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I’m only making business card sized games now

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Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#61

Post by ben-schaaf »

tomc1985 wrote: post #42
toomuchequate wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>developers are constantly taken advantage of, made to crunch for no pay, mass layoffs, etc. Lives have been ruined, and for what? So you could watch your horse poop or play dominoes in an open world game? Hard to feel too bad about people working on leisure products. I'm sure if you swapped out Golf/NASCAR, people here would be less sympathetic.

> Hard to feel too bad about people working on leisure products. How does that make any difference? It's not like the work is any less hard, or more fun.

If the work was less fun, or at least less desired, then the wages and hours would match the rest of the software industry.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#62

Post by tomc1985 »

ben-schaaf wrote: post #61
tomc1985 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hard to feel too bad about people working on leisure products. How does that make any difference? It's not like the work is any less hard, or more fun.

If the work was less fun, or at least less desired, then the wages and hours would match the rest of the software industry.

The work is desired because kids grow up with dreams to make videogames, not because it is easy, or fun. Very few of them pay attention to industry conditions until it is too late. Very common in aspirational careers

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#63

Post by goldenchrome »

jrockway wrote: post #3

> We all know that modern games have become bloated, weighed down by useless features, achievements, anti piracy measures, piles of assets, and other junk. Not only that but developers are constantly taken advantage of, made to crunch for no pay, mass layoffs, etc. Lives have been ruined, and for what? So you could watch your horse poop or play dominoes in an open world game? I am not sure that it's fair to compare a…

I don't think OP is actually suggesting that everyone should play business card skiing games instead of Overwatch. This argument is overkill. It's like critiquing a hobbyist woodworker because the Burj Khalifa exists.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#64

Post by ehnto »

sigmaprimus wrote: post #31

Less bloated software is always a good idea, I am a bit concerned with the idea that smaller source equals better programs. It seems to me that by sacrificing source size he has lost some readability, his example may be <1K but it's at the cost of increased difficulty debugging, porting and modding. IMHO removing formatting just to reduce source size and or line count is as bad as loading a huge library only to use o…

I agree. Code is ultimately for human consumption, so optimize for human readability and good organization.

That is of course very different to bloat. Bringing in hundreds of dependencies, tracking, analytics and using engineering patterns that are over-complex for the use case are probably habits we coule get better at in the industry.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#65

Post by kakarot »

KilledByAPixel wrote: post #50
stickfigure wrote: post #16

In fairness, he's optimizing for "fun to write", not "fun to play". It reminds me of a cartoon I saw 25 years ago, "the perfect airplane" drawn from various perspectives: * The perfect airplane (pilot's perspective): Super sleek jet fighter. * The perfect airplane (mechanic's perspective): A giant pile of access hatches in vaguely airplane shape. * The perfect airplane (builder's perspective): A 2x4 with another 2x4…

Do you think great artists make things that are fun to make, or do you think they really just try to make stuff that other people will enjoy?

A great artist makes things that are exceptionally unique and thought-provoking. A successful artist makes things that have wide enough appeal to generate sustainable income. Whether the piece is fun is irrelevant to the caliber of an artist, I think. Some artists toil night and day for finished products that mean nothing to anyone but them.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#66

Post by dymk »

m463 wrote: post #57
skellera wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did this opinion start taking such a hold? Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games but I’ve been seeing more and more people saying this here. Could someone who feels this way expand on why they have such a negative view on games? Just curious if it’s personal, cultural, or something else? Also, is it directed at complex games with storylines, online multiplayer, or mobile games meant to pull…

I think some games do have a dark side, crafted by the creators to hook into the psyche of the players. I talked to a developer of a popular free-to-play game, and he told me of many of the psychological hooks they use in their game. Exploitation of hoarding behavior, community fame for specific players, random occurrences that are carefully scripted, etc. Nowadays it's hard to find games free of ulterior motives. Ye…

Videogames have always had "money mixed in", profitable videogame studios are as old as videogames themselves, and your glasses are just rose tinted.

I'm not even sure what kind of "old" game you're picturing that you think didn't have "money mixed in" - tetris? pong? goldeneye?

