Indie Game Development: The Thread

[Oskuro]

Warning: Tear inducing* story ahead! Tread thread with care!

My lifelong dream has been to design videogames. And I really mean lifelong, I often declined playing with TMNT toys in favour of dreaming up game concepts.
All those epic toy-martial-arts battles (in wich, somehow, no-one ever lost) are long gone, but my lifelong dream remains.

Of course, now that I'm a bit more versed in how the market works, and actually work in IT for a living, I'm reluctantly pushing the dream into the "do it as a hobby" part of my priorities... Wich means... INDIE DEVELOPMENT!

So now you'll be wondering, "why is this <insert gross adjective> inflicting his delusions upon us?", and an excellent question that is! Mainly I just wanted to point out that I'm not the typical game-dev wannabe who picked up the idea after playing Halo, and also that I'm perfectly aware of the hurdles out there, so no need to harass me with "you are delusional" comments (not that that'll stop you, but hey...).


Now, getting to the point, I'd like to ask the masses (unwashed or perfectly groomed) their opinions on the subject of Indie Gaming, that is, what do you think could make an indie game interesting?

To avoid the typical half-assed replies, let me state shortly what defines Indie Develoment:

a) Lack of Funding





Yes, that's it. You can be a creative mastermind, the holy grail of programming gurus, or a psi-enabled graphic artist, but, without money, you're screwed.
In other words, top-notch graphics, exquisite sound, or a rad packaging are out, as well as invasive ad campaigns, or a Con booth. So, gameplay wise, what do you people think would make a nice game?


Now, a few disclaimers:

Firstly, I'm not looking for game ideas (like in certain other thread about an MMO), I'd just like to know what people think makes a good (i.e. fun) game, in order to find out how delusional I am that someone would actually like my ideas.
Secondly, I've read many articles on the subject, but given that each article is written by one person, just getting a few replies here will be more... diverse. And probably fun.
Thirdly, Naysayers can suck my keyboard. If people devote time to fix bugs in the original Pacman, then it is plausible that someone out there doesn't care if their games are not "Triple A" polygon-fests.




*Tears may be caused by sadness, laughter, boredom, general emotion, or allergies.

[Sarevok]

gameplay wise, what do you people think would make a nice game?

I don't know the answer to that but I can tell you what would make another crappy low budget game.

1. The games main selling point is it's "story.

2. It is "genre breaking", "reinvents the genre", "a new genre" or has anything to do with the word "genre".

3. The second time one plays it one exits quickly out of boredom and repetiveness.

4. It requires zero thinking and only mouse clicking for a few hours.

5. The AI cheats.

Avoid these common mistakes like the plague if your serious about this.

[Darth Yoshi]

Gameplay. Plot and graphics are secondary concerns if the game just isn't any fun to play. Simple and intuitive controls, decent level of challenge, lack of repetition, that sort of thing. Take shmups, for instance. Those are generally pretty hard to screw up.

[Zablorg]

While I have no real suggestions of my own, I would suggest that you take notes from Tarn and Scott Adam, creators of Dwarf Fortress, a very popular indie game. Tarn is not adverse to answering emails, so you could directly ask him some questions if you feel so inclined.

[Dooey Jo]

Games can be fun in about a million ways, I think you have to be a little more specific than that. Many indie developers go for completely strange ideas and presumably think that the randomness factor will make the game interesting. It may, but usually the effect wears off very quickly if that's the only thing the game has to offer. Others go for new ideas, and those can turn out to be quite the masterpieces, and then you don't have to have the best graphics ever, because the graphics or "200 hours of play time" aren't your main selling points. A friend of mine is making a totally weird, but very interesting (looking) game. You can check it out and try to analyse what might make it interesting (though you can't play it yet).

It's probably easier to list things that can make a game less fun, though...

1. The games main selling point is it's "story.

That's only a "common mistake" if the target audience don't care about stories, or if the story is shit. For instance, Knights of the Old Republic and Planescape: Torment's main selling points were arguably their stories. Hardly a mistake.

[Coalition]

Try one thing that got dropped in the Sci-fi MMORPG game.

Design a space game with real inertia.

Design it so it can read from a file, and use that file to access its strength, weakneses, image, etc.

