This article was first published "Tencent GWB Game Boundless"
At present, more and more novice developers have begun to join the production of games, the author through their own experience in making independent games, distilled some suggestions for novice developers, these opinions can allow developers who have just started to make independent games to avoid some of the mistakes that may be made, but also put forward some beneficial to game development opinions, I hope these opinions can help novice developers create more interesting games.
With the advancement of the game engine, the threshold for making games is also decreasing, and many people with "game dreams" in their hearts have the opportunity to realize their dreams, but for Xiaobai who has just started to try to make games, I hope to give some suggestions from my own experience, so that your production journey can avoid some possible mistakes in advance.
First, the suggestion of "don't"
1.1 Don't envision very large game projects at the beginning
Indeed, for developers who are new to independent games, there may be some huge game development goals in their hearts, such as open worlds, or games that support massively multiplayer online, and sometimes on some solo forums, we see someone posting some similar projects, and we actually know in our hearts that such games are estimated to never be completed.
It's not that I question the enthusiasm of developers, but that this type of game requires no resource investment that can be done by a few people, even if such a game project can take hundreds of people and years to complete in a large company, and it is almost impossible to rely on a few people alone.
For developers who are just starting out, it is best to choose some small but clever projects in the early stages, and the development time is best set up in a few months, why a few months? Because the feedback of game development is not like writing, writing can be that you write while reading the reader, if there is a reader who expresses a liking to you, you can get positive feedback from it, and you will be more active when writing.
The game can only be that you have completely completed it, the player can really experience it, so as to give you the corresponding feedback, but in the process of your development, you will not get any external and positive feedback, if the development cycle is too long, the probability of you giving up will be greater.
When you have the patience to complete your first game, the new game size and development cycle can be appropriately expanded.
1.2 Don't easily quit your job to go for full-time development
I also have some partners who quit their jobs and went to game development full-time, full-time investment in development seems to be a good choice, but after cutting off your own financial income, unless you have a deposit to support your next long expenses, the anxiety of lack of income will make you more impatient, and your development progress and quality may also be affected.
And if the game you deliberately quit to develop full-time doesn't end up making a good financial income, it will also frustrate your supporting family and confidence in developing it yourself, and you may start to choose to escape whether to start making another game.
Many of the students I contacted who resigned for full-time development suffered from different degrees of mental illness, and more often because the game could not be profited in time or was not optimistic about the profitability. And if you can develop under the premise of having economic income, this situation can be avoided with great probability.
1.3 Don't wait for the so-called "flash of inspiration" to develop
Everyone will have a so-called flash of inspiration, a bug that has been plagued for a long time, a game mechanism that has been inconclusive for a long time, and it may be possible that at some point in time, you will suddenly present a satisfactory solution in your head, but this moment may have to wait a long time to appear.
If you choose to wait when you encounter a problem, then even a simple game may take you a lot of time and may not be able to complete it all the time.
When encountering a problem that cannot be decided for the time being, you can first choose a temporary solution as a substitute, or skip this problem, continue to develop the next functional requirements, and always promote the development progress of the game.
1.4 Don't copy someone else's game
When we choose the theme in the early stage, there will be a certain degree of hesitation, on the one hand, this decision will affect your focus of development in the next period of time, on the other hand, we also hope that this direction can be more interesting, at least to attract some players.
Usually when choosing the core gameplay, some people will choose to look at the game play on the market to seek new play inspiration, some people may directly copy other people's game play to their own games, doing so, in fact, the player is treated as a fool, now the player may be exposed to the game more than you think, in addition, directly copying other people's game ideas, will not let you succeed, and in your development process, you will still feel dissatisfied, Because this idea does not come from yourself, the reluctance in your heart will always exist.
One of the games I made in the early days had a certain resemblance to the core gameplay of another game, although in essence, because I paid too little attention to the game of the mobile game platform, and the operation of the demo was very suitable for one-handed play on the mobile phone, so after landing on the mobile game platform, it was attacked by many players, which also led me to give up subsequent development. Later, in order to avoid such problems again, after making a gameplay prototype, I would record a video to ask my friends if there was a similar game, and if the result was very similar, then I might redesign its gameplay.
1.5 Don't fall into the development trap
There is a special cool feeling in the development process, that is, to set the requirements goal, and then use the code to slowly achieve it little by little, such development feedback is actually very satisfying. But it also has the problem that it immerses people in this feedback loop, and then you fall into the trap of development, the game doesn't feel fun, is it because of something missing? Then I will finish this function first and see.
Even if there is a ready-made plugin to complete this functional requirement, you want to complete it yourself, I can't evaluate such behavior is wrong, but for indie developers, your primary goal is to complete the game, of course, if this work can improve the speed and quality of your subsequent game development, it is no problem.
Being too immersed in the development process may make you overlook the most important questions in the game, is your game really interesting?
