How about a "Game Design" forum?

Tell you what, I am not a programmer. So, if the discussion is something I can't understand, then it doesn't belong in the Design Forum.

 

I agree with that. I did a poor job in my post of getting thoughts out of my head. I was thinking of, just as you said, the design side as far as implementation goes. Pseudo-code, a flowchart or state machine perhaps. I don't mean making this the focus. Just that to me these things would be entirely appropriate for Design. At the least throwing around some ideas for various interactions, enemy behavior and so forth.

 

Y'all make some pretty good points. I've changed my mind and I think that implementation is definitely on-topic for a Game Design forum, especially on the points of prototyping and algorithms that affect gameplay, but with some caveats:

• "It's too complex to implement" should not be a valid answer to the question "Does this sound fun?"
• "Your idea is too high-level and doesn't account for emergent behavior or unexpected scenarios. We need to work on making the idea more objective and algorithmic." is a valid answer.
• Asking "how do I make X [in Unity]" is absolutely off-topic, as it's about game development rather than design
• Discussing Game Design algorithms should be naive, with little thought to performance, so as to focus on their effects on gameplay. Assume that any algorithm that can be explained simply can also be refactored to perform well. Example: The "Minecraft in Unity" topic that's been bouncing around Gossip for a few years now is almost all algorithm ("how do we make") and very little about gameplay ("how do we make it fun"), so it would not fit in a Game Design forum.

Edit: Asvarduil raises an interesting point, though: Would a "Here's my prototype, how do I make it more fun?" topic belong in Work In Progress or Game Design?

 

Definitely pseudo-code and flowcharts. These are what helps the designer pass information on to the programmer. While many people here are both designer and programmer not all are.

 

Seems like the rules have been suggested and accepted and are ready for the READ THIS sticky... so when is the forum starting? Have you heard anything from a Unity guy or gal about this? I agree it'd be awesome to keep it here. I now spend more time on the Unity Forums than I do other forums. BUT... if no support comes from Unity you could always set up the forum elsewhere and let us know where it is located.

 

My smarty-pants answer would be, 'Yes.'

My actual answer is, absolutely in Game Design. The point of WIP is to show, well, works in progress. It's a showcase for incomplete projects where you can get feedback (as opposed to Showcase, which is a showcase for complete projects.) The question 'how do I make it fun*/engaging' is the question that the Game Design forum is there to answer, by design.

*: Games do not have to be fun. For instance, see Papers, Please, Spec Ops: The Line, or Depression Quest. Those aren't fun, but they are games in that there is a victory and loss condition enforced rules, and implemented by agents in their respective works.

 

@Aurore, the masses are clamoring for this. Any comment? Even "we're discussing it internally, please hang tight and we'll get you an answer in a few days" would be helpful.

 

What would you all say if we use this as an opportunity to get one more forum made? I mean... as long as they are making a Game Design Forum (if they do) then I would be very happy to see a "NEW TO UNITY? Here Is How To Make Your MMORPG/FPS/RPG/RTS (ANY) Kind Of Game" forum.

Inside that forum we have about 6 different stickies (more if you like):

* How To Make Your First MMORPG Game
* How To Make Your First RPG Game
* How To Make Your First RTS Game
* How To Make Your First FPS Game
* How To Make Your First iPhone Game
* How To Make Your First Android Game

Inside each of these stickies we just make a list of steps to follow:

First we break down the game into its logical components and lay out a general architecture

Then we list them out. And basically we provide a Guided Path to learning for these things.

We can also link to relevant Unity videos for each one.

Then we give them a list of some game projects to make. Simple games that allow them to better understand the core elements of the game they want to make and lets them actually get to making something to develop their skills.

I don't know about the rest of you but I personally get kind of tired of seeing the same old posts day after day asking about building MMORPG or FPS games (those two seem to be the ones most beginners want to tackle). I know I have only been active here on the forums for about 6 weeks so probably my opinion doesn't carry a whole lot of weight but anyway yeah I think it would be cool to try to solve this issue.

JoeStrout, Asvarduil, Teila and the rest of you... how do you feel about this idea?

 

No. Figuring it out yourself is very important. Let's stick with Design.

 

I agree... let's stay focused until we get the Design forum implemented (I've got a visit to the Torch Emporium on my to-do list for the weekend).

I think the how-to topics you mention are a great idea, but might be better served by a wiki than a forum.

 

#1 The Asset wips should be in its own forum category and then a separate category area for game wips and a area such as Focus On Game Design.