This allows a player to do custom designs how they want, allowing them to play any space sim they want, with real Newtonian motion.

[Zixinus]

Cool.

So, gameplay wise, what do you people think would make a nice game?

A good mechanic to everything you do, including controls. If you feel that you truly have control over the character you have, then the gameplay is already good, even if there not much happening. Really, some games do seem to lack this.

Stories are neat, but become useless when they hamper the game. Visual tellers of the story and occasionally overheard dialogue are always better then reading text or watching a boring cutscene. Of course that doesn't mean that the main character updating his/her diary can't be interesting.

Game ideas:

- Make a platform fighter game where the mouse influences your movement speed and attacks. If the cursor is far off the screen, you move fast and make leaping attacks, with a greater chance of missing. You can easily design a fairly complex fighting system around this control method. Or at least that's the idea anyway.

- Inertia based space game. Being a single person would most likely make things simpler then being a spaceship.

- Graphing hooks are fun. I have not seen a game where action and graphing hooks are successfully mixed. Why not make a game where you are a ninja with a graphing hook and assorted equipment (stars, sword, etc)?

I actually occasionally have some game ideas that I write down just for fun. Pm me if you are interested.

General, possibly useless advice:

- When designing games, always be careful how much you bite: I've seen a few cases where the developer just quit because he/she realised that he/she bit off far more then he/she can chew and instead we get a somewhat broken or half-finished game.

- Always listen to what other, experienced developers have to say. The commentary in Half-Life 2 and episodes give valuable insight into how Valve works. And they do know something, cause they are still in business.

- Don't go for high-tech graphics: low-tech but well-detailed graphics are better then high-tech graphics. It isn't a big problem if you use pixel/sprite if its detailed pixel/sprite graphics. Same goes for music: don't get the orchestra if you can use Fruity Loops.

- I think you can use some songs off Newground's music section. There are some pretty talented composers there in various music genres.

- Please don't make the same mistakes that game developers made before the 90's. Using control prompt for an adventure game is NOT fun. Going retro is fine, just don't go so far as to remake the old.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

You didn't mention in your post - do you have any games development experience at all? And if so... to what extent and in what areas?

[Sarevok]

That's only a "common mistake" if the target audience don't care about stories, or if the story is shit. For instance, Knights of the Old Republic and Planescape: Torment's main selling points were arguably their stories. Hardly a mistake.

KoToR is a bad game. Don't get me wrong. I am the biggest Revan fanboy this side of Earth. KoToR's plot is epic and wonderful. Yet as a game it sucked awfully.

Which raises the important point - if you are telling a story write a book or make a movie. Don't make people sit through hours of painful dungeon crawling if all your doing is telling a story. Instead of forcing them to endure a 3 hour pointless clickfest to see the "next chapter" write a damn book.

In a game story is subservient to gameplay. You make story changes to fit the gameplay not the other way around via scripted bullshit like invincible NPCs who can't die because of plot .[/i]

[Starglider]

You didn't mention in your post - do you have any games development experience at all?

If you don't, your first game will almost certainly suck, for the same reason that an average person's first attempt to write a novel will almost certainly suck.

Think about the game mechanics in completely abstract, psychological terms. Imagine playing with simple tokens, no graphics, no sound. What are the hand-eye co-ordination and problem solving skills the player needs? What are the challenges and the rewards? At what rate do you increase the variety and difficultly for optimum fun? Unpredictability can increase challenge and variety, but give the player opportunities to learn skills (such as predicting what will happen next in the game world) and then enjoy excelling at them. The skills should be flexible and composable; rote memorisation isn't a good one.

[Praxis]

Similar position here- as a child I always drew out my own games and stage designs and even the in game menus in binders. And now I'm working IT

Go for it! Firstly, be warned that if the game isn't free, the PC market is very limited. Not a lot of people are willing to give out their credit card online, especially when things can be easily pirated. Try to get on board with a service like Steam. But if you can get it on Wii Ware, XBLA, or PSN, that'll guarantee you a TON of exposure. However, that's extremely hard. Wii Ware'll probably be the easiest as they have the cheapest dev kits- but you can't just turn around and make your first game on the platform.