If you have a plug-in with completed functions, you can actually use it as much as possible without having to make wheels repeatedly.
1.6 Don't rush it
Don't rush here, not to complete the development of this game, but to not set too high expectations for the benefits that the game brings you, and the probability that the game will bring you a higher income than if you do a part-time job for a period of time.
It is true that some game developers have shockingly high earnings for their first work, but the income of more indie games is not high, even much lower than you think.
Setting reasonable expectations will not allow you to abandon the development of new games after the game is launched because you have not received good revenue.
Second, the proposal on the "to"
2.1 Start making demos instead of struggling with perfect designs
I often struggle with the new design of the mechanism as if it is not interesting enough, should wait, take more time to think about it, maybe think of something better. But the reality is that at the beginning of such a cycle, the development process is infinitely delayed.
We always rehearse what will happen when the newly designed mechanic is added to the game, but the reality is often the opposite or ill-conceived, and only when you actually introduce this mechanic into the game, actually operate it, and when these mechanics begin to interact with each other, you can make a clear judgment about whether the mechanic is suitable for the game.
2.2 Choose the development model that suits you
Although there are many editors on the market now, such as unity, Unreal, Godot, etc., they are suitable for us to make games, but choosing a reasonable way of game development will also be a good choice.
For example, if you really like shooting games, and you have some game modes that you really want to try to make, then you can actually try to make mods in your existing games instead of choosing to start from scratch, just like Dota and Dota's chess play, which were originally born in this development mode.
Not all games have to be built from scratch
2.3 There is no best time
When you first go to production, many people may want to learn art, programming, design, and other things first, and then learn all of them before making.
But a lot of people are actually in the process of learning by doing, because if you are a person who has a full-time job, then you don't have so much time for you to prepare all the preparatory work like in school, and then go through it like an exam.
If your art is not good, you can replace it with a geometric diagram first, and after the functions are slowly completed, you can replace it with pixels or resources in the network, or seek art outsourcing.
You are not good at programming, you can also learn and do it little by little according to your own development needs on the Internet, so that your technical improvement will be more solid, after all, many things if you do not use it for a long time, you will slowly forget.
2.4 Try to participate in some jam development activities
There are many short-term development activities on the pitch, which require your game to be a slice of the gameplay, which can be provided to the rest of the developers to score, such development activities actually help you build your own development confidence and your ability to delay satisfaction, after all, the development of a game may last a long time, and this time may be because you have not received positive feedback and give up halfway.
At the same time, such a limited theme development can also stimulate your imagination, and may allow you to create some different game prototypes.
Of course, there are also some well-known jam development activities, such as GGJ's offline activities, the development time of this activity is also in 48 hours, and in recent years, more and more people have participated in this activity in China. This year's GGJ Shenzhen station organizers are hosted by the GWB Independent Game Incubator, if you are interested you can also join it to try it out, through this event you can also meet many indie game lovers.
2.5 Complete the game
When you already have a gameplay prototype, I actually recommend that you complete it completely, in the process, you will learn a lot of knowledge, including but not limited to how to unify resource standards, how to list the platform store, how to update patches, how to promote the game and so on.
And this process allows you to have more confidence when making a new game, and have a greater confidence in starting a new game.
2.6 Take a moment to think and review
Every time we experience a game, we can take a moment to think about how their mechanisms prompted us to deploy strategies in this way, why does such a strategy make us feel interesting, and even when you are making a game, a map, a mechanism, you should take a moment to study, like why do you think this map is boring? Where is the difference between your map and the rest of the game's map, what is the reason for this difference, and how can you improve it?
Although this process will reduce your development progress to a certain extent, it is worth it in the long run. As this experience increases, the process of drawing reasonable conclusions as you develop new games will gradually shorten, indicating that your own design skills are also improving.
2.7 Make more games
You can try a variety of different game types, whether it's casual puzzle solving or narrative experience, as long as you have your own ideas, you can try it.
Trying in different directions, in addition to allowing you to find your favorite development direction, can also let you have a certain understanding of different types of player groups, so that your follow-up development is more handy.
And different types of games, the number of players and the willingness to buy are all different, if you expect to get a good profit from it, try multiple types of games, you can also find a game type with a certain revenue potential.
Isn't the author of Super Meat Boy, many of his previous works that we have not heard of?
2.8 Maintain good health
Making a game is not a simple thing, you should care about your own physical health, don't stay up late for the sake of functional needs, and properly promote the progress of development every day, after all, there are still many days, if you break your body, you can't continue to create new games.
summary
These suggestions are some of the points I have summarized from my own experience in the production process, which should have some reference significance for novices who are just trying to make games.
For the production of independent games, different people have different ideas, some students may just want to use the medium of games to express some of their own ideas, and other students, like me, may want to continue to work in this line, but this process, will be relatively long, will also encounter a series of difficulties, I hope that everyone in this process can also cope with the past, make a lot of fun games out.