SLASH'S PROFILE

As a former guest and witness to some of the aforementioned trolling, I would also recommend the podcasts!

Also I'm super excited to listen to the new one, I missed these!!

BUT WHY ARE THE GUESTS SECRET, I'M AT WORK AND I CAN'T LISTEN AND THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME

well, it's a little healthier than cigaretteware, anyway

Those are things people conflate a lot, in every aspect of life (not just games). And speaking of reading comprehension, if you're not clear in your sentence, don't be surprised when people don't interpret it the way you intended. If you simply say, "this is terrible" there's no context there to imply that it's merely not your thing.

If Ebert said "I don't like this movie" - is he saying that it's a badly-made movie, or that he just doesn't personally like it? You can interpret that statement either way; it's a badly-written and incomplete thought! Not only is it totally uncritical, it's super vague... which is probably why he didn't actually write like that.


Anywho, on-topic, it's nuts how much people will backlash on things because they're popular. Tumblr does often form aggressive fanbases really quickly, but again, that doesn't necessarily mean anything about the game itself.

12 weeks, no more, no less


jk, it totally depends on the kind of game you're making. Prototypes for an RPG tend to take longer because the "core" gameplay of an RPG involves so many systems and relies on everything from story to atmosphere to mechanics. You can make an RPG in a week or a month and it can be great (Like the IGMC games!) and some games you can make in three days, but it really depends on how long it'll take for you to explore the design of the game in the depth you want to.

That said, whatever dev time you estimate a game is going to take, assume it's going to take three times as long. In my experience, you are going to be at least that far off with your initial estimates.

author=Craze
i think that just focusing on something so narrowly as "how to make random encounters not suck" is part of why so many RPGs might feel samey. it's extraordinarily binary and in-the-box thinking. the question should rather be "how do I want my player to begin their enemy encounters?" with sub-questions of "how much agency and choice does the player have in the matter?" and "how often should these encounters (and pre-encounters) happen to fit my design goals?"

my basic issue for a lot of the cliche topics, i suppose, is how there is really a much broader question that needs to be discussed instead of the topic at hand. i try to suss it out sometimes! and then the topic dies XD

I totally agree! I understand why people come into gamedev asking about specific mechanics they like - Cooking! Minigames! Job Changes! - they just played their favorite RPG and they wanna make a game that's just as cool. It takes a while to figure out that gamedev is more about creating the feelings those systems did than recreating the systems themselves. My example topic idea "A Game Where Random Encounters Don't Suck" was kind of an idea that might get people to think critically about what effects random encounters have on the player and on the game design as a whole. Hell, I think a topic (or topics, or a long series of articles) just about switching your mindset from your game's specific mechanics to your game's "emotional effect" would be sweet.

(Related: I can't believe I wrote this only 3 years ago... I thought it was more like 8... oof)

edit: i would like to say that i do not see my self as a lonely island of auteur hell or any shitty thing like that! there are lots of great people on this forum who i enjoy discussing gam mak with. i just wish we had MORE gam mak talk instead of more Welp forum topics.

Yea, I just like to lay the burden of the master on you 'cuz you make good games, Sensei. I'll admit I definitely have contributed more to Welp than Game Mak recently, due to just... total lack of time and effort required. Whoops!

author=Sooz
NGL I would be down with like a weekly CRAZE BABBLES ABOUT GAM MAK thing.

More discussion = more tools = more diversity in garmes!

Same on both counts yo


but again I could always do more too...