Does anyone know how to make a great game?

It's more like 15, but you're correct (correct in that that's what it has, not correct in that it's "a problem," especially considering how many people whined about auto-battle - the tutorial evidently wasn't extensive enough for them to realize the depth of the system).

I'd love to see how this would transform into Unity vs. Unreal though. Crystal Tools vs. Luminous vs. UE4 maybe

 

I am sure i can show how to make a game that is great for my grandmother.

I would recommend to focus on making your game good, rather than great. Because
some people might find your game bad, and some might find it great. But a game can still be good in terms of quality content, graphics and asset / code.

If you wander what is "hype" or "popular", that is a entirely different question.

Example, i still find Tiberiansun a great game, but not really good.

 

If you look at the history of gaming stand out games often took the best advantage of the hardware they were running on. Or you can see in the console era how later games are more advanced than early games.

When you consider a 'great' game from the past are they often only standout games because of the new hardware they are running on.

How many great games aren't really that great they have just taken advantage of the new hardware platform they are on.

e.g. Mario, a platformer that is tightly tied to Nintendo console hardware (remember he didn't strike it big in his Donkey Kong days -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_Kong_(video_game))

 

Start making a game first lol

 

Final fantasy was obviously a great game in the eyes of someone. That just proves your great and my great are 2 completely different things. I dont think we can argue about whether or not a game is great, thats like arguments about favorite colors. This can not be an argument about what games are great as that gets you nowhere because everyone has a different idea of great. For me final fantasy was the most boring crap I've ever watched a friend play for 3 minutes but someone is obviously smitten by it completely.

You can tell us what design choices you think made this game great. You can tell us what made this game seem great to you. Which I think in the case of ffxlll has been done.

 

If there's anyone that's an unfair statement to make against it's Arowx, who can pump out small little games very quickly.

 

All Zelda games was never oustanding about hardware or graphics, even Wind Waker was amazing with cell shading.
Breath of The Wild is outstanding about art direction, effects or gameplay , it's not a 1080p game with high res textures , but it's one of the best open world games never made.
Same for retro games like HyperLight Drifter, it's pixel, but the art direction and gameplay are fantastic.

If you can have unique ideas, great art direction and gameplay you can do a great game.

 

You need to have a good idea, something that makes it unique and then spend enough time to polish it. Im a working on a VR rampage type game with my friends.

 

Maybe put a spaceship in it.

 

Which is terrible design, especially considering the levels are perfectly suited to teaching. God, I forgot all about the ranking system which is the thinnest excuse to try to get the people to play better. Try playing X-2 and XIII in parallel, and see if you don't start noticing more flaws in XIII.

Suikoden V has an introduction that is 10-15 hours long. Once you hit that mark, you finally hit the core of a Suikoden game with all the army building and exploration that the series is known for. That's not to say that the game is boring before this or wasting your time though. The first arc is about twenty minutes, and you're told immediately that what you are doing is investigating to see what the queen's fury has done to this town. The kicker here is that it introduces several plot points that become relevant later on. The second arc is mostly setting up the villians, the third establishes the princess's right of succession, then comes a coup de tat and the prince's flight from home, and thus we have established a world at war with our hero, the prince, leading a rebellion to drive out his sister's evil suitors.

So, FFXIII... In that hour and a half of an "introduction," what was introduced? Was it the conflict? The setting? The main characters? Aside from shoving the camera in some characters' faces and even letting you control some of them, is anything about them delved into? Hope's fridged mom is the closest thing to any development, but it's a laughable inverted Lion King scenario where Scar did nothing wrong, yet Simba blames him for everything. You could cut out the entire segment where you are on literal railroads and nothing would be different. It's filler and fluff.

It's an hour and a half before anyone explains "the bastards kidnapped my sister/girlfriend who's gone crystalline." That's all the context that needed to be said, yet it's nonexistent for that first chapter. So instead of any plot, you get a glorified tech demo about as long as a Micheal Bay film. It's not even a matter of the story being slow because there was no story.

