as im am sitting here, writing tsome important aspects of the story of a project of mine, i realized that i havent talked about one thing enough.

the aspect of gameplay is often ignored by most users here. everytime i see a new project beginning by mostly new users, i get treated with walls of text that talk about the story the characters and the graphics. but i hardly read any info about the gameplay.

until recently, i too was focused on the story of a game. i wrote a story and thought what game could fit to that. but i realized that this is the compeltly wrong aproach.

you should focus on gameplay first. story last. nobody cares about your story anyway until the final game, so why bother?

my last mistake on that part was with pepe, a mistake i really regret now. if it werent for morten (a very good friend of mine) and his gokenshi studio, pepe would be a joke of a game. but the wa it turns out to be now is, thanks to morten, the game actually turns out to be great, look great and especially play great. but thats another story.

i am working with rei ayanami currently on two porjects. we joined for him to learn how to work with the engine and how to set up a game from scratch. and I, of course, needed a programmer since i cant program at all.

now, our first project is curretnly on hold until i have the money to buy the required player and enemy models. also, this project has all the time in the world, for the chosen gaphical style looks always good, no matter what year, so it can wait.
we now concentrate on anotehr game of mine.

with this game, i chose the gameplay before anything else aproach. i mapped out the entire gameplay early on. the whole idea was set up. only after the gameplay was fixed, i thought about the story, adn thus the presentation.
i wrote a small story without details, just to fix the way you play through the game

the game is some sort of mixture between virtual novel and point and click adventure, so it had to folow a vague idea of where to go next with what items.

now, after less than two weeks, we are already finalizign the basic gameplay. that means we are already able to play through the entire game, with all the riddles soon to be implemented.
that whole process took us two, maybe three weeks.

now, that this is done, i begin working on the story. i am currently writing a book you will find in the game. you find alot of books in the game. those books are diaries of people, some family chronicles, history of the area and such things.

if we continue with that speed, we can go into beta by march. that means we created a game from scratch within three months.

a development this fast only works if you know your tools obviously, but first and foremost if you pinned down exactly how the game should play. if you have to rework gameplay during development, it takes truckloads of time, something i experienced myself with pepe.

so my tipp: gameplay first. dont care about models, graphics, music or story. care about the gampleay. use placeholder models for everything. simple cubes do the trick, everyone can do them with one click in med.
create the entire game with testlevels and testgraphics before you do anything else. if you focus on your work like that, you can create the entire game within mere weeks. everything else can be done afterwards, and development goes faster than you might expect

well, truth be told and am speaking for myself here, i dont know about others, i always focus on gameplay and i've yet to create a project that isnt fun, quite frankly i suck at making boring games, i always evaluate the gameplay of my games on a psychological level, i even talk about the "feel" of the projectiles and hit effects, though most people never understand, for me in particular, its not that i dont talk about gameplay because am focused on other elements but in the gaming industty, gameplay elements are the only elements that can be 'borrowed' so i rather keep them to myself until close to the projects end, in the case of a commercial project...

most people think theyre game ideas and style will be stolen so they try to protect that but truth is, your idea probably isnt that special anyway, you may think it is, i would love to think my game is the first of its kind but its not, all i have going for it is gameplay elements and i choose to not talk about those, atleast, not yet

but you are very right, use placeholders, dont sit and say, i cant make my game because i dont have models, instead, use placeholders and script your gameplay then say "i cant complete my game because i dont have models" and at that point, if the gameplay with your placeholders are good, you WILL find modelers, they will even message you [trust me on that]

sounds like inferno and i take a similar approach, I start with a small gameplay prototype, and then I work from there adding smaller gameplay details and mechanics so that I can make them both workable control wise,annd mentally/coordinationally (is that even a word?) challanging enough to keep the players attion.

aaaaaaaaaaah, its good to be back.

i think that having a main focus on only one thing leads to failure in any possible way.
having the best gameplay wont mean a thing if the controls dont work proper.
having the best gameplay wont mean a thing if the game atmosphere doesnt catch you.
having the best gameplay wont mean a thing if your art miss matches.

i tend to use the "focus on not fucking up anything in first place" rather then putting my whole energy into only one aspect of a multidimensional entertainment product.


