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Why Game Developers Should Finish What They Start
Michael writes "Too often, hobbyists and open source programmers take on game projects that they can't hope to finish. Freshmeat is rife with games from developers who have bitten off more than they can chew. So I drafted an article which takes a look at the major roadblocks to successfully completing open source and hobbyist game projects."
As an amateur game developer, I can tell you I've got more half-written games around than I can count :)
:)
The reason why people give up is quite simple.. it's fairly easy to get a 80% complete game, and see what it's like. The last 20% however takes 50x longer to do, is really quite boring, and by that point I've had a new idea for a "greatest project ever!", and have decided to go and write that instead
One problem with games that other programs don't have so much is that most games (with the except of fairly free-form RPGs like nethack) is that most people will only play them once or twice, so if you write a game and release a 70% complete version, then 4 months later release a 80% complete version, very few people will re-download and re-play the new version, which is one reason people find it so hard to motivate themselves to finish them, and not just go and write something else.
Now pardon me while I try to get and think of another great idea for a new game and start to write that one!
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
From the site:
"There are no games at the moment. When we announce something, we'll put it here!"
Rik
The article is about HOW to finish a game, not WHY.
I agree with Pitfall one, three is a bit suspect.
Opensource isn't just a one man band. The best games would have >1 developer to lend a hand.
Don't encourage rash, hacky programming tendancies to push quantity of quality.
Of course, fleshing out mist of your game can be a good way of making you want to complete it.
My advice: Get other people to help with graphics. Go to a site like www.deviantart.com and post a message saying pixel help / 3d help needed for xyz game, AFTER you have an engine that can showcase their work.
Looking good isn't a crime!
There are some rgeat freeware games around, and top down shooters using mouse look are excellent, and they usually have some funky particle FX.
As game development is simplified through libraries, we may see more amateur games, and more skill, pressuring commercial games sales.
CounterStrike for instance, if this used an open source, free beer 3d engine, then the 'best game' would have been open source and free beer.
OK quake 1 is open source now for ages, I am not sure what this means for counterstrike source code?
Valve obv. have license for thier commercial exploits of the game.
Modification of games is also prevelant, making open source games modifiable, even using md2 model files etc, would greatly increase thier adoption.
Top ten open source, free games?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
In defense of good software design, there is something to be said for system components that are not inter-dependent. Good design means there is some hope of debugging the system. Achieving this should not take a "bleary-eyed programmer" all night to do it. If this is the case, your software design phase failed.
Oh, wait, there is no mention of software design in this article...
I keep forgetting that game development is not about producing good software, but about efficiently pipelining your artistic assets. This misconception transcends this little article. For example, Game Developer Magazine is a worthwhile publication, but should really be called Game Artist Magazine.
I don't write games though, I've written software for assisting me as a structural engineer. However, my main motivation for writing it is generally to educate myself on some of the underlying theories and techniques. I figure that, computers are rock-stupid. Therefore, if you can explain it to a computer, you must have a pretty good understanding of it yourself. I've got more than a few half-written projects that I stopped as soon as I grasped the underlying concepts I was seeking to understand.
While I've never released any of these projects, I suspect that this may be a similar situation with some of the game designers. I.e., the game is mearly a means to an end. If the true goal of the game is accomplished before the game is finished, there is less motivation to finish the game.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
- Amateurs don't make games solely because they want a finished game, so of course you don't want to get through technology development as quickly as possible. You're developing a game for fun, or to learn something, or to try to get a job. In all three cases, love the tech. (I'm assuming you're a programmer - if you're an artist, use tools, not programmers, because they love the tech too much.)
- There is little joy in mimicking the technology of yesteryear - work on MAME if you want to do that. Of course you should work on cutting edge tech. If you can't conceptualize a modern content pipeline, you won't learn much and it won't help you get a job.
- The reason you "will most likely be compelled to throw away the majority of your code on the next game anyhow" is because morons like this told you not to waste your time componentizing, possibily due to the "annoyance" of writing in a type-safe language. Let him do his games in Python while you continue to push the limits in C++.
- If you want to do an exploration game, do one. Figure out how to do one on your budget. If you can do that, you've got EA licked.
But the final piece of advice is this: ignore those who have nothing better to do than write articles like these. There is a reason people make 20% of a game, and it's called learning. You did a game and only finished 20%. Good for you. You know you learned something. You know that this is how you learn things - after all, you have that half-finished text editor, and the IM client that never quite got past console mode, and a web server that kind of works with a few browsers, on a good day. You learned what you needed to learn and you moved on. But most importantly - you knew when to quit. On the other hand, if what drives you is to make 2D games with limited content and actually get them finished, then sure, this is great advice. I'd make a puzzle game - there are far too few of those around.This really isn't a problem with game developers. It's not even unique to open source. Even with commercial development, a lot of projects are started but never completed. Some never make it off of the developers' systems because business requirements change. Some projects make it into production 'incomplete', with the intention of going back and adding features, but it never happens.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. Some projects begin to test a theory that never pans out. Those projects feed into the next iteration that makes it a little further. And some projects are so ill concieved that they never deserve to see the light of day anyway.
You can look at it as R&D, or as the electronic version of Darwinism.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
After a quick glance at the article, I noticed that there was information missing (a feeling I had before I opened the page.)
The reasons within the article are technological reasons about why games fail - pertaining to how the code is designed. It doesn't explain more pratical reasons, such as insufficient experience with programming or mathematics (e.g. you don't yet know how to divide a shape in two efficiently.)
This sort of stuff needs to be written over a period of time - you can't just write a single small article and say that it's done. That's also why there are books on the subject rather than one section in a periodical.
After seeing how poorly the "fit and finish" of Champions of Norrath is as well as a few other games I have played, it is apparent that the professional game companies could do with some advice on how to finish a game too.
Test Test Test! That is imperative. Don't use the same testers on the final version. You need to see different actions than the expected ones to ensure the bugs have been found. I play plenty of Beta modules for NWN and you can see who tests their modules and who releases the latest modified code. I can honestly say there are better developers in the NWN community than some of the professional developers.
Specific issues for Champions: There should not be "holes" in the graphic walls a character can fall into and be outside of the defined world. There should not be a 10-30 second delay to a response to an action like your pack being full. Simple and common things like accessing your inventory must be fast. Do not force large automaps when you add more than 2 players.
Other games: If the player moves the camera to a specific position, leave it there. If you have 2 tough areas back to back allow the user to save in between. If you have NPC characters, either