Now maybe the story is good (I highly doubt that), but square's ability to tell a story has become complete garbage.

Now this gets me into an interesting issue with this whole "greatness" thing. Do you only see the tangible details? Admittedly that is a stupid question to ask, because of course everyone believes they see the big picture. The issue is that people have a habit of judging something based purely on surface level elements ripped from any context, making a good work one which has good elements.

So let's take Sephiroth. Is he a laughable villian? Sure... in isolation, but he's not in isolation in VII (well literally he is, but tangible details). Sephiroth exists for Cloud, the boy who worshiped the ground Sephiroth walked on. Cloud's entire arc is about seeing how pitiful his hero worship was. Sephiroth's existence is for that final fight in the crater, where a complete hero unleashes his full potential to decimate a ghost that he long since surpassed. He's perfect for what the plot and characters needed him for.

Someone who only sees the tangible details writes him off as emo, insane, and having a mother complex. The view is entirely divorced from any context and void of any deeper understanding. No one can even begin to discuss what "great" is because half the people won't even have any context *ba dum tish* for what the other half is talking about.

 

This thread may explain why achieving great success as an Indie is rare.

And have to get by this answer before can proceed to question 2 on the test... Does anyone know how to effectively market their great game?

 

I do agree that the summon fights, as they were implemented in the game, were terrible design. As for X-2, however, traditional ATB is garbage in whatever form it's in (IV, VII, X-2, etc.) so the comparison isn't even needed. The idea of the dress-spheres is interesting, but utterly wasted on the train-wreck that is ATB (at least ATB where you have to control three/four characters - this is where I start waxing poetic again about the brilliance of XIII's ATB system, which abstracts away the twitch clunkiness of the traditional ATB, where battles cannot be as complex or meaningful because you're racing to press "Attack" while the enemy's turn keeps rolling (which still continues even if you press Wait), to a more high-level system where you're directing a tactical approach suited to the enemy you're facing (XII got at this too with the gambit system)).

My opinions on RPG combat may be influenced by my biases, however:

Spoiler

in my opinion the purest of pure RPG combat should essentially be played out without any input from the player. You define a set of actions and observe the character execute those in real time. XII allowed this with the gambit system, and Dragon Age Origins (which took several cues from XII) allowed this with the addition of the Advanced Tactics mod. And more high-level play in games like XIII gets at it as well.

Thing is, none of this is objectively bad. Like I said before, it may not fit the traditional modern expectations for a story (you saw my comment about people wanting a more open narrative, right?), but it's just a different design. That first hour and a half may not have set up the plot very much, but at the same time it gave a pretty good initial portrayal of the characters we'd spend the next 40 hours with. it wasn't literally nothing. It just wasn't plot-focused.

I apologize if this seems like cherry-picking, but this is the whole problem. Now obviously after my soapbox about subjectivity in story I can't turn around and claim that a cardboard cutout character who only exists to further another character's arc is objectively a bad character...but let me put it this way, I would never write a character like that.

 

Let's not forget the other important part. Finishing it!

 

My perspective on what a great game is rather than saying of course I know how to make a great game because of course I can make a great game.

What a great game is to me, something vastly different. By that, I mean different from the norm. The norm to me is a First Person Shooter or an adventurous 3rd Person Action...which are mostly 3rd Person Shooters nowadays. Some are your typical fantasy.

A great game is a playable character or characters whos story intertwine with one another in an engaging story that ( throws modern gaming stories out the loop. For instance, a random story about a blind woman who has to take care of a child who is consider special. Special as in drawing supernatural forces big and small. And the said blind woman has only the ability to sense beings far and wide through hearing and being able to spread her blindness to another being. Having to take care of that child knowing she is blind is the beginning of the tale.

If anything, the story should stay linear wit a tad bit of open world since everyone seems to love open world. But too much open world kills the story. A little is only needed to show the scope and setting of the world. Everything is about perspective and how people perceive things. I mean yes you should be able to explore your game world. A good game ain't without good exploration...or knowing the map...the good parts anyways.

Art direction is definitely important. It has to fit everything and/or vice versa. The music has to fit the art. The world setting has to fit the art, the character designs have to fit the art. You get the picture no pun intended. If your looking for realism, your ideas tend to be more simpler, unless we are talking about the creatures that revolve around your world, if there are such things. If you want to make outlandish designs, then too much realism probably isn't what your aiming for. But sometimes, odd things do work. IF your game is that oddball that breaks those barriers.

In my opinion. Just being different makes a great game. Make whatever you want to make. Most of the time within the constraints you have at the time. I'm sure others before and after are saying something alike or totally different from me. But I stand by what I say though.

Anyways, yeah....haha

 

This also means spending less time tchit tchat on the forum

 

Is the formula for Game Greatness...?

Greatness = Talent * Time

A lot of great games were developed with lots of iteration and a lot of bad games hit time limits.

 

I'm always trying to figure out if you're being intentionally obtuse just to spur conversation, or if you really just don't get it.

How is that "formula" anything close to a serious suggestion? Did you ignore everything said in the thread, or do you just not care about people's responses to the questions/half-ideas you post unless they support your thesis?

A great anything is so subjective that it's silly to try to boil it down to a basic formula, and serves no purpose for anything other than making inspirational wall posters and blustery marketing blog posts. But you know that already. You're just building your Arowx brand of incessant forum thread starter.

To answer the original question, I'll paraphrase Justice Stewart and say:

 

I very nearly posted "Iterate until it's great" at one point in this thread, but someone suggested platitudes wouldn't help so I held my tongue

I'd add a couple more variables..

Greatness ≈ Vision * Talent * Time * Luck

 

When you can make a game with nothing but black and white cubes or rectangles and you and others say "there is just something about it that makes it so good as soon as the game ends I want to play it again!" then you have made a great game IMO.

So if you used that as a guideline what would the game need to have that kind of effect on players?

 

Again, this ends up being entirely subjective. For instance, Thomas Was Alone is by all means a pretty generic and forgettable puzzle platformer when reduced to just its core gameplay loop, but it ends up standing a bit taller because of its narrative elements. Similarly, you could never reduce Uncharted 4 to cubes and rectangles in black and white without losing a significant part of what makes it great.

I feel like this is an important video to watch when it comes to understanding these things:

 

I'll definitely check out the video tonight when I have time. Off the top of my head I would look at it like the focus would be to look at Uncharted 4 and find the essence of what makes it a great game (I am guessing you are implying it is a great game) and then build the game around that.

If it truly is a great game solely because of its presentation then it comes to the personal thing because I wouldn't see that as a great game. I am thinking there is probably more to it than just the presentation though.

EDIT: Thinking about it more... that would be a fun experiment. Taking a modernish game such as this Uncharted 4 and doing a demake as black and white cubes. I think I will put that on the list of projects. So many projects so little time. lol

 

I think in Uncharted's case, part of it is the presentation, but a big part of it is things like dialog and set-pieces, which don't necessarily require fancy models. They lose a lot of their impact without them, but the fundamentals are still there.

I think Uncharted a bit of a special case though, because it's basically an interactive movie in a narrative sense (same for the Tomb Raider reboot).

 

Greatness = butterfly tears + repurposed elven scewdrivers.

 

Earlier today after reading Z80 thread I had a thought that perhaps Arowx's acount has been stolen by a thread posting bot. That...would make a lot of sense, actually.

 

Due to uncharted being console game, I never played it, BUT...

Have you played another world and "Flashback" ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashback_(1992_video_game)

 

Well you hit the nail on the head there. That's exactly what I am talking about. Being able to look at a game and see beyond just the face of it. The ability to go beyond the looks and identify the essence of what makes it work... as you referred to... the fundamentals.

I know I see this different than some people but I think a great game would be great even with a different presentation. That doesn't mean some of the impact wouldn't be lost. It may well be simply because the presentation is feedback. But generally speaking if a game... the core... the fundamentals... the essence... whatever we want to call it... if that is a great experience then it will still be a great experience if instead of hd super shiny it is ultra low poly. And if it is great as ultra low poly then it will be great as primitives.

The difference is people wouldn't say man that game LOOKS great but the game may very well still be great. Again just my view of it.

 

I watched the vid at the end of my lunch break. Yes that is it exactly. Exactly what he is saying. Now just do it with ultra low poly or cubes. That is the point. The graphics alone have a certain amount of influence. That can be styled by other things such as the audio, the gameplay and so forth. It is all of it together that makes up the game. The simpler the graphics are the easier it is to style them via other elements such as audio.

The simpler more abstract the graphics are the more the players imagination fills in the blanks. A cube jumping on top of another cube with a landing sound hit a platform / ground of some kind (again can be styled by the exact sound). A cube that lands on a large cube that makes a sound of a tank and begins moving under player control... that is a tank.

 

God, ages ago, yeah. It's probably one of my favourites in the Prince of Persia style platformers. I remember trying to the remake they did a few years back and it just being a complete mess, partially due to them not understanding what made the original tick.

 

Playtest

I Know you all don't want to believe it.

 

For me only purple butterflies are great. But that*s just me..

 

I think for you to achieve greatness you need to get out of the idea of making the game itself great. The game is really nothing. It's just neutral stuff on a screen. The real 'game' is taking place off the screen in the player's mind, in their emotional reactions, in their values and decision making. The process that they're experiencing is internal. It may be triggered by what the screen is showing etc, but that's at best indirect. It's not really the cause of what they're experiencing. It's just an effect on a screen. The question is whether your game can somehow influence the player and take them on an inner journey that they find desirable. You're creating illusions to try to manipulate their reactions to get them invested and to have certain experiences, etc.. but that all takes place outside the game. Beware of thinking your game itself is fantastic when it's really just a machine for generating stimuli. People could not really care less about the game itself (although they do, because they're deluded). They care about what they experience when they sit in front of it. What they bring to the table.

 

Yes, its more important to focus on how to be a great developer, rather than focusing on how to get things great.

 

INteresting. I actually liked it because it reminded me of Another World, not because of platforming elements.

Huh. This one seems to happen from time to time to even skilled developers. Somehow your words made me remember X: Rebirth launch disaster.

 

Another world was an amazing game.

 

An amazing experiment in how to frustrate yourself. I never was very good at any of those games.

 

Just make the game you want to play

I'm a beginning noob, so this is just my theory, but I figure with the millions of game players in the world, chances are if you focus on making the game you've always wanted to play, and put in enough time and resources to make it look and feel halfway decent, you'll find enough of an audience for the effort to be worth it.

If you don't have some dream project you are passionate about, but just love the idea of making games, just focus on building up skills in the departments that interest you and do some networking to find like-minded people you might could help out.

As I said, I'm an absolute nobody-and-know-nothing in game development -- just sharing an opinion.

 

It's the overlap between ... a game you'd like to play ... a game you'd like to make ... a game you'd be able to make ... and it must not suck, i mean, a game others want to play too.

Which leaves only one option: flappy clone

 

That game was not about playing, you've missed the point. That game was about watching the best intro ever. And getting your knee poisoned.

 

Well you first got to become a master in the genre and that’s going to take 10k hours which is why the good games take so long but making a sequel takes less time

 

Fourteen years before Skyrim made it a meme.

 

Huh - I thought this thread got locked -

Does anyone know how to make a great game - yes the developers of these games do

Diablo 1-3 of course.
All Zeldas - yep all of them
Papers Please
Darkest Dungeon
FF 11
Ultima
Dungeons & Dragons! (The original Gary Gygax)
Super Metroid
Simon's Quest (I don't care what critics say)
God of War
Mass Effect 2
Bioshock
Arkanoid
Super Mario Bros 3 & World
Skyrim
Vagrant Story
The Immortal
Age of Empires
Out of this World (the other one)

A lot of industry people would say yes. From this crowd - Potentially - but I gotta get it into a marketable state first.

 

@OP Calvinball??

 

Have you ever considered asking this question on Quora? They love such questions over there.