Is anyone actually making a game?

Obviously, I spend way too much time in this forum. But it seems odd that in a 'game design' forum on a game engine website, there is so little actual first hand discussion.

There are certainly guys who have built games who hang out here. But oddly, even these more veteran members rarely share any of the actual detail, the process they've gone through, the kinds of results they've achieved or failed - the really difficult points or the hard decisions they had to make. There's very little about the actual practice of making games or even about designing games.

Many threads about game ideas or concepts or questions about the nature of games, but very little about how they've personally put those ideas or concepts into action.

Maybe this post is a little too meta, crack for a forum junkie, but is there any way we could potentially foster a more useful forum by sharing actual practice, examples and actual experiences? Maybe more challenges, post postmortems, design 'check ins' etc?

 

The problem is it may take a year or more to create a large scale game (which we've done many times), but you can only post about it "once" really... and that is if you have the time to create such a comprehensive post. Honestly, reading Gamasutra articles on the post mortems or devlogs is a better place for that. Forums are more about quick and simple stuff

 

@frosted I agree it does seem odd that people pop in to the forums in general to ask for help with a tech issue or marketing, report a bug or post their latest game release. But rarely do we ever see any real game focused discussion. Over here in GD we have them yet it still seems like they don't get into the nitty gritty detail much and instead move down a path of philosophy and academic thoughts leading to off-topic discussions.

I have tried to post some more game focused stuff this week in the General Discussion forum to get more of this side of things covered on these forums. There are some good websites out there like @ironbellystudios mentioned where you can at least read about such things. Not quite the same as a discussion and yet better than nothing.

To answer your question I am not currently working on a game project. Well... sure I am but not an Indie game to be released. I am currently doing an experiment testing different game dev frameworks to see which is the best for me personally to work with.
If you like that sort of thing there is a link in my signature. I was making logs for the updates. Now I am logging it all on Twitter and will make the web page log probably this weekend.

It does get a bit tiring recreating the same game over and over in different frameworks but in the end I should have my answer.

When I do other experiments such as marketing a simple game I will document those on my website as well. Just not very far along yet.

 

Ryan captured it perfectly! I post fairly often about my own experiences, I share my stories, and I capture it in permanent media such as Podcasts. And even so, games take weeks, months, or years. I've only released 9 solo products in 4 years, so there's just not that much for me to share on a daily basis. For the most part, I come here to provide guidance when aspiring developers ask insightful questions.

Gigi

PS - I rarely discuss my super-rough work, until I'm far enough along that I'm sure it's going somewhere. It's not about keeping secrets, it's part of the "don't-tell" science that keeps me motivated.

 

Mmm no. Nobody here is making games. Absolutely all of the thousands/millions of people using Unity... nobody is making games at all.

 

Honestly, lots of times, making games is boring. You can spend a week or even months on something very important to your game but just not very exciting. It is not fun trying to find interesting things to write about when you are just modelling bits and testing them, or integrating code between different systems.

Besides, we all have other places we talk about our game with the fans and community that wants to play our games.

 

But if it wasn't for those times when you feel excited about finishing a project or working on a new concept I don't think many people would want to make games at all.

 

Yep, very true although posting here can sometimes be very demotivating. While so many people are extremely supportive, you kind of have to prove yourself first. Trust me, it is a scary place when you are putting your creative plans out there.

 

MEEEEE!

Sorry.

Yes, I'm making a game.

I try to check into the forums periodically to grab feedback for ideas, see what's new and try to put my name in front of some people. Being visible, intelligent and pleasant might help me land some freelance work now and again.

 

In small slivers of time between development on Love/Hate, the Dialogue System, and Quest Machine, and providing support for them on the forums, I provide programming support on The Corridor, a VR horror game. I'm bringing an alpha to Unite if anyone's coming and wants to check it out. One day a month at a local meetup I work on a casual solo project, a sci-fi local co-op twin stick shooter. I'll bring a copy of that, too.

Real world experiences to share? Mostly the same as any type of product development:

• Use and regularly test backups and version control. If you're not regularly testing backups and version control, don't bother using them.
• Set up easy, searchable, succint communication channels. On The Corridor, we use a wiki to document everything, with sections on Narrative, Level Designer Instructions, and Engine Implementation. We've recently also been using Slack for informal back-and-forth.
  
• Regular weekly builds.
• Regular reviews and feedback -- and actually listening to the feedback and incorporating it.

And for indie game development? Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. My strength is building technical systems. Of my many weaknesses, I still have a terrible eye for visual composition, and I don't draw or sculpt models worth a darn. Rather than slowly and incompetently build ugly characters and levels on my solo co-op game, I "outsource" as much as I can to Asset Store artists and procedural level generators like DunGen.