Recently discovered a useability study in text parsers and usage of context prompting, procedural dungeon generators, FSMs, lookup tables, Dice/Rolls, Balancing, and that sort of jazz and find it absolutely informative and fascinating a therefore welcome open discussion in this direction.

Most game's use text and numeric values Right ? in providing feedback mechanism both internally and externally even in such things as what the user see's and manipulates be that what is in that inventory, crafting, char stats. or what have you?.

Should mention my struggle at this point, The game (wip) i have is more application than game handles a great deal of text and frankly boring and not much fun, So asking the hard questions such as the real intrinsic value of this "game", Should i incorporate some kind of dynamic role playing story-book.

Research looking into text rpg's of old text games lead me into thinking they are surprisingly flexible from which to work from at a basic starting place one can scale well above the simple game skeletons blocks, lookup lists & their mechanisms and could be a great starting place for any developer to build from. - "just an example" -

below looks like a generalized outlook of different forks and genre's and not specifically game design though design over laps them all.

GarBenjamin

* How To Make Your First MMORPG Game
* How To Make Your First RPG Game
* How To Make Your First RTS Game
* How To Make Your First FPS Game
* How To Make Your First iPhone Game
* How To Make Your First Android Game

 

Fair enough. I was a little concerned about sidetracking the initiative of getting a Game Design Forum created when I posted about the other forum. Just thought I'd throw it out there and see if anyone thought it'd be a good idea. But as I seem to be the only one who thinks it would be.... let's get on with the Game Design Forum.

 

That's funny. I was just at Pitchfork Depot, they had a great sale on garden gnomes. And, pitchforks.

 

Well, I've written to both @Aurore and @SaraCecilia, but have gotten no reply. Sadness. (But perhaps you'll have better luck than I have?)

At any rate, I stumbled upon this today, because I was looking for input about a little fighting game I'd noodling around with as a side project:

• Standard fighting game controls alienate potential players

I don't necessarily want to open that discussion here in this thread... but thought I'd point it out as exactly the sort of thing that ought to have its own thread in a Game Design forum.

 

I'm sure they would have seen this thread but it's a risk vs. reward type of thing(See what I did there ) it will be more work for them opening a section that will probably need lots of moderation. Though now there's two of them we can have twice as many sections!

Regarding the Fighting game thing, that just seems stupid... of course Super Smash Bros destroys them in sales if they do stuff like that.

 

Well... that sucks to be blunt. It would have been great to keep the new Game Design Forum here. But it is what it is... so we'll just need to set up another website or forum at one of the popular forum sites. Maybe name it Unity Game Design to accurately signal this is not just a general game design forum?

If you want to do it then post where we should start hanging out that's cool. I can do some research for possible sites to get it set up on and report back here if needed. At the moment I am sitting in Denny's waiting for breakfast so the research would be later today. Just let me know.

 

It's interesting you bring that up. I recently posted a design topic where I started off thinking I was getting conflicting feedback, but was soon set straight that I'd actually lost thread of what I was really needing to ask for in the first place. A similar topic, for a similar thing.

 

Yeah, but it was a couple weeks ago that I reached out to Aurore, and Wednesday when I wrote to Sara.

But sure, I'm willing to give it a little longer. The chirping crickets are getting a little tiresome, though.

 

I would really love a game design forum. There are many design decisions I've made while working on my current project that I think would have made interesting discussions, but there is no place to do that here.

 

Sorry dude I don't know what happened to that message, but I have been on this thread, I thought I had replied to this thread because I subscribed, guess I just subbed, or was there another thread (I swear I responded to something).

Anyway, this is primarily a Unity development forum my main concern with this kind of forum is the potential flood of 'What do you think of my mmorpfps turn based android game" The troll would be strong here.

 

Well its more of a 'would this implementation be better than this?' Or as in designing an interesting game.

 

Well, these are sort of your forums, so I think we should abide what you feel is best. You're the host, you're entitled some respect. (In fact, you're people, you're entitled respect. But, still, let's not over-complicate the issue.)

I guess a related question, if some among us spin off our own mini-forum for Unity Game Design, what possibilities are there for endorsing the Game Design forum? At the very least, when the forum is established, a sticky might prove helpful so that people are aware that, "hey, Unity isn't hosting a dedicated Game Design subforum because we're concerned about trolling in our established areas. That said, you can talk about this sort of thing in General, but members of our community have created a dedicated game design community [hyperlink]here[/hyperlink]! Bear in mind that this forum is not affiliated with Unity Technologies, [insert necessary disclaimers here]."?

