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All talk, no play

You need some balance, because it had nothing to go fun or talk sometimes, but in general i do more than talk.

When is it *good* to abandon a project?

I never do it. In general, i put the project back and take it in some time.

How many hours or days does it take you to make an hour of game?

Interesting but you didnt say how many you work in your game, i work a lot, sometimes like 40h a week, and i never end nothing.

Note that exist two moments in game development that are the more hard and time consuming, start and end. Start because you have to set the inital idea, maybe predesing it, and test and prototype it. Later a lot of this works is already done. Then comes the end, with final polishments, bugs, and publication, it take a lot more.

I have never do nothing more that the first step, and a lot of times, nothing to present at all. I think is the more interesting and motivational time, more refreshing.

I have worked months and year to make The last night first prototype, 40m.
Now i will release shiprewreckers of the dreams first prototype, my more complex project, it taked me years to make it, and it will take like 30m.


[Poll] How Much “Planning” Or “Prepping” Do You Do Before Starting Your Game(s)?

I think that planning for a developer like me is totally vital, think that if i create a dungeon, but i dont need or like it in the future, i have to erase it entire and create a new or patch the game and keep the dungeon but with a great quality.

In a game design document, thinking about the dungeon take some seconds. And thats for all.

I have centuries of pages writed about this. In general i tend to do something practical, but not alot, i also have to say that the designing phase can be done in moment and place, only in memory or using a pen to write down ideas and apply them to design document when you go to home. Of course i use maps, and i create a full walkthrought of the game, and a script too. It helps a lot.

I also create some things, but not a lot. I have to say that i changued this when i comed to the concept of prototyping. A prototype is a totally temporal version of the game where you can approach to the true concept using a lot of patches and try how all the ideas. Its short, of course. Now i work at the same rate in prototyping things and trying ideas and designing. Note that after releasing the first public version of the prototype i will remake the document desing to make it more depth and long.

But anyway i have a second prototype, and corrected of the 1, to make the same, but these come after the first is maked and thats the hardest thing in the game, you dont have to research that lot of things.

Im going to release the prototype of my actual game in a few time and im implementing all the ideas and concepts to it to try them. Note that prototyping isnt to start the game without thinking also, is use the project to think as you plan too and test that, advance it and show to people the more concept ideas.

Immersion vs. Game Mechanics

Of course you can narrate with the gameplay and thats the more natural way to do it. Think in yorda in ICO, taking his hand is a gameplay idea, but also a artistical and history one, and it says more than 1000 words, at least for me. Of course you can combine somewhat... but in general i like to use "playable metaphors".

Going back to old school length RPGs

It depends of the type of the game. But comercial games are full of filler. I like a rpg well designed and that durates like30h at max.

For short rpgmaker projects 6-10h projects is ok, it tells a idea and worls, being intense and fun.

For now all my games are like this except one. These will have like 20h mq .

Working in teams: Yay or nay?

I would love to work with other people, althought there are some projects i like making 100% at my own, because this also gives they a special style.

But yeah. Im thinking that when i have a decent prototype of my actual project search for help and people interested in making graphics, music, or whatever...

I have done all the scripts(a lot of them), systems and gameplay and the theme and history in 'general', and the design document, that what i seem to like more...



Battle lengths

Anyway it depends in the general battle style. There are games where the fights are more or less complex or hard so they take more time.

Im planning to put less fights and make them more long and strategical. It will be the same battle time just it will be reorganized.

Im pretty sick of the tradititional formula here and as an indie i want to try something new. Also i totally hate that formula in today rpgs because they totally lack of challengue and tactics and the combat gets incredible boring!

What we did horribly on our first games.

My first game was with RPG maker 95. It had a open-world like zelda but the combats used traditional combat style. The history was around the people of my college so in the maps you found them and other things. I remeember a random walker that was a deadly enemy and a serie of tests that one include passing through a invisible tiles.

That game was very awfull, only my brothe played it, but it was fun because it had a lot of jokes.

Later i discovered 2k. With i started 4 projects. One was around my college again, but more evolutionated. Other was one with a friend, but we never really do a thing...

Other two were a game that passed in a island full of Final Fantasy mogs and chocobos, and they had strange rituals and dances, you had to explore it all.
The other was a Legends of Dragonlance rpg maker project. I think it was pretty interesting. I created my own charas and it had a animated intro using images and the dragonlance synbol ( a lance) that pushed and enter into the dragon. I created a long intro and i was trying to create a cbs...

But the problem is that im very poor and my computers allways sucked. That in particular freezed up any rpgmaker game with 1m of play. I tried other versions and the problem was the same. So, i colundt create nothing for a very long time, and later, i had a other pc, very old, that didnt frezze up but i didint have internet and the sound wasnt funcionting... anyway with that i managed to create a few projects, nothing playable of course.

When that old pc died, me and my brother worked for a few money so we can buy a new PC... for last! I started the game and later ported it to XP... but i didnt really do nothing, i just write histories and all... after a lot of years of whicked pc's i was somewhat diconnected of rpgmaker and also, i was entering in a long crisis of my life...

A lot of years later i refound rpgmaker. I created a playable game that was a dungeon-solo. It was fun i think, and very playable. The idea was to connect to my old history, and make the game modular. But i losed interests again... and then my pc broke and i losed it all.

Later i started a comic game that had 40m of gameplay. It was fun. Things that i do very bad?xdcdd, the graphics were all rtp, but that was my idea because it was a joke game for my friends. It had two dungeons. One was nice, other sucked, i designed it bad, because you had only 1 actor and battles in 2k3 are slow....

Any other project beyond that i dont consider it a newbie game...

cause of diminished interest in game creation

author=LockeZ
Every time I try to plan a project out ahead in detail, it never gets past the planning stage. I abandon it there.

However, if I've actually started working on a project, I'm far, far less likely to abandon it. I feel like I'm more invested in it, and so I don't want to stop. It especially helps if I've done enough work to create something playable - even if it's tiny and awful so far, I'll want to keep going.

If I have ideas that I can't implement immediately but want to do later, I do usually try to jot them down. But a lot of the time, writing my plans down takes as much time as just doing them, if not more... so I just do them. 20 lines of writing and 20 lines of code aren't that different time-wise, unless you aren't sure how to write the code.


Then you write the design documents truly bad or the code is too simple. For me, writing a portion of the game with all its contents maybe will cost max 1hour. Creating that with all the graphics, maps, combats, scenes, balance, design... it took a lot more. But a lot lot more.

That 1hour of design saves you a lot of trouble. Because if i plan the dungeon before doing it well, i can get any error and chague it erasing only one line, imagine redoing all the work in the map...

Also is very important to know what are you doing and where are you going. You can balance things and do it very well. If you sketch the history you can create a better history, because you can see and modify all the hitory in the same moment. If you just go straight forward cant do this, or you can do that but you eill be forced to redo things.