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WHAT HAVE YOU REDONE THE MOST?
Posts
RedMask
1139
RedMask
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CloseWhat part of one of your games have you had to remake, fix, scrap, or tinker with the most?
For me it was my Last Boss. It was one of the earliest things I made It had two stages to it and both were way too hard to predict in order to dodge.
So I completely scraped it.
Next I had an idea that I would make the Last Boss kinda like a bullet hell type thing but that mostly stayed as a concept also got scrapped.
I eventually came up with a 6 stage final boss which later got cut down to 5 stages.
The first four stages tasked the player with using the 4 elemental spells they learned during the game. Then they got a chance to save and the final form let the player use all the spells to their advantage.
So that's the version I went with when I released my game but every time I re-released the game I kept tinkering with this boss to make it easier, largely based on the feedback I got from my play tester, RedNova.
Not sure if I'll tinker with the Last Boss again in the next update. It's pretty good now but who knows I do like to tinker.
So, what thing in your game did you have to constantly work on?
For me it was my Last Boss. It was one of the earliest things I made It had two stages to it and both were way too hard to predict in order to dodge.
So I completely scraped it.
Next I had an idea that I would make the Last Boss kinda like a bullet hell type thing but that mostly stayed as a concept also got scrapped.
I eventually came up with a 6 stage final boss which later got cut down to 5 stages.
The first four stages tasked the player with using the 4 elemental spells they learned during the game. Then they got a chance to save and the final form let the player use all the spells to their advantage.
So that's the version I went with when I released my game but every time I re-released the game I kept tinkering with this boss to make it easier, largely based on the feedback I got from my play tester, RedNova.
Not sure if I'll tinker with the Last Boss again in the next update. It's pretty good now but who knows I do like to tinker.
So, what thing in your game did you have to constantly work on?
Right now it's the script writing aspect of it- that is to say, writing the dialogue, how the characters interact with the world and each other, and how they move through the world during the course of the story. I don't have problems coming up with a good overarching story, but the details of it always get to me.
That being said, I'm doing a lot of reading up about three act structure, story pacing, etc, and practising writing a lot more in an effort to remedy the situation.
That being said, I'm doing a lot of reading up about three act structure, story pacing, etc, and practising writing a lot more in an effort to remedy the situation.
Xenomic
1752
Oh god...if I had a list of things that I went back and redid a lot. Enemies/bosses (rebalancing their stats and skills), equipment (making some equipment not as stupidly good as they are, changing effects of others, adding new equipment), statuses (added in levels for statuses, changing duration of each levels), characters (still have to fix several characters' skillsets, but also went back and added in new battle and overworld passives, as well as new abilities and changed some old abilities to be more useful), maps (some were really, really ancient. Like, 5-6 years old ancient), cutscenes (mostly done by another person, but he made them SO much better than they originally more. More impact and flair to them than I ever could do)...the list goes on and on. I know people has told me to FINISH the game, but had I kept going the way I was 3 years ago, the game would've been even MORE of a mess had I not gone back and fixed all of these things up I feel!
RedMask
1139
@Pizza - Yeah writing a story for a game is crazy hard. I used to write short stories a long time ago. But making a game story is way different due to all the variables and player interaction.
@Xenomic -
@Xenomic -
author=XenomicBeen there my friend sometimes I'll look at the dates on certain maps or graphics and I'm just like wow I've really been working on this game for that many years!
maps (some were really, really ancient. Like, 5-6 years old ancient)
I've also gotta go with story/script here. It's hard to write stuff like dialog without thinking "Is this terrible? This is terrible, isn't it?" But at some point, I have to move forward so progress is made.
Luckily, Sooz has been helping me with it a lot. :DDDDD
Luckily, Sooz has been helping me with it a lot. :DDDDD
Milennin
2060
Combat related stuff. Switching systems, adding and removing stuffs, finetuning, cleaning up eventing code. That's why I decided to work out the final versions for my characters' Skillsets, so I can hopefully leave that behind me and spend more time doing more other things.
I've restarted remaking a game twice! The original game was made in VX for the Action 52 event where you make a game in 24 hours or less (development time) and I clocked in 23.5 hours . It was, uh, pretty bad! After the event I figured I could do better and worked on remaking it better, sexier, maybe even fun! Eventually it fizzles out and lays incomplete.