 

It should be about game design, ie. whats the best way to implement x using Unity features or whats the theory behind y thing. Idea guy posts or broad mmorpg post could be locked just like they are now in gossip which is not any better as many use it now. I think it's worth a try unless none of the mods don't like to test such section. Anyways if it would fail then it just could be removed.

 

It sounds to me like Aurore is (rightly) worried that as far as game design is concerned, it would be nigh-impossible to keep it focused on Unity specifically, in addition to troll/pointless topics like our oh-so-beloved 'MMOFPSSlenderFlappyBird' topics.

Sure, you and I and most posters here agree on what Game Design is. But, not everyone knows that, and it's not Unity specific, only the implementation of a design can be Unity specific. I can see Aurore's perspective on this matter.

I'm also willing to have the Game Design forum be separate so that we have the opportunity to attempt to prove some of her fears unfounded (or, founded but not as severe as she believes them to be.)

This is the Internet; there are always trolls, but I expect them to be the minority, and easily controllable with the correct setup.

 

So where do we (OP) want to set it up? A dedicated site with appropriate domain name would be best BUT entirely unnecessary right now.

Some quick research led me to http://boardhost.com
and https://www.proboards.com

Either one looks like a fine place to get started. Personally, I don't care much for debating things like this to death and by this time would have set something up. But I think it is the OP's "baby" so to speak and I am just here to support it.

So let's get it rocking and spend no more time rolling around here.

 

I will join an outside forum. I do think it is sad that the moderators allow those that don't follow the rules to ruin for the rest of us. The number of people that would be served by such a forum would far surpass those that don't stay on topic. Besides, there have been several good suggestions on how to handle such posts.

I see bad posts on every one of the forums here, and yet they continue to exist.

 

Agreed. I think the only way to know if a game design forum would be a lightning rod for stupid posts would be to implement it and see what happens. I've seen "halp me make a mmo/fps" threads in Works in Progress, so it's not like these people are putting any effort into deciding where to post.

 

Yeah, I don't get it. lol I used to moderate a huge forum and yeah, it gets to be a pain in the you know what at times, but when a company has a forum, it is in their best interest to keep people talking. Some of us are game designers here.

 

I'm in.
A cool feature would be if experienced users could write full-length articles that would show up as headlines or something.

 

Okay, I'm in to a game design forum.

 

Any volunteers for hosting? I've got hosting for my site already, I imagine a lot of people do. I'm thinkin' about putting something together...?

Here are some available domains:
gamedesignworld.com
gamedevelopmentworld.com
gamedevtalk.com

Comments?

 

I posted a couple public forum sites earlier. Dedicated domain is cool. I was just leaving it up to the OP. Since this is his project and he has been pushing for it. Otherwise, that is cool. BUT it MUST have Unity in the name I think. It needs to make it clear this is UNITY Game Design Forum not Generic Game Design Forum # 1,247.

 

Well unitygamedesign.com is available.

 

But if it isn't really Unity-specific...?

 

I think it is okay to put Unity in the name. Discussions, however, might be more generic. A discussion of how to design a good story flow will work in any engine. However, Unity is our common bond.

Btw, if you need help, let me know. I figure since I really want this I should offer my help.

 

What we are talking about here is Unity related or at least the game design is focused around the fact that we are designing games for implementation in Unity.

Basically, like Ostwind said...

Game Design in general would of course be a main focus but what distinguishes this new forum from the other generic game design forums and such is this particular forum was to tie-in with Unity. That's why JoeStrout was lobbying to get the forum set up right here. Of course, much of the game design discussion would not be tied to any one API/engine but when tech bits are discussed as to how to possibly pull something off they would be related to a Unity implementation. At least that is what I thought this was about. lol

 

Exactly.

 

Well, that's certainly part of it, but to be honest, simple laziness is also at play. I like the Unity forums; I especially like the Alerts feature, as well as user mentions, the code formatting, and other nifty features we have here. I come here a couple times a day and, at the very least, check whether I have any Alerts. I often scan the two or three forums that are of interest to me, too.

An outside forum has none of these benefits. We'd all have to go create separate accounts there, not linked to our Unity3d.com accounts; we'd have to log in separately, and wouldn't get our alerts all in one handy place. I might occasionally have some game design bee in my bonnet, driving me to go bother check another website... but my days are often busy, and I have to triage my web surfing. I'm afraid it often wouldn't make the cut.