 

Yes, just got the finished framework done after 16 months, now I just need to polish the art, sort out the soundtrack, do the animations, link all the minigames, sort out all the talking heads with lip sync.,Otherwise it's done with win conditions etc.
Normally it takes 6 - 8 people 6 months to do this type of game so I'm quite pleased it only took this long so far. I've done this crap and various other creative stuff for 30 years or so, one step at a time, laboriously, working through all the dull stuff, which is basically all of it. Most of professional game development consists in managing motivation, depression, lack of faith in one's abilities, and it's an ever repeating cycle. It's just a job like any other, and like any job one takes pleasure in the little things, much of life consists in taking pleasure in the little things. However, once one has gone though this process once right to release one knows it can be done, so every demotivational episode one gets used to working through, and inevitably one ships a game again.

It's why I always say to people that ask , screw the art just get the game complete and playable even if iot looks like a travesty, because polishing at the end is incredibly easy once the core is done because one can stop polishing at any time but one can't stop coding until the game works.

 

I am making games....but I get distracted by the Unity forums

 

It can be tedious no doubt but I'm never bored that's for sure One of the big reasons that I have so much gratitude for switching from an indie dev to an service provider for other indie devs.. I found it difficult to maintain the same excitement and passion after the 16th month of working on the same project but now I am blessed to speak with dozens of incredibly passionate indies every week who all have amazing and exciting ideas and it really keeps us pumped day in and day out in a way we never got working on our own.

 

I am never bored either...but people would be reading about all those tedious details.

 

LOL yeah im kinda embarrassed to share what little i have on what i actually care about now..
i get side tracked ALL the time working on bits and pieces of "COOL ideas" .. little experiments and practice i guess, nothing really that exciting to show off lol

 

There's a few notes in your podcasts that have actually deeply affected how I look at my own design on a daily basis. It's proven very helpful and has improved the quality of my work. Your contributions are really great man.

I definitely hear a lot of the other comments, @Teila brings up the fact that a lot of the day to day work is just, well, work. She also brings up the fact that exposing rough ideas to the (forum) world is scary and can be demotivating. @ironbellystudios points out that gamasutra is a better place for proper post mortems,

I guess my point overall is not so much about "check in" or "post mortem", it's simply about discussion. Maybe it's because I'm a total noob and I want to absorb your experiences. There's a real value for me, and the many other noobs like me, in hearing more of the detail of your personal experiences, both good and bad. The challenges, the mistakes, the glorious successes.

Yes, other sites might be better for a proper post mortem, but wouldn't this community be more useful if there were more posts that had phrases like "Yeah, when I was working on the transmorgifier system in Super Awesome Game I ran into the same problem ..." or "Here's how I tried to accomplish that in one of my projects". Or "I tried to do something like this but I ran into x, y, z limitations".

I'm not trying to brow beat people into sharing more than they want to. I'm wondering what we can do as a community to possibly encourage more discussion like this. More discussion about the actual practice of making games. That is, assuming I'm not the only one who would find this kind of thing valuable!

 

Also, dude, that WIP is sick! Nice job. It looks like you did a sick job on the component based ability definitions!

 

I get that, but making games is really weird in some ways. I can work days on a problem only to discover some simple solution that I some how missed. After I fix it, I quickly move on to the next issue and the old one is no longer important to me. I see this with my programmers too. They rant and rave about some problem and I get worried about the delays..and then within hours, they tell me...oh, stupid me, I missed that.

Having worked in a science field, it all works a little differently. The process is also long and sometimes tedious, but it is interesting as well. I find the process of making games less interesting (although more fun sometimes) than research, experimentation and field work in science. Those often do end up with pages of discussion, but games? In the end it usually seems so trivial.

A good place for you to look though are blogs. Somewhere there is a list of blogs by Unity game developers. I have one where I discuss my game development experiences. I am not a programmer so my stuff probably won't be helpful to you but I have read many blogs by programmers here and they may be something you would enjoy. I sometimes pass those along along to my guys.

 

Just as happenstance, I actually got the idea for the tech builder right here on the forums lol.

 

Got to agree with @Teila, a lot of it is just "grunt" work.. If you were to ask me I could tell you, but usually for me it's BAU I just get on with it.

 

Sometimes I do feel like game developers tend to keep their games pretty secret while they're making them. Which is understandable. You don't want people ripping off your ideas or your hard work. But then again, I am pretty new to the game development scene, and so I'm not sure if this is necessarily a good thing to do.

I also feel like I don't have any authority or "clout" to tell people about "good ways to do things", until I've actually released a game for myself. Until then, I don't feel qualified to do so.

I do enjoy talking about the game development process in general though, and I like hearing about what other people are doing. Honestly, the Unity forums are sometimes just where I come to relax until I get up enough motivation to continue working on my game

 

Do you have some tried and tested strategies to get through those things? I'd love to hear some more on this.

