Ghengis Cohen
Banned
"hey i'm not here to step on anybodies toes but..."element said:ahhh vark you make me laugh because it is so true. you forgot this one...
"i'm not artist, but wouldn't it be better if..."
"hey i'm not here to step on anybodies toes but..."element said:ahhh vark you make me laugh because it is so true. you forgot this one...
"i'm not artist, but wouldn't it be better if..."
I'm sure budget and ridiculous amounts of time are also part of this seemingly magical nintendo formula you speak of.dairladada said:Man, I admire anyone who is able to kick ass in making:
Platform games
Racing games
Shooting games
Fighting games
etc etc
all at ONCE!
No one else does it. Anyone else just keeps doing the same kind of game they know how to do. And when they try to do something else, they fail.
It's because Nintendo has a method and their method is prototyping.
Proto, proto, proto. No blah blah documents but hands on work.
Sorry but I do admire that. And if collisions were bad in Mario, you could not possibly finish it.
Ie: Hit the very edge of a block with your head and the collision will shift you on the side so you can complete your jump... That's gameplay and it's hardly noticable.
No Warioware is the perfect example of how to force a prototype into a game.dairladada said:Nintendo does production documents, not game design documents, at least not Nintendo Japan.
Warioware DS is the result of all the protos they have made to show how to use the stylus, they did the same with the tilt sensor etc etc.
Warioware is the perfect exemple of how to use your protos to make a game.
I'm glad you analyse more than me and i will keep my Nintendo fan boy glasses on.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO WORK IN GAMES BE PREPARED TO WORK 120 HOUR WORK WEEKS AND HAVE YOUR WIFE PISSED AT YOU FOR WEEKS ALL SO YOU CAN HAVE A MARKETING PERSON USE THE TERM TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC TO FLUSH YOUR WORK DOWN THE DRAINVark said:Guys guys guys.
We're getting off point here. Less fighting, more spirit crushing!
Billy Rygar said:IF YOU ARE GOING TO WORK IN GAMES BE PREPARED TO WORK 120 HOUR WORK WEEKS AND HAVE YOUR WIFE PISSED AT YOU FOR WEEKS ALL SO YOU CAN HAVE A MARKETING PERSON USE THE TERM TARGET DEMOGRAPHIC TO FLUSH YOUR WORK DOWN THE DRAIN
Better?
and of course I hate it. but often times you have to document extensively for other people. prototyping is a bit of a luxury, though it is better than almost anything.dairladada said:I don't understand why you guys are against prototyping or the fact that there is a lot to learn from Nintendo? Are you the storywriter wannabe types? You love to write these long documents describing how good your game is going to be?
I don't. I hate it.
element said:ahhh vark you make me laugh because it is so true. you forgot this one...
"i'm not artist, but wouldn't it be better if..."
"Seriously though Vark is there something you can do about that? That right there. It doesn't fit. It just doesn't."Vark said:*twitch*
Billy Rygar said:"Seriously though Vark is there something you can do about that? That right there. It doesn't fit. It just doesn't."
My all time favorite field.Vark said:FIXED:
"As Designed."
Not true as BR mentioned. You can learn a lot about the design philosophies and disciplines if you analyze the game you choose to clone. Most games rarely come from original ideas anyways.Campster said:If you make a clone of something, you will be learning very, very little about game design.
There's something to be said about learning from others mistakes. It can also be less costly.Campster said:But you'd learn this stuff just as easily implementing a game of your own design.
Thank you. That's exactly what I was trying to say. That way when you move onto something original, or that you really care about you will have the neccesry skills to actually make a game, not just bandy about design concepts. And yeah, start in QA. If you can't hack it there you have no place anyways.Mr_Furious said:There's something to be said about learning from others mistakes. It can also be less costly.
I actually meant if you can't hack the hours and amount of work you should try something else.dairladada said:Yeah right.
Good luck with that.
Whatever.
It's like saying you can write good songs and play guitar because you can recognize things out of tune...
That would explain a lot of crappy titles...
Mr_Furious said:Not true as BR mentioned. You can learn a lot about the design philosophies and disciplines if you analyze the game you choose to clone. Most games rarely come from original ideas anyways.
There's something to be said about learning from others mistakes. It can also be less costly.
My basic point is that you can learn a lot from other's attempts (contrary to your initial statement saying otherwise) and that information could be very valuable when designing future projects, original content or not. That's all. Your other points are valid in general and I don't think anyone's really saying otherwise. It's just that you said there's "very very little" that can be learned, design wise, by developing a clone and that's obviously not true.Campster said:You can analyze games without actually recreating them. Directors don't need to reshoot Citizen Kane to gleam wisdom from it, and authors don't need to write their version of The Hero's Journey to become a full fledged writer.
The thrust of my argument is just this - there's a difference between implementation and design. And while implementation is absolutely critical for a designer to know and understand, one can't thrive on that alone. Just as a designer without any knowledge of implementation can't bring his ideas to life, a designer without any idea of how to design just ends up implementing the ideas that have already come to pass with his own flavoring.
If you're a high school or college kid or just anyone who has never made a game before, sitting down and completing your version of Tetris or Galaga is a major accomplishment. You'll have learned a lot, and more power to you. But if you're a college graduate with a few game clones in your portfolio and you want to be a game designer, then you really haven't learned anything other than the software engineering processes for games.
I really don't think we're even arguing - I agree that it's a worthwhile investment of your time if you've never done it before. But if you want to be a game designer it's important that you understand the strengths and weaknesses of the medium and how to use them to your advantage, and I think that at first you can only grasp them through experimentation.
Billy Rygar said:You would learn about implementation, without which you will stuck with a bunch of ideas and concepts and no idea how to design them into a game. I realize that design (since I actually do it) is not merely a technical process, but if you haven't a clue about implentation your ideas are never going to amount to anything except a collection of documents in the "old" folder.
element said:ahhh vark you make me laugh because it is so true. you forgot this one...
"i'm not artist, but wouldn't it be better if..."
I gotta agree with that sentiment. I consider the first game I designed here a clone (GBA port of the console version, so I was supposed to be stealing!) and learned a hell of a lot about the underlying logic behind all the decisions that were made in the original game. My boss kindly refers to it as an original game but I consider it a clone of the console title which to me was the whole point of it and it's why I'm so proud of how it turned out. All the lessons I learned were applied when I started to make an original game so it was really worthwhile.Mr_Furious said:My basic point is that you can learn a lot from other's attempts (contrary to your initial statement saying otherwise) and that information could be very valuable when designing future projects, original content or not. That's all.
By the way, I'm playing the console Ty 2 (Finally beat Ty 1) and I'm a bit confused. The missions so far (11%) seem very disjointed. Lots of walking for no reason.
dairladada said:I don't understand why you guys are against prototyping or the fact that there is a lot to learn from Nintendo? Are you the storywriter wannabe types? You love to write these long documents describing how good your game is going to be?
I don't. I hate it.