Thank you for answering my email. So these are my responses to some of your comments.
“Keep the games small and simple at first so they get released.”
Hell yeah. I’m studying C++ right now, but I’m still on the basics (will learn Java next). I understand not to bite off more than I learn to chew. A past email mentioned that a lot of game designers start out early with variations of Pong, and then Asteroids. That seems perfectly fine and sensible to me. Plus it would be keeping with the “lateral thinking with withered technology” philosophy that Nintendo always succeeded with, and always declined when they didn’t follow.
As for the “get released” part, I plan on selling the games myself. Notch did it himself, and so can the rest of us when we work hard for it. I also noticed I have a silver necktie (or perhaps it’s light gray), so if Notch distinguishes himself with a hat (I think it’s a fedora), I will have my tie.
Also, as well as simple, I also am going to be diverse in the games I make. That way I won’t be stuck doing one type of game, and I also avoid trying to shoehorn different games into just a few IPs.
“Don’t get carried away…”
Well I have future plans, but they are just for the future right now. One of them is to eventually make a console for the games I make (and any digital games would be account-based, and available on all following systems). Yes, you mentioned about console destruction at the end of this post, but I’m guessing that would apply mainly to dumbed-down-PCs. Making games people want would mean they would want a box to play them on.
“… and start planning a huge MMORPG. It’s surprising how common a MMORPG is some people’s first game project.”
That certainly is biting off more than one learned to chew. I wouldn’t really know what to do anyway. I don’t really play those. The closest I’ve done is the browser game “Adventure Quest” a few years ago, or single player RPGs that play like MMOs: “Xenoblade” and “Final Fantasy XII”. And even if I played them, I’ve paid attention when you wrote about how many just fall flat because they try to be a “WoW killer”.
IF I were to try one, a goal would be making the online not as server dependent. What I mean is playing wouldn’t be locked into the server, so players could do things like play with LAN parties to go fight a boss, either because they want a private mission, or because they servers might be down. One advantage would be easy transition for players moving on to the sequel (one area which it seems Blizzard needs to figure out with WoW). Although a disadvantage would be hacking games when off the server. Yet if that can be worked around, it would make a cool way to play these games.
“Every single person had games under their belt before they hit it big.”
That is certainly true. I expect that hits I make will often come out of nowhere.
“I think the reason why this is the pattern is because people have to get comfortable with the craft including finishing and shipping a title.”
I also know that I shouldn’t just leap into big games after making some small games. I think unfortunately that is what High Voltage did with The Conduit, instead of trying to make “medium” games on their own until they could make big budget games. Despite all the games they made before, it clearly wasn’t enough experience to show how to make a really good game.
“Once you have experience shipping a title and putting it on the shelf, it puts everything in perspective.”
I don’t doubt that at all.
Also, I want to bring back enjoyable instruction booklets (even have digital forms with the games, the way GOG and PSN do, and PSOne Classics games even let you look at the instructions in the middle of the game). I remember how awesome instructions used to be during the NES and early SNES years, with drawings or enlarged screencaps with colorful text. But then it gradually turned to small screencaps with dry text. Who would want to read that? Even a slow, unskippable tutorial is preferable.
“Also be ambitious in the ideas, not necessarily the gameplay or engine (and the rest of that paragraph).”
Yeah, I say the latter two are about craftsmanship more than ambition. Those are of course important, but when the ideas and content are ambitious, those make all the difference.
I also say that ambition of ideas is what sets older movies, books, comic books, poetry, TV shows, music, and even anime and manga, apart from the new stuff. I could go on about that here, but I think you already have in older posts.
“Ambition doesn’t necessarily mean great graphics…”
That is preaching to the choir, big time. Heck, it’s already knowing that which made me a fan of your writing when I found out about them. I was so annoyed at the insistence that graphics would help the PS3 and 360 win the console war (although I’m now sure that was mainly from viral marketers) that you mentioning why the Wii would win got me to pay attention to your writing.