So eventually VX Ace comes along and eventually I figure that remaking the game in Ace would be fun. Eventually I hit a crossroads: I can take advantage of Ace's strengths but doing so basically requires redesigning the game again, or stick to reimplementing everything for Ace where I'll get no real advantage besides that it starts faster and I can use a cool pixel movement script I found (all the VX ones were garbage). I take a 2x4 to the base of the game's skull and bury it in a ditch.
Way later Liberty starts the Revive the Dead event and I decide that I'll take one more stab at this fucking thing, clean the table, and start from the base game again except carrying over some QoL scripts. After two weeks it's the closest it's ever been and then I completely burn out with about the last third of the game's enemies to design, balancing, and some extra busy work polish here and there.
I have concluded I can't do better than making a shitty game in 23.5 hours with a bug where you couldn't even get on the airship after getting it. It wasn't even fun anyways.
So eventually VX Ace comes along and eventually I figure that remaking the game in Ace would be fun. Eventually I hit a crossroads: I can take advantage of Ace's strengths but doing so basically requires redesigning the game again, or stick to reimplementing everything for Ace where I'll get no real advantage besides that it starts faster and I can use a cool pixel movement script I found (all the VX ones were garbage). I take a 2x4 to the base of the game's skull and bury it in a ditch.
Way later Liberty starts the Revive the Dead event and I decide that I'll take one more stab at this fucking thing, clean the table, and start from the base game again except carrying over some QoL scripts. After two weeks it's the closest it's ever been and then I completely burn out with about the last third of the game's enemies to design, balancing, and some extra busy work polish here and there.
I have concluded I can't do better than making a shitty game in 23.5 hours with a bug where you couldn't even get on the airship after getting it. It wasn't even fun anyways.
Other than the story, I redo the codes the most. Mostly because my first few implementations are *always* half-assed, overnight rigs held together by spit and molten chocolate. I cover any holes I find in every play-test with sticky tape, ending up with an unrecognisable ball of patches that may or may not have a game somewhere inside it. Though I suppose this is not limited to just game making.
More programming-related, but usually for a game...I've written many new JSON parsers time and time again. Like, I've written double-digit-numbers of JSON parsers, in tons of languages--Java, JavaScript, Python, C, C++, AMD64 Assembly, UltraSparc assembly, Mercury...I've doing it for the last five years.
It's gotten to the point where I can write a 100% compliant JSON parser in assembly under two hours, and in C in under an hour. I spent only three hours writing TurboJSON for the McBacon Jam 2 game with an eye for speed, and it turned out to be close to as fast at parsing as RapidJSON, one of the fastest parsers ever made.
I just have JSON fever or something :P
Or maybe I just subconsciously think that if I understand the problem of parsing JSON well enough, I could somehow solve the parsing performance bottleneck problem.
It's gotten to the point where I can write a 100% compliant JSON parser in assembly under two hours, and in C in under an hour. I spent only three hours writing TurboJSON for the McBacon Jam 2 game with an eye for speed, and it turned out to be close to as fast at parsing as RapidJSON, one of the fastest parsers ever made.
I just have JSON fever or something :P
Or maybe I just subconsciously think that if I understand the problem of parsing JSON well enough, I could somehow solve the parsing performance bottleneck problem.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
The entirety of Tales from Zilmurik in general over the past 9 years (original project completed in summer of 2006).
I kid you not, there was at least one definitive version of New Project (2005), Legends of Destinies (05-07), Dawning of a Dragon's Valor (07-10) and Tales from Zilmurik V: Dawning of a Dragon's Valor (2010) before I started only making fragmented updates to fill out the rest of Tales from Zilmurik IV: Dawning of a Dragon's Valor and finally Tales from Zilmurik.
Damn you, progress!
Then again, I blame that on having virtually no experience in the field when I started the project and spending a decade coming to where I am now. I'm not even kidding. 2003's Mystic Quest II and 2006's Legends of Destinies? Can't even tell the difference.