The iPhone is a potential upcoming platform as well, as it seems fairly open to developers come June and Apple is providing iTunes as a software distribution platform.


Now as far as the actual game. There's plenty of ways to go. If it's a platformer or a fighter, make sure it allows for clear differences in skill. Some people (like me) really love challenging themselves with ridiculously hard stages in games like MegaMan Zero and Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels- but then you have to balance it with an easy-to-grasp control scheme and a lot of easy stuff so the newbies aren't scared off.


Another option is to go with some kind of unusual game that breaks genre definitions. Physics-based games are a good example- look up Plasma Pong, one of my favorite freebie indie games. It's really a simple game, but spectacular to look at as you play. Free download, so try it out. Or you can try mixing genre's- for example, if you could build a very good fighting engine, and combine it with an RPG so that the random encounters jump into the fighting engine, it could be interesting...BUT it could also suck horribly.

I've heard it said by game developers to NEVER make your first game an RPG, as you will always find yourself over your head.


Really consider the type of game you want to make. Is it going to be something where the player will be solving puzzles? This can be true of platformers, adventure games, or puzzlers...and if so you have to consider how to make the puzzle the most rewarding. Or will it be a game based on twitch reflexes and skill? Even then, you have to figure out how to make the action most rewarding and make the player feel like they're PWNING.

I think the best option, though, is not to ask us "What type of game should I make?", as it is simply too vague and our answers might contradict your own ideas. Rather, you should map out one of your ideas and start designing a game based on it, and ask us for feedback, confirmation, and additional ideas.

Also, let me beta test. kthanks.

And let me know if you need help contacting any of the big companies. Nintendo tends to be rather frustrating for me to deal with, but I've got good contacts with Hudson, Capcom, Games Factory, and a few others.

[Dooey Jo]

KoToR is a bad game. Don't get me wrong. I am the biggest Revan fanboy this side of Earth. KoToR's plot is epic and wonderful. Yet as a game it sucked awfully.

But why did you play it, and perhaps even enjoyed it, if it sucked so badly?

Which raises the important point - if you are telling a story write a book or make a movie.

Yes, that damn Steven Spielberg should have known better than turning The Dig into a game! Hell, all of the old Lucasarts adventure games should have been books or movies. What's the point of a game where you can't die anyway, *I'm a smarmy asshole*!
Protip: The creator chooses what medium to use and how, and games can be an excellent medium. This is like saying you shouldn't use films to tell stories either, because films are for entertainment, as if there must be a distinction.

In a game story is subservient to gameplay. You make story changes to fit the gameplay not the other way around

What does that even mean? If you're going to have a story in a game, the game play and story should work and be developed together, or something will almost certainly feel forced.

[Qwerty 42]

Oddly, though perhaps not surprisingly, given the general demographic here, it's also my intention to work on games. I've given it some thought, and actually tried to get answers from companies about developing games.

Similar position here- as a child I always drew out my own games and stage designs and even the in game menus in binders. And now I'm working IT

Go for it! Firstly, be warned that if the game isn't free, the PC market is very limited. Not a lot of people are willing to give out their credit card online, especially when things can be easily pirated. Try to get on board with a service like Steam. But if you can get it on Wii Ware, XBLA, or PSN, that'll guarantee you a TON of exposure. However, that's extremely hard. Wii Ware'll probably be the easiest as they have the cheapest dev kits- but you can't just turn around and make your first game on the platform.

Nintendo is actually extremely protective of its developer's kits. Feel free to look at www.warioworld.com if you'd like. Unfortunately, they don't give you a kit without a proven track record in the industry, among other things.

The iPhone is a potential upcoming platform as well, as it seems fairly open to developers come June and Apple is providing iTunes as a software distribution platform.

Really? That's fascinating.

As far as the game, I'd probably give a couple different places a look-sie for ideas.

www.urbandead.com - Probably not what you're looking for, but I understand it's making the designer money and putting his name out there, which is certainly a marketing model to look at if nothing else.

http://www.alienhominid.com/ - This is probably the one you want to study the most, I have been. It actually wound up getting published on major consoles.

www.wiicade.com - This is interesting because they offer the code necessary to publish wii-controller games over the Internet Channel, complete with up to four players on a single console and online multiplayer. The internet channel will probably be the way I'm going.

