is fun then I don't care what it looks like" but also of the "I could not possibly publish a piece of art that looks like shit" personality type. IOW, I generally demand more perfection of myself than I would ever require of someone else. So I think I feel where you are coming from. :)

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#156

Post by hypertele-Xii »

stevage wrote: post #154

Seems like an odd choice of game format for a solo dev, since it seems to be essentially making 7 separate games?

Counter-intuitively, the more games you make at once, the less effort each one takes. Because you can share resources between them. Of course, they have to have something in common to capitalize on this.

I'm aiming to make about 20 games at once, at the moment.

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#157

Post by hypertele-Xii »

gmueckl wrote: post #41
aschearer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. For a long time I felt games weren't art in the same vein as e.g. painting. More recently I've come to feel that's not true. As you say, making compelling games requires compelling art across multiple mediums. Add on top of that interactivity and agency! That's part of what's so satisfying about making them. It's an incredible challenge and measure of your ability.

But is the actual game, as in, taking actions obeying a premade set of rules, art? That is the essence of every game. We use various representations, physical or virtual, for representing the game. Yet, the representation is not the game.

Reading a book is also obeying a premade set of rules, the meaning of words, to convey art.

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#158

Post by hypertele-Xii »

flykespice wrote: post #47

I haven't made a game yet (not even a prototype) though I have been tempting for years. I can't point the issue, whether my coding skills aren't up to the task or because I can't make assets for my game, or because I can't hire a staff and my game ideas scope needs a team to realize them. The problem is I don't know what is the right next step to take in front of all the issues aforementioned, and I have been thinkin…

Let's start from step 1: What kind of game do you want to make, and why do you want to make it that way?

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#159

Post by gmueckl »

archagon wrote: post #83
gmueckl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is the actual game, as in, taking actions obeying a premade set of rules, art? That is the essence of every game. We use various representations, physical or virtual, for representing the game. Yet, the representation is not the game.

Can taking actions that obey a premade set of rules communicate something to the player? I think it can. For example, Jonathan Blow has played around with this notion in Braid and The Witness.

You must separate the game from its presentation when considering game as art. Chess figurines can be artful, but that does not mean that the act of playing them becomes art. That same separation translates to Braid and The Witness: how is requiring to press a button to reverse the player actions in a specific way in itself art? I'm deliberately separating that from the notion of "time reversal" here because that's how that action is embedded into the game's presentation. The actual physical flow of time for the player in the real world is unaffected by the button press; so this separation is justified. Therefore, the final flow reversal from the phantasy to the real plot in the last level is just a twist that happens in the presentation and not a consequence of the game rules.

The Witness is a slightly more interesting case in that it presents a sequence of evolving puzzle rules. The rule evolution again relies on presentation aspects to achieve the "twist": early puzzles are clearly framed to stress the notion that puzzles are limited to clearly discernable canvases. Later puzzles dissolve these boundaries until they are no longer present and the puzzles are simply part of the environment. This sequence is only partially gated by the game (whether or sequencing/gating in a game is part of the rules or the presentation is another can of worms). The only real change from clearly framed to unframed puzzles here is that the problem statement transforms into finding the right viewpoint. Which part of this is art?

Re: What it takes to make a game by yourself

#160

Post by wedesoft »

moviewise wrote: post #131

Good luck to all indie game developers! If you need a break, seeing this documentary about it will be worth your time: Indie Game: The Movie (2012) https://moviewise.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/indie-game-the-mo... And, if you need some encouragement or diversion about the joy and reward of learning and how it get help you achieve "flow" and happiness from your work, please read: Some Advice On Happiness From A Few Good…

Bought it from the website https://buy.indiegamethemovie.com/ and just watching it. Thanks a lot for the tip! Really engaging documentary.
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