I kid you not, there was at least one definitive version of New Project (2005), Legends of Destinies (05-07), Dawning of a Dragon's Valor (07-10) and Tales from Zilmurik V: Dawning of a Dragon's Valor (2010) before I started only making fragmented updates to fill out the rest of Tales from Zilmurik IV: Dawning of a Dragon's Valor and finally Tales from Zilmurik.
Damn you, progress!
Then again, I blame that on having virtually no experience in the field when I started the project and spending a decade coming to where I am now. I'm not even kidding. 2003's Mystic Quest II and 2006's Legends of Destinies? Can't even tell the difference.
Blind
2262
Everything in my game, tbh.
;__;
(In seriousness, it's probably the writing. Storytelling has proven to be the most transient quality of mine as a game-designer. One day I'm elated with a particular cutscene, only to be thoroughly dissatisfied a week or two later. A lot of "themes" and plot devices I related to as an adolescent are not necessarily as relevant to me, so I've worked heavily on making the story more universally digestible, or with a more matured perspective.)
;__;
(In seriousness, it's probably the writing. Storytelling has proven to be the most transient quality of mine as a game-designer. One day I'm elated with a particular cutscene, only to be thoroughly dissatisfied a week or two later. A lot of "themes" and plot devices I related to as an adolescent are not necessarily as relevant to me, so I've worked heavily on making the story more universally digestible, or with a more matured perspective.)
Aegix_Drakan
6037
It's always the combat for me. I like it well-tuned and well-valanced. This leads to a LOT of tweaking of values and adjusting of curves and changing of abilities and enemy strategies/gimmicks.
Mapping would be a close second just because I take forever. It's really not my forte.
Oh, I feel you there.
That feeling of "Hell yeah, I nailed this scene!" followed by "GOD what was I thinking, this is making me CRINGE!" is a feeling I'm very intimately acquainted with. Looking back at a lot of my early RPGmaker XP work (none of which was ever released, thank God), I can't help but wonder how I ever felt any of it was great.
I find that it helps to read your dialogue out loud. If it sounds stupid when you say it, it probably sounds stupid when a character says it. That and save the "Over-the Top" for very rare instances. Over-the-top usually just comes off as hammy.
Mapping would be a close second just because I take forever. It's really not my forte.
author=Blindmind
(In seriousness, it's probably the writing. Storytelling has proven to be the most transient quality of mine as a game-designer. One day I'm elated with a particular cutscene, only to be thoroughly dissatisfied a week or two later. A lot of "themes" and plot devices I related to as an adolescent are not necessarily as relevant to me, so I've worked heavily on making the story more universally digestible, or with a more matured perspective.)
Oh, I feel you there.
That feeling of "Hell yeah, I nailed this scene!" followed by "GOD what was I thinking, this is making me CRINGE!" is a feeling I'm very intimately acquainted with. Looking back at a lot of my early RPGmaker XP work (none of which was ever released, thank God), I can't help but wonder how I ever felt any of it was great.
I find that it helps to read your dialogue out loud. If it sounds stupid when you say it, it probably sounds stupid when a character says it. That and save the "Over-the Top" for very rare instances. Over-the-top usually just comes off as hammy.
Graphics and character dialogue. >< The chibi look of VX didn't suit the tone of my project at all, and after seeing Itaju's amazing pixel work ( along with Dookie and Pizza ), I decided to make my own.
Nevertheless, a pain to do, but worth it.
Also, trying to get a coherent plot going with leaving the player scratching their heads. Medieval realpolitik is awfully hard to get right, so I'm doing a lot of research. Battle balancing too.
Basically, nearly every aspect of gam-mak sans mapping ( heh ).
Nevertheless, a pain to do, but worth it.
Also, trying to get a coherent plot going with leaving the player scratching their heads. Medieval realpolitik is awfully hard to get right, so I'm doing a lot of research. Battle balancing too.
Basically, nearly every aspect of gam-mak sans mapping ( heh ).
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Oh dude, read over everything. In the bathroom if you must. If it sounds natural, do it.
I've re-done each game in my "Matsumori" series at least twice. Of course, with Matsumori Days I was switching engines from from RPG Maker XP to RPG Maker VX (not to mention that it's original iteration in XP totally sucked), and that Arbiters From Another World was something of a re-make of a 2K game. To say nothing of Konae's Investigations.