 

Not to wax poetic, but it's kind of like a lovers quarrel. Sometimes you'll get depressed, like you aren't getting anywhere, and you have to take some time to breath.

When I feel like I'm spinning my tires, I'll take some time to play something new, or just get away from games altogether and delve into something else. I'm a fan of nature hikes, having been raised in the Adirondacks, also historical sites. After gaining some perspective and getting your insides sorted again, the love comes back and you'll have some new experiences to pour into your games.

I once heard it said that everybody who works with their mind needs a hobby where they work with their hands, and everyone who works with their hands, needs a hobby for their brain.

 

Just the knowledge that I've finished large games before helps with the grind. When one gets a brain freeze, leave the computer and go and read a book and lie down for a bit.

Don't show WIP because an unfinished game without polish is never well received.

Only playtest on the target audience.

Always remember that subjective opinions always fall somwhere on a bell curve - there is no such thing as a perfect game, for every person that thinks your game is brilliant there will be an equal number that believe you deserve to be lynched for even making it, and the majority of people fall somewhere in between. As such one can pretty much discount subjective opinion, so don't seek it.

Variety is the spice of life, so when working on a game as soon as one aspect begins to pall, close it down and do another task that needs to be done - sick of dragging objects into place, go and sort the music out or the sfx. Unity is really good for that because of the component nature of the system, so make use of it. Games can be built in Unity like a patchwork quilt, one doesn't need to go from A - Z in one straight line.

Make sure where you work has paintings you like and that give you pleasure just looking at them, I have a weird orange and yellow abstract on the wall that I ran across by accident 15 years ago that immediately made me feel happy. Ensure that the room is not painted in dull or cold colours, colours have a subtle psychological effect on people so find out what colours make you feel good and make sure they're in your workplace. Blue and other cold colours are not a good idea. The sunlight in the south of France has a wonderful colour, I always try to recreate that if I can in the room I work in.

Reserve your favourite music for when you feel down and need a bit of perking up. If you eat at your desk use that short period to watch some youtube stuff, something like College Humor or cracked, laughing is a great cure.

Always do a bit of work no matter how bad you feel, even if it is just importing a few assets, even if it is just for 5 minutes because it will make you feel a bit better and the game will progress. Mark progress in chunks not in the whole game.

Get the framework of the game complete as soon as possible. If you spend time building everything in a polished state it will take a long time and you reduce the chance of the game being finished and increase your chance of becoming demotivated. Once you have a finished game in the sense that all the win conditions are in, that it can be played from start to finish it is a great boost to morale. A game that is 100% done even if it looks like pavement pizza is still a game. A game with fantastic art that is not finished, that cannot be played, is not a game, it is a never ending chore that saps one's motivation.

 

Thanks a lot you guys, these sound like really good strategies. I'll try some of those.
If anybody else can contribute some more, go ahead! Can't read enough about those things and I truly believe that tackling these challenges gets you closer to releasing a finished game than most other things could.

 

As a dedicated forum junkie I can say I'm not actively developing any games at the moment. I do spend more time on the forums then making games. There are a couple of prototypes I kick around occasionally. And Pond Wars gets the occasional line of code towards UNet integration. But life has been such a mess in general since I lost my job that sitting down to code in a solid block just hasn't happened.

The good news is the end is in sight. I have a new job. The family moves in to the new house in a couple of weeks. We've brought a new car. The kids start school soon. Life should get back to normal. Which will allow me more time to spend on things like building games, making YouTube videos and hitting people with swords.

However I have half a postmortem written for Pond Wars. If you like I can finish it up and post it. I can write about some of the key design choices I made. The game is fairly small fry, so it won't tell you how to make it rich. But it might be interesting to discuss.

 

That's post-mortem I would really like to read. I played pond wars on three seperate occasions, so I'm interested in how you made the design decisions for the game.

 

Okay, will clean it up and start a thread here.

 

And its done. Mostly focused on the design aspects, as requested.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/pond-wars-post-mortem.356505/

 

'Is anyone here actually making a game'
Yes definitely
'Has anyone every finished a game'
Not many

 

I just finished graduating from Full Sail University, and have received my bachelor's in Game Design. The final "test" was to create a game, with a team, in a four month period. The team consisted of myself and four of my peers; which derived from a wide range of work ethic and drive! The development process was grueling, but the end result is so rewarding that I am currently working on a solo project, in which is simply something to keep me going until I find a job in the gaming industry! The game that my team, and I have created was with Unity, and is called Cops and Crooks. The game is a side-scrolling, beat em' up; with some RPG elements added into it. Cops and Crooks also has multiple endings, and is able to be played in one sitting. As designers, we decided to not have a save file because we felt that it would take away from the multiple choices the player is able to make within the game, especially at the very end! I will post the link to the game in this post, there is a mobile build that is on Google Play, and a PC build that we placed on newgrounds.com, I hope anyone who decides to check it out; enjoys it!

