What is recent tendency of Game Design?

What is popular games in market that indies (1~2 developers, mostly 1 man developer) actually can make within short months? (2~4 months)

What is next big thing that can possibly hit?

 

These are two very different questions. Something that can be done in a very short period of time by 1-2 people is not likely to be the "next big thing." Even if it were, if someone here had a clue as to what that was, I imagine they'd just be cranking that game out and not telling everyone else how to beat them to the punch.

Really, does anyone know what the next popular thing will be until it becomes popular?

 

How skilled are these developer(s)? What resources do they have access to?

If we knew that don't you think we would be trying to make it ourselves?

 

Yes I know, but also I know you will eventually leave some clue if you really know.

 

Recent tendency is same as always. To do as little as possible staying as close as possible to the same basic game styles while maximizing or minimizing the audio visual experience.

Recent examples of small scope projects are Downwell, I Am Barbarian and Grumz.

Any solid game can be the next hit depending on timing, connections basically overall market reach. If you had a billion dollars to spend you could easily make Space Invaders (original no changes at all) a massive hit.

 

The more I think about this, the more it bothers me, too. The title and question posed are conflicting,in that if something is a recent trend, it also can't really be the next big thing, can it?

Nonetheless, I'll try to answer the questions in a cheeky, yet nonetheless true manner:

The Three Laws of A "Successful" Game

1. A game must be entertaining and provide the player with an enjoyable experience.
2. A game must be of good quality and demonstrate its value to the player, unless doing otherwise falls within the limits of the First Law.
3. A game must innovate and provide new experiences, except in such cases where doing so would violate the First and Second Laws.

Edited for accuracy (@hippocoder )

 

4. a game must cruelly kill you again and again, with no tutorials and no remorse.

(my point being that success isn't what you wrote, for a large amount of games, not least dark souls / grinding mmos)

 

Don't forget Kaizo Mario!

 

If you have the right audience this one is very effective.

 

Don't forget Rule #0 - A game must be beatable! If what you're playing can't be won or lost, is what you're playing really a game at all?

 

notch disagrees.

 

It doesn't need to be won or lost, it just needs to be incrementally increased by practice &/or luck so everyone else thinks that they could add one to the best score. If the best score is massively above everyone else people stop trying, if it's only just out of reach people don't stop trying.

 

What if you're free to set your own goals?

Minecraft has an ending in the same sense that Fallout 4 has one.

 

If I was dreaming I'd say the next big thing is the game I'm working on now

 

Then you're still winning and losing, but on your terms.

Going further, what if you set your own goals, but lack enough tools to even start accomplishing those?

 

You're not very good at setting realistic goals?

 

So when is a game "beaten"? When you you finish the main story arc (such as it is in Minecraft), or when you've achieved all there is to achieve? Freemium games like Clash of Clans are built to be unbeatable, while online FPS games have been doing the same thing for a decade now. The carrot constantly moves further away as you progress.

 

Seriously, though. I provoked you into the 'MineCraft Defense' on purpose. MineCraft is a game that gives you a bunch of mechanics/tools, but no explicit goals - MineCraft is based on implicit goals. If a bunch of Creepers come and explode bits of your castle, that's a failure - you have to rebuild bits of your awesome castle. If you don't build shelter before the first night is over...you die, which actually fits a failure condition pretty well!

You can still fail...or succeed. MineCraft shifts the goalposts to your perception, and away from game code.

What about works like Dear Esther, though? You've got one real mechanic - motion. You can look around a pretty world, but what can you do with it? How does one 'win' Dear Esther? How does one 'lose' Dear Esther?

Some people use 'It's not a game.' as an insult, but there are works out there that some people call games that might be something else entirely. I personally find the entire 'Walking Simulator' genre suspect due to the lack of ways to interact with the world. I'm not sure they're games, though they might well be something else. I'm not disowning these works, I'm saying there might be something else to them worth considering.

Instead of MineCraft being the defense for 'forgetting' to program a victory/loss condition...maybe it's just a grey area between things most people clearly agree are games, and works that are something else altogether.

 

Extrinsic & intrinsic goals?

 

Why does every discussion on game design end up sounding like a bootleg version of Game Design Zen?

My friend recently purchased and played That Dragon, Cancer. I knew I couldn't, as even the trailer made me bawl my eyes out. There are interactions, some of them very much gamey, and there's an end. But it's definitely not what you'd describe as fun, and it's not something you win at.

Again, games == art. The programmer part of our brains wants to quantify and break things down into elements we can evaluate objectively. This is good. This is bad. It gets more complicated when you try attaching abstract ideas to these concepts like "fun" and "enjoyment".

Games (and art) are more than the sum of their parts, though. Which is why technically bad games can be enjoyable, and other games that check off all the right boxes may be no fun at all. There's recipes you can follow to guide you towards a good product, but I think enough of it is subjective that you'll never be able to craft a game that everyone universally agrees is flawless, and likewise, you won't be able to make a game that everyone agrees is fun.

 

The whole procedural death labyrinths genre is definitely big with the kids theses days.

 

Some games are affected by our expectations going in. If we are expecting a game to only be meh & it is what we would normally consider a good game we will likely convince ourselves that it was really good simply because it was better than that initial expectation. This is probably why a lot of AAA games are trashed or considered meh, they have raised our expectations so high that once we actually get into the game it can't meet those expectations even if they actually delivered what they said they would.

Under promise, over deliver. It works for business & probably works for games as well.

 

The earliest example of this I really remember was Fable.

The game was so overhyped by poor Mr. Molyneaux, and fans were so willing to buy into it that the game was doomed to be ripped to shreds right from the start. The final product is a perfectly serviceable game, and is even quite good in some regards. But (being among the sheep) I can't ever look at it without feeling disappointment. I've since learned to strictly curb my expectations for games and to only take marketing pitches with a fistful of salt, but those old habits are always wanting to show their faces again.

This is very difficult for indie devs, I imagine, as the only way to even make your game relevant is to convince people it's worth their money, and to do so, you have to hype it a bit. It's a dangerous line to walk, but one you have to do unless you rely entirely on word-of-mouth to get you sales, which can't be a super effective strategy.

 

So here is danger at game making. Innovative game looks good and attracting, but maker can't know if that game is fun or not until complete. So most game start with existing games, to there add their own uniqueness if possible. If maker have plenty of time and resources, they can make prototype and find it will be fun or not, but most indie can't have that. Prototyping also requires time = money. But wrong game design and wrong direction result more destructive result. At the same time, game should be attract many reviewer's attention for free spontaneous advertisement, it is getting more harder about what final game shape should be.

So make it harder is because of concern about result, money. If maker can abandon this problem, he can purely concentrate only on game itself, and even if no money returns, maker himself should be fun when himself play his game. How can other people feel fun even maker himself does not feel fun?

 

Why not? I've made prototypes of every product I ever made, professional and Indie. Blizzard can say the same thing. There's NO reason an Indie can't prototype to find the fun. In fact, if they aren't doing that, they will almost surely fail. I feel strongly about this!!!!!

Gigi

 

I'm with gigi on this one. Indies can only survive because they are innovative. And a big part of innovation is testing and discarding lots of ideas. You should aim to fail fast. Build prototypes quickly, with the intention that any that are not fun get culled quickly.

Sure there is a time cost associated with building a prototype, especially if the prototype is scrapped. But its less then the cost of building an entire game and then scrapping it.