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#67

Post by _slyo »

skellera wrote: post #44
meditate wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally reject "hours of enjoyment" as a metric for value and depth of a purchased game. It's good to hear that you've had positive experiences, but the dark side is that for many it drifts towards being an addictive time-suck that eats money for nothing in return.

When did this opinion start taking such a hold? Out of all places, I didn’t think HN would be so anti-games but I’ve been seeing more and more people saying this here. Could someone who feels this way expand on why they have such a negative view on games? Just curious if it’s personal, cultural, or something else? Also, is it directed at complex games with storylines, online multiplayer, or mobile games meant to pull…

My grandfather believes that video games are a "scourge" for young men today. I used to think he was old-fashioned for believing this, but I have come around to agreeing with him.

I wasted a large chunk of my life on Counterstrike, Arma 3, DayZ Mod, PUBG, and countless console games. _Thousands_ of hours in total. For me, games were more than an escape or simply a way to unwind. For me, they were a well-hidden addiction. They were an obstacle to reaching my potential. I can't see myself going back to games again and still being as happy as I am now.

I miss games sometimes -- I still occasionally watch them on Twitch or YouTube -- but quitting cold turkey over a year ago has been one of the best decisions I ever made. That I didn't give them up 10 years earlier is a source of great regret.

I'm probably not going to ban my children from playing games they buy with their own money, but I'll definitely have plenty of long talks with them about the dangers of gaming.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#68

Post by mysterydip »

KilledByAPixel wrote: post #49
joemi wrote: post #24

I'm assuming that the business card size restriction is an April Fool's joke. There's already a pretty big movement of people dissatisfied with the big AAA games: the indie video game scene. I can't believe someone in the video game world wouldn't know about that. Actually, now I wonder if the whole post was actually supposed to be taking the piss out of indie game developers? If so, that's pretty damned elitist, as…

Hi, I'm the author of the post. I actually am an indie dev myself and have many smallish games as well as worked in AAA for years. I think indie developers tend to get it right more often, but anyone can fall into the wrong approach of over-complicating their games with needless features that actually detract from the fun. Like take for example RDR2. Imagine if instead of having all those silly mini-games, they just…

I think the code length restriction is a great way to distill a game concept into the "core fun", which is what more people should be focusing on when making them IMHO.

If you go on say /r/gamedev, you'll see all kinds of posts of people stuck down rabbit holes of negligible design, like how to make the best hair physics. A lone developer could spend a year's worth of free time implementing things that don't make the game any more fun or complete.

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#69

Post by bigiain »

goldenchrome wrote: post #63
jrockway wrote: post #3

> We all know that modern games have become bloated, weighed down by useless features, achievements, anti piracy measures, piles of assets, and other junk. Not only that but developers are constantly taken advantage of, made to crunch for no pay, mass layoffs, etc. Lives have been ruined, and for what? So you could watch your horse poop or play dominoes in an open world game? I am not sure that it's fair to compare a…

I don't think OP is actually suggesting that everyone should play business card skiing games instead of Overwatch. This argument is overkill. It's like critiquing a hobbyist woodworker because the Burj Khalifa exists.

Yep.

I enjoy music. I can appreciate both huge budget years-in-the-studio album recordings, as well as three young jazz players in a small bar who've not even rehearsed together bouncing ideas off standards.

I'm glad the OP has found a niche they're happy to create their art in. Good on them. (I bet I wouldn't much enjoy working at Blizzard either, in spite of the amazing games they're capable of creating.)

Re: I’m only making business card sized games now

#70

Post by ToFab123 »

munificent wrote: post #9
vaidhy wrote: post #6

It looks like a fun programming project..However, I am getting lost as to the purpose. Why write something so hard to comprehend just to get it into ~< 1K unless the only purpose is to get it small? Why not a larger game that is more fun to play? Why not a larger game that is still tight code, but good to teach game mechanics?

Why play videogames at all? What does that accomplish?

Does it have to accomplish anything? Isn't it OK with you to do something for no other reason than is fun?
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