Thank you,

Michael

Mobile Link:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.TeamCharlie.CopsAndCrooks&hl=en

PC Link:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/663955

 

@mmitchell10000 Welcome aboard Michael! If your next prototype is ready by Oct 9, consider submitting it to the Feedback Friday (top of Game Design forum).

Gigi

 

Thanks, but I am simply working on animation right now, and trying to construct how I want the game to play out. It will definitely be a side-scroller though, is it still plausible to post my previous game on the October 9th Feedback Friday; even though it's already a finished build? I would still like as much feedback on it as possible, to help me, and my designs; in the future.

 

Would you still make improvements? In those threads, people take actual time to provide constructive feedback, to help other REAL developers improve their product.

Gigi

 

I was unaware that the forum was particularly for making improvements on builds that were not finished. I will not be making improvements on that game, I feel that it is already a finished product. I was only asking to see if I were able to receive feedback to help with future projects. When I am finished with a prototype of the game I am currently working on, I will surely submit it. Thanks!

Michael

 

It's true, most of the time I've spent posting on the Unity forums, I have not directly been making games. Most of my recent projects have not been games, but rather tools for eventually making games. Partially, this is because I just really enjoy making tools. It is also because tools make for shorter, more focused projects than full-on games. And lastly, it is because Unity's component structure makes it very easy to crank out modular tools that can be flexibly used in any number of different situations.

I don't think there's any actual problem with this, though. I'm just trying to keep my expectations realistic, and my personal circumstances don't provide me with nearly as much time as I once had. So I've just been fairly limited in how much time I can spend on game development. Diving into a full-on game project at the moment would not be a good idea for me.

 

Additionally, there's wisdom in starting with tools/infrastructure. I've trashed many projects/prototypes, but taken useful bits of technology to the next project, that later got trashed. To put that statement in perspective: the three complete games I've gone public with are backed by about 20 projects that just haven't made the cut.

Similar to RichardKain, I don't have the free time I used to have. I find myself needing to spend my limited dev time more efficiently. I've been considering a similar approach, so that I spend time "just making games", instead of building infrastructure, then prototyping, then expanding, then prototyping again, rinse, repeat.

Game Dev is a hobby I love, that helps me professionally...but there's serious diminishing returns from spending too much time on a single project. Reducing the time I spend on a project, and having more projects that get finished and go public, is better for me.

 

That was a nasty trick. I've now realised the project was past the point of productivity and started on something else. So I'll change my vote earlier. I am now making a game.

The plan will be to get something playable for the 9th. I just need to sort out my data structure a little more then I am good to go.

 

You are making a new game or rejigging pond wars?

 

New game. Rejigging has been sapping up a lot of my energy for not much in terms of results. So rejigging is over for now. This one is totally new.

 

@BoredMormon - what do you mean by nasty trick? I'm not taking umbrage btw, just interested.

 

No offense intended, you actually did me a favor. Completing the post mortem for Pond Wars and the discussion that followed made me realize I have no more interest in the game and developing it. Its finished, but I was hanging on because I didn't want to let go. Now I'm happily writing something new.

I say nasty simply because it was quite a shock to come to that realization. And I suspect some people involved in the discussion knew I was done with the game before I did.

 

I've had a few of those realisations myself. One can be too close to a project to see things clearly.

 

I'm probably confused. The Feedback Friday thread helps developers to get feedback about products that are in progress. More info is in the thread.

Gigi

 

Maybe so, but is it set in stone that one has to take note of the feedback i.e. that one is obliged to make changes suggested? At the end of the day just expressing an opinion on the design decisions made even on a finished game still provides feedback that may influence the design of a new game.

 

Is the product still evolving? If so, feedback is appropriate. If it's done, dead, or finished - then "FEEDBACK Friday" is probably not the right forum. What you do with the feedback is up to you.

Gigi

 

I bow to your exalted majesty's righjt to control your own forum - of course if I ever need feedback from someone that makes the equivalent of flash games I'll come crawling on hands and knees to "FEEDBACK Friday". Lol

 

I am working on something....trying to create...a quadrilogy...(I think I have O.G.D!! (Obsessive Genre Disorder)

Spoiler: Ace WWI Dogfighter beta

Spoiler: Ace WWII Dogfighter v3.4

Spoiler: Ace WWIII Dogfighter beta

Spoiler: Ace Galactic Dogfighter beta

Hopefully.... I can get this out of my system....soon

p

 

I'm in the process of tackling the impossible. A cyberpunk MMO!

I know, I know. Fortunately for me though, I have a few years experience in the industry, a top-notch team of pros and a pile of funding to make it happen.

And I am more than happy to rant and rave about our development, both on the development side and on the business side. aaaand, shameless plug!

 

Good luck!

Obligatory: You'll need it!

Seriously, though, can't wait to see what you come up with.