one of the best games i have played in years is Mass Effect 2. the gameplay is anything but complicated or deep. BUT: the game offers an in depth atmosphere and storyline i havent seen in years.
one of the most annoying things in rpgs are the dialogs. most of the time boring but needed. MF2 creates one of the worst game elements into one of the best things ingame (story, dialogs, possibilities of choice, impact of decisions, no wrong answer possible,.....)
so its a mixture of ambient, gameplay, art and technology.


and as far as i am concerned games should always be a mixture. they should be treated and created that way. and all its elements should be part of the end product. step by step, brick by brick. dont create one entire thing at the beginning.


gameplay changes art changes story changes features changes gameplay

good Userinterface,
polishing,
a well balanced rewardstructure
and style-guided art
(where the way the style of all elements fits together is more important that the quality of the single assets)

are the major points in my opinion.

Stories are easily told, and most of the time ignored by the player.
The player will often listen to the story more, when he has fun
with the game itself.
Most games use known gamemechanics anyhow, with a
twist here and there. So dont bother if it is not totally new.

Often innovative games just FEEL new, by bringing a common game-mechanic into a different perspective.

as an INDEPENDENT developer, especially one without a team, the BEST and sometimes only route to go is make a GAMEPLAY prototype..

"having the best gameplay wont mean a thing if the controls dont work proper."

cant have good gameplay with bad controls, its just unheard of..

"having the best gameplay wont mean a thing if the game atmosphere doesnt catch you."

heh, this is both true and falls, define atmosphere, atmosphere refers to the world around you and the story, if you have good gameplay, honestly, sometimes ppl wont care

if the game is fun yet not very atmospheric, ppl will excuse it, if the game is pretty, yet lacks gameplay, ppl will move on quickly

PLUS, by having a gameplay prototype done, people WILL join and help you make your game a reality, if i was trying to balance all elements of my game, i'd never be where i am now, so far all i have to show are gameplay elements

people will join you no matter what you have created.
the reason why indys lack team members has nothing to do with the gameplay.

and times are gone where people "excused" game vital stuff.
if its not your game, its another one. easy as that.
gameplay alone wont mean nothing if the rest sucks.


i am not saying gameplay isnt important. my point is that just focusing on one element even when starting makes no sense to me at all. neglecting all other areas for the sake of gameplay will lead to no good results.



games require multitasking, while playing them and while making them.

the reason most people are indie developers is because they think they can create something they've seen somewhere else, but better.

getting people to sign up to your idea is a near impossibility, as people can't see why they should be working for/with someone else when they have a similar (or in their eyes, a better idea).

so until you've proved yourself and show you are somebody that can make something, noone with any skill will join you.

Gameplay is a must, but there's no point in having an idea of gameplay you'd like, then constantly tell someone what to create if there's nothing else being provided. If you were going to do that, you'd expect payment.

It's more than possible for someone to have a great idea, but implementation of an idea is where development needs to start, lots of prototyping, then work on the game design, see what you can do with the tools you've got, rather than create tools for what you want to do.

(Welcome back Blattsalat! )

yes good points, but even so, a person cant create good gameplay and ignore everything else, gameplay include basic visual and audio elements, there cant be good gameplay with few other elements, good gameplay requires that a basic version of almost every other system be implemented

Well, i joined sPIKe, because I like and liked the idea very much.

I am not a creativ person, so if anyone has a really good idea, and also have some good points why i should join, beside his idea, i would join

This was(and still is) my first real project, and I learned very many things very fast, this was very nice

Now, i am working on the other project, and as spike says, devolpment goes really fast! I think another point why it is going so fast, is that I learned many things from the other project, so I can write the code, and if i need something more to do, i can ask him and he always has something to do for me

The walkthrough can already be done, now we are working at the atmosphere and the effects. You see, how fast that is? - And it is not a 5min game, I, with the walkthrough text, need about an 3/4 our up to an hour, and just because I always know where to go next . So a usual player would need a long time! And as I said, the effects and some items, which are not needed for the walkthrough are not implentet!



Well, cuz i have known his other projects like Ambages and Monster Mega Mayhem , it was an easy to decide if I want help him, because his other projects were/are great too!

and it would be very hard, if you are a person like sPIKe, who can't program, how you should show that your project would become the next top game?