Anyway, looking at the various examples of successful indie stuff, this is what I've come up with.

1. Nutso In particular, look at Alien Hominid. It borrows from games like Four Swords, Gunstar Heroes, Contra, and Metal Slug in one critical way: the game is completely insane. Enemies, everywhere, hundreds of them. It's one of the most consistently fun things in ANY game, but especially low-tech stuff. It doesn't just need to be a zerg-rush, just a sense of scale. What will probably go down as the highest point in Urban Dead was the multi-month siege of Caiger Mall, where thousands of zombies attacked a human stronghold. The attack really took on a life of its own, and it got players involved in ways I haven't seen since.

2. Good viral marketing The word for Urban Dead got around early on thanks to a MySpace marketing gimmick involving a brain-eating counter. I haven't really looked at Alien Hominid, but I wouldn't be surprised if something similar were done. Of course, UD also got in a good word on the Awful Forums, which always results in a spike in membership.

3. Variety I can't really use an of the examples above for this one, but look at Gunstar Heroes: One level you're sliding down a pyramid, another you're flying spaceships. It keeps the player involved.

[Qwerty 42]

Oh, a question to anyone who knows: in freeware games, are you legally permitted to use licensed music?

[Genii Lodus]

You definitely can't distribute an entire song with your game. You can use small samples but generally I would just either get your token music geek friend (everyone has one right) to make something yourself or find some freeware music.

I would recommend you start off doing a mod or something for a game you like. It's quicker to get results since you're not starting from scratch and you can get a better feel for how small gameplay changes can massively affect how a game feels.

I would say that pretty much every indie game that's been commercially successful hasn't been a one man job. Producing a game takes a huge number of skills and you're unlikely to have all of them. If you are really set on eventually producing something that will get published on one of the console platforms you are probably best getting together with a few other likeminded people.

What sort of skills do you have relevant to games production?

[Praxis]

Oddly, though perhaps not surprisingly, given the general demographic here, it's also my intention to work on games. I've given it some thought, and actually tried to get answers from companies about developing games.

Similar position here- as a child I always drew out my own games and stage designs and even the in game menus in binders. And now I'm working IT

Go for it! Firstly, be warned that if the game isn't free, the PC market is very limited. Not a lot of people are willing to give out their credit card online, especially when things can be easily pirated. Try to get on board with a service like Steam. But if you can get it on Wii Ware, XBLA, or PSN, that'll guarantee you a TON of exposure. However, that's extremely hard. Wii Ware'll probably be the easiest as they have the cheapest dev kits- but you can't just turn around and make your first game on the platform.

Nintendo is actually extremely protective of its developer's kits. Feel free to look at www.warioworld.com if you'd like. Unfortunately, they don't give you a kit without a proven track record in the industry, among other things.

Know all about the warioworld site, but they have so many prerequisites before they'll even talk with you through it.

The iPhone is a potential upcoming platform as well, as it seems fairly open to developers come June and Apple is providing iTunes as a software distribution platform.

Really? That's fascinating.

Yup, IIRC Apple charges $99 a year to host any iPhone app on their servers, and takes 30% of sales. That's actually not bad at all for amounts to a publishing deal.

The SDK is a free download if you set up a developer account with Apple IIRC, but apps can only be distributed through iTunes.


The problem is that the iPhone obviously has a much smaller marketshare than the DS or PSP, but the upside is that iPhone owners probably have a bit more money to spend and it's a lot easier thanks to the ability to simply purchase & download through iTunes, so people might make more impulse buys.

[Sarevok]

But why did you play it, and perhaps even enjoyed it, if it sucked so badly?

The D20 based gameplay was despicable. I would much rather read KoToR as penned by a fine authour than sit through another playthrough.

Look as Destructionator has pointed it is possible to have both great story and gameplay. When both are great the result is fantastic. Example Deus Ex 1.

But gameplay is the key here. Story comes after the gameplay . If your gameplay sucks you get a medicore interactive movie instead of a game.