As for graphics specifically, high end graphics can work, but the game has to be awesome even without that. You’ve mentioned Origin’s games. I would like to add the original Star Fox to this. It certainly showcased what the SNES and Super FX chip could do, but it’s an awesome game on its own (and I agree a remake shouldn’t change a note of its awesome music), enough that it made me excited for polygon graphics in future games (basically, the first Star Fox was a better “killer app”, in a sense, for the N64 than almost all of the actual N64 games).
Or Resident Evil 4. It ended up being a showcase game for the Gamecube, and later the PS2, but it’s a great game even without that. While main the reason I hate Resident Evil 5 is Capcom were being, and I rarely use this term, cockteases about putting this game on the Wii (or giving the Wii any follow up to RE4), I found even more reason to hate it when I finally played it (my brother bought a used copy, so I didn’t have to give Capcom a cent), and found the game was one of the most creatively lazy games I ever played. I’m sure I could think of more lazy games, but this game was basically all flash, with no real original content other than sloppily mashing together a half-assed Resident Evil 4 and a half-assed Gears of War. That and a stupid plot twist I saw well before the game came out (Jill was thought to have died, not in past games but a flashback in this game, but she’s *gasp* really alive… and her character design is basically a palette swap of Sheva’s instead of what she looked like before).
So yeah, I know graphics is not what sells a game. I want to start by working on low end graphics, NOT to be “retro”, but because it’s just me making these games right now, and 8-bit level graphics works for me better than the “flash game” look that other indie developers use.
“… complicated gameplay or complex engine.”
Grand Theft Auto IV could be best described as this. It made the gameplay the opposite of what made the past games such a joy to play, and just threw lots of stuff in the world, that didn’t really add to anything other than “look at all that’s in this game!”. That the bad stuff in these games got the game all the praise from reviewers is a huge reason I don’t trust reviews anymore (and the CEO of Take Two even later declared that metacricit was the true measure of success for a game).
I would also say that combining complexity of engine and gameplay with an “art style” is the biggest reason DS owners didn’t flock to Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars, NOT because DS owners don’t like M rated games.
Now I think you know why I haven’t discussed the ambition for gaming ideas I have. I’ll just state that one game I really want to make is a hack-and-slash game with world exploration… like a certain series by a certain first party who then turned that series into puzzles. Let’s just way I’m taking a line from a US ad for the third game in that series, and taking it to another level.
“Notch turned himself into a multi-millionare based on Java programming. You can do as much.”
Thank you for your faith in me, and your faith in the rest of us. I just wish I could write about comic books the way you write about video games, as I feel the same way about them… actually worse, since they didn’t have a DS and Wii bright spot a few years ago, only more garbage.
“I’ve noticed gamers tent to reward games that are ambitious, or rather, have ‘a lot of spunk’. The original GTA games were extremely ambitious for a simple top down game.”
Firstly, does this mean the gaming industry is a bunch of Lou Grants? ;-)
Secondly, that perhaps best describes why Sonic originally caught on, just that imitators confused it with “attitude”.
“I’d look at game development as a journey. You start off going in one idea, and you’ll make discoveries that push you in anothe direction. When you are done with the game, you end up with a totally different game than what you thought you were making when you began. That is what is so much fun.”
I don’t doubt that either.
“I don’t think the big game companies with their multi million dollar budgets can do this anymore which might explain why their games feel so stiff, so soulless.”
That and so many other media.
I would also say that spending so much money on presentation has an adverse effect on the imaginations of the viewers and players. Some called it “leaves nothing to the imagination”, but that’s not quite the right way to state it. A better way would be “underestimates the imagination of the audience”, and “Let the audience fill in the gaps”. Yes, “show, don’t tell” is important (as “maternal” Samus violates that rule throughout Other M), but don’t show everything. That’s a big reason why Tron is a better film than Tron Legacy, despite neither having a strong story.
The only thing I can think to add is…
“Make friends with people who have been successful making and publishing games.”
We become who our friends are.
“Don’t make friends with people who fail or enjoy failing.”
Make friends with losers, you become a loser.
“Don’t be afraid of success.”
This was Oprah’s mantra. It sounds ridiculous, but I’m realizing that many people feel they don’t deserve success especially in entertainment.
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