So that's why I'd still prefer a forum here. Unity is used mainly for making games, and no game is made without game design (though too many games are made without conscious game design, often resulting in a poor design). So it's certainly on-topic. I frankly doubt we'd get a whole ton of, say, Unreal or GameMaker devs signing up at Unity3d.com just to participate in the game design forum; it's going to be overwhelmingly people who are Unity users already.

And if the occasional Unreal or GameMaker user does join the forum, well, once they discover what swell people we are here, chances are good they'll convert. Seems like a win/win to me.

 

We could live forever without knowing or try it and find out?

The community and the Unity staff should try taking a more positive approach to these people instead of how it was dealt with in the Collaboration section, back in those days it was like ye old west out there with boarder line cyber bullying from senior community members, Unity staff and of course the people who thought they would get away with these insane games and behaviour... At the end of the day all Unity really did was shove it under the rug and walk away when really changing these peoples perspective on game development would have helped them and helped the community become stronger.

I think lots of these people felt pushed into a corner by the community and thought that they couldn't stop defending there ideas without seeming stupid or undermined by the community (I'm sure we have all fought a battle we couldn't win just for pride) This is especially escalated when moderators and staff are posting along with most of the most active members.

I think working with the community to focus on fixing this problem by giving positive advice instead of the "Lol kid you have no idea" would be far more more beneficial and helpful to people who are just starting out, further toxic behaviour should just be ignored preferably on a user basis so these people realise this isn't accepted.

 

Okay my bad. I agree having it here is definitely more convenient but I thought you were basically just wanting it to be Unity Game Design. Maybe I got that from someone else's post.

Since it doesn't seem like it will happen here sounds like this initiative is done unless others want to go ahead and set something up at another site.

 

I'm teetering on the edge about this.

 

It could go either way.. Depends on what it gets fed.

On one hand a design forum would be very useful, because the current sub forums don't have a generic place to ask questions about best practice, smoke & mirror tricks, general optimization, etc... you get the idea... The current place for this is "Unity Gossip" section. But Unity Gossip and the forum in general gives an overall Business vibe rather than a Game Design vibe. It's basically the Off Topic and General Discussion section which can cause a lot of clutter because of the mixed topics it gets due to the lack of a General Game Design sub forum. Personally I feel like something should be added to fill that need and keep Gossip as the abyss that it is.

On the other hand it could very easily become a magnet for "How do I add lasers to my MMORPGFPSSIMRTS Zombie game?" threads. (everybody hates that crap, remember old school Collab forum?) I think the suggested draconian style rules are a little far fetched and would degrade the atmosphere around here. Do we even want to squelch the posts about general game design support? If there were hard rules within it then people might post in Gossip instead, but then it wouldn't fit there because there was the Design subforum so it would just get locked since it doesn't fit anywhere and that's not the best way to go. I think Unity Gossip isn't really intended to contain Game Design Support style posts in the first place.

So something else like General Game Design would certainly fit, but it could easily be a troll tank. I don't think there is really a way around that other than the community acceptance and attitude toward the subforum itself.

 

As an experiment, can you all find threads around here that you think would belong in a game design forum.

 

I was just suggesting how threads like that seem to get derailed into "bro, do you even dev?" kind of things and get out of hand. I think about it and drift back to the old collab forum when people posted about recruiting people for their mmo team and everyone railed on them about not knowing what they're doing. Maybe it would be different since it isn't a request for team members, though. Just a concern about something I don't think any of us want to see making a return.

 

Here's one.
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/de...ed-an-instruction-manual.273971/#post-1809674

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/top-down-2d-npc-avatars-best-design-for-this.270409/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/tips-for-making-projects-more-manageable.271426/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/in-app-purchases-common-practices.274004/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/idea-to-help-combat-cheats-in-your-game.270345/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/would-this-work-for-one-way-jumpthrough-platforms.273776/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/how-to-get-started-on-a-2-5-d-platform-game.270114/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/how-to-handle-years-in-games.273739/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/bastion-like-level-creation.273607/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/terrain-workflow.273633/

 

Additionally...

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/de...iven-conflicting-feedback-on-controls.273043/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/good-game-design-books.271476/
http://forum.unity3d.com/attachments/zmmo-game-design-document-pdf.20153/
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/design-sidescrolling-spellcasting-mechanics-halp.270368/