Example Halo : CE. The story is generic. But the lifelike AI, realistic physics created a believable simulation of fighting aliens on a ringworld. It is far from perfect I admit, Halos gameplay has many flaws. Yet the gameplay is what made Halo great not the story as fanboys would say. People who finish the Assault on the Control room for the 500th time do not do so for the "cinematic" story telling but for experience of fighting aliens warriors on an icy canyon of death.

[Zixinus]

About story in video games: the trick is to realize that video games are a different medium then books or movies, a fact that even otherwise very good developers miss. Books have their valid way to expose things, so do games.

A good example of story exposure is in Aquaria. There are scarcely and animation, the control rarely if ever taken from the player, most of the story is exposed trough visual things or the protagonist's short monologues.

Other example that springs to mind is the previously mentioned Deus Ex 1. Most of the story, background or otherwise, is exposed trough optional dialog and background. There are rarely ever any cutscenes that you have to sit trough, except dialog.

Another example that I also remember is the two Vampire games, Redemption and Bloodlines. Redemption had occasionally longer-winded dialog then what was necessary, the fact that you couldn't review it being rather annoying. Bloodlines on the other hand, gave you allot of optional dialog.

On a more general note: try Flash. You can make very good games in it and its very user-friendly.

[Sarevok]

Other example that springs to mind is the previously mentioned Deus Ex 1. Most of the story, background or otherwise, is exposed trough optional dialog and background. There are rarely ever any cutscenes that you have to sit trough, except dialog.

That's only half the truth. Most devs jump on "har har half life no cutscenes no interruption !" bandwagon without thinking. Instead of cutscenes you get something far far worse in form from linear railroad levels and repetive scripted events and bullshit like aforementioned invincible NPCs. hell even deus ex sucked when they made NPCs invincible for plot reasons.

Cutscenes are actually cool and need to come back. Who does not like the Mechwarrior 2 opening cinematics or Tassadar's death scene ? That's more "cinematic" than any clunky ugly piece of shit ingame "movie" could hope to achieve. If all the story, characters and "epic cinematic" stuff was put in skippable cutscenes that played before each level that would achieve perfect balance of story / gameplay.

[Starglider]

Cutscenes are actually cool and need to come back.

Cutscenes work well as a reward, once you've completed a level/segment. There's a big feeling of accomplishment and relief in the player's brain and they're primed to sit back and watch something cool for a while. Even if they're rendered with the game engine, cutscenes are simply more dramatic (when done well) than gameplay.

However cutscenes spliced into the middle of gameplay to make some minor plot point or save the in-game animators having to script something complex are annoying and break immersion. There are occassions when it is justified, like the mini cutscene showing the ominious (and distant) aerial battleship half way through the first level of AC6 (right before the cruise missiles start coming in), but in most games simply overriding the normal camera control algorithm for a while does the job better.

[Dooey Jo]

Actually, I thought of an even better advice.

Firstly, I'm not looking for game ideas (like in certain other thread about an MMO), I'd just like to know what people think makes a good (i.e. fun) game, in order to find out how delusional I am that someone would actually like my ideas.

You shouldn't worry so much if people are going to like your game. Since you don't have a budget and don't have to sell X million copies of your game, you're actually free to make whatever crazy game you want, unlike the stagnant and boring industry. If you have an idea that you yourself think is interesting, and think might be good enough to actually sell, you can always make a demo first and see if people like it.

Oh, and also: You will always learn something new when starting a new game project. Always.

[Oskuro]

Great! Just the response I was hoping for. Thanks people!

Now, again I'm not exactly looking for ideas for an specific game, or looking to see how much my ideas suck (although I did say something like that). I just think that it is always worth it to listen to people's opinions, as it is quite often that soneone will bring up a point you had not considered.


As for my intentions....

I'm looking to develop small games as a hobby, and distribute them online, probably as free demos. I won't consider actually asking for money until I get experience, as well as feedback on what players like/dislike about my games.
The primary reason for this, is that it will allow for more experimentation. There are a lot of ideas I want to try out, and actually investing on development would shift the focus from having fun designing, to needing to recoup expenses and make a profit, and I'm not there yet (and may never be).

One thing that keeps me on track is something an actual game developer once said, about what makes a true game designer:

A lot of people want to make the game they'd like to play... A true designer wants to make the game they'd like to design.