Why always puzzlers for new devs?

Every time a new dev is wondering about genres, they are offered some sort of puzzler. But why? Isn’t basic 3D horror with no combat the easiest game technically? You basically only need some screamer triggers, death triggers, and menu. Maybe pickup items. The rest is all about the world and the story.

 

It's newbie-hazing

Some simple puzzlers need fewer assets than even the simplest vertical slice of horror game. There's no need for story. The focus is all on code. That's why you'll see people suggest Pong sometimes, as it's just teaching you input, movement and collision, essentials you need for basically everything. Most newbie tutorials don't even bother with sound!

 

These things still take a lot of work to be good.

If you're using something like Unity that's not going to teach you many technical game dev skills. Yes, you're right, you could boil it down to some triggers, and probably implement the basics with stuff straight off the Asset Store and built-in functionality... but how much do you learn by doing that?

As @orb says, making a Space Invaders or a Pong or a Breakout has evolved from how people used to learn the fundamentals of building games - the game loop, representing objects in a scene, getting stuff to move, detecting collisions... Unity handles the details for you, but those projects still get you to look at each of those systems, do stuff with them, and see how they interact.

 

An attitude like this is why Steam is completely packed to the walls with completely forgettable and completely non-scary horror games.

 

3D horror games will involve topics such as model animations, lighting, character and camera controllers, shadows, trigger colliders, and similar mid skill level concepts that may not be optimal to throw at someone brand new to Unity. A puzzle game or something like Frogger doesn't require much that a beginner would have trouble with to get a playable game.

 

The REAL horror is looking at the publish date of games still in early access.

 

I see, so it's simplifying all aspects of the game at once.

Of course, they do, but they aren't technical. As in, you don't need any specific game-making coding skills for that.

Would they be less forgettable and more atmospheric if their creators had access to more complicated code?

But they would have to make the art assets anyway. Often with animation too and rings and bells and without the smoke and mirrors of asset store weather solutions and other 3D help.

 

It's not just code, but experience in making a game where the stakes are low enough that if the game doesn't end up having flawless gameplay that you won't be turning out a steaming turd.

 

You don't have to do all that to make the game fun and playable. Just create some simple stand in art in mspaint or gimp. The game won't be less fun with terrible art. A horror game though is a whole lot less fun if it isn't scary, and it won't be scary without the whole list of things I mentioned put in. if your monster or whatever isn't scary looking, or if you don't get the lighting and shadows just right, the game will just be boring, and will feel to the new developer as a complete failure.

 

What about walking sims then? Some of them are made by artists and the code looks like a mess despite its simplicity. One could program such a game in a day and then spend a year working full time on environment design and story.
There is this moody exploration game about a fox that seems to be pretty successful, it's made by a solo dev who says he can't write any code beyond a couple lines. He had no experience in creating complicated games.

 

A bad horror game is easy to make. Steam is full of them. A good horror game is very difficult to make. It's not about just having the assets, it's about having a deep understanding of psychology. Puzzles are the types of games where you can make a very fun one with minimal mechanics without having to understand the deeper meanings of game theory. It also teaches a new dev that depth comes from how minimal things interact with each other in complex ways, not about lots of stuff.

 

You seem to be getting really focused on the "code" aspect. That's not necessarily important - and I'm a programmer by trade!

There are many skills other than programming that go into making even a simple game good.

Indeed, not all games require complex code, or even code at all.

But they all require multiple disciplines*, and you have to be pretty good at at least one of them to make something other people will find worth playing. And if you're good enough at that one thing, or if you use it to address things that others aren't addressing, then you can get away with being less good at the other stuff.

* Interactive design, effective presentation, and making content worth presenting. You could address each of those with a variety of technical skills.

 

Is a basic horror game easy to implement? If you only go with a simple first person camera, limit play to moving around in an environment, have basic scares, etc then it's very easy to implement but the result will be utter garbage. There are tons of basic horror games made by new developers and none of them are worth playing in the slightest.

If you just want an easy game to implement arcade games are among the best choices. They have simple mechanics that have had many years to be thoroughly analyzed and are relatively simple to code thanks to having been made for systems with extremely tight CPU and memory constraints.

 

As other said.
Just to add making anything 3D is not easiest way. Specially without solid background.
New dev probably will stuck on simple direction, orientation bunch of issues, withouth understanding what is gimbal lock for example.

 

Mr Gimbal forgets his keys and is locked out of his home.

TicTacToe

 

You make it sound like the world and story are the easy part. For a lot of people it's much easier to just program a puzzle game. Simple as that, really.

Edit: Actually, in my experience with my local game developers association, I've met a lot of people (surprisingly many) who are interested in developing games specifically in terms of rules and systems. They start off with paper cards and generic plastic pawns.

There's usually some thin premise/setting, but that's not where the real game is. These people are not really interested in story or graphics or thematic genres like horror, fantasy, or whatever. A game doesn't always need these things. They're interested in strategy and decision-making an competition for it's own sake.

I imagine that a lot of people who make puzzle games are people who want to just make games, but with no interest in telling a story or pretending to be super heroes or what not.

Note: I'm the opposite, by the way. In game development, I'm really most interested in window-dressing, so to speak.

 

I'd say the reason puzzle games are suggested first is primarily because of the fact that games were much more code dependent in the past(already mentioned above). So puzzle games are much more about coding and algorithms than graphics and audio, and therefore assuming you learn the coding side, you can more likely churn out something of some sort of quality as compared to something heavier.

These days, I still think puzzler games aren't bad suggestions for starters. However, I think that some games that are more arcady, like breakout, pac-man, or similar, are much better suited for first few games than they used to be, mainly if you are using a pre-built engine like Unity. If you are coding in something like C++ without a higher level engine, then I think the puzzler suggestions are much better just like in old times.

 

Are they? I don't recall ever seeing here or on other forums a new dev being told to start with a puzzle game. Unless you are referring to something like Breakout/Arkanoid as a puzzle game. It may well be happening a lot and I just didn't notice. Where are you seeing this happen so often that you have the impression it is "every time"?

Any game any genre is as easy or difficult as tiny scope or huge of a scope as you turn it into. Your game design choices, programming complexity choices, art style and fidelity choices, audio style and complexity choices, amount of content you decide the game must have etc... all of this defines the scope and all are up to you.

Generally speaking a person could make a playable Breakout style game in 1 hour or they could turn it into a 1,000 hour+ project... it's all based on the choices they make.

 

This is what I understood from the topic.
I think is just wording.

 

The easiest games to produce for beginners are the simplest. But this is not just a matter of a single aspect, it is a matter of all aspects. You can't look at a walking simulator and claim that it is simple. For true simplicity, you have to boil a game down as much as humanly possible.

1. Single-screen. You know what makes a game more complicated? Having more than one perspective. In fact, having more than one visual screen. The easiest way to simplify a game is to give the user a single fixed screen where the game takes place, and nothing else. Asteroids, Pac-Man, Pong, Missile Command, etc... There is only one flat perspective, and the camera never moves.

2. Art. Creating artistic assets is a constant challenge in games. It's why you often see smaller teams attempt to use programmer art, or purchase created art from an Asset Store. Art takes a lot of time and effort to produce, and it requires specialized talent to make it well, and specialized experience to make it optimized. Art is a time-sink where game development is concerned. If your art is made up of simple shapes with a programmed effect layered on top, you will be able to make your game a lot faster and a lot cheaper. This is also why you see so much pixel art. Pixel art is simpler than high-definition 3D modeling. Simple art is better for beginners, and using as little of it as possible is also better. The more art your game requires, the more time and effort you will have to pump into it. Focus on simple, minimal art.

3. Gameplay. In Missile Command, you shoot down incoming missiles, that's it. In Frogger, you get an amphibian to cross a road, done. In Tetris, you complete and clear lines. In Pac-Man, you eat all the dots and avoid ghosts. Give the player one clear goal, some clear obstacles, and call it a day. The more extra systems you try to layer on, the more complicated you make things. For beginners, just focus on the absolute basics of gameplay. One-sentence pitch. What's the goal, what are the obstacles, and what are the controls?

 

You mean arcade right? Not puzzler? I've yet to see a very strong recommendation for puzzlers to new devs. Puzzle games introduce some complex design requirements, which is difficult as a first game.

Arcade games are suggested primarily because the design has already been solved, and the design is simple to implement. The games can work with assets made in paint. Pong, breakout, asteroids, flappy bird, space invaders. All of these are good starter games.

Not really. Character controllers aren't simple. Horror design is far from solved or simple. You need 3D assets, paint won't cut it.

Ultimately new devs do best when they are learning as few skills at a time as possible. Arcade games focus them in on coding, and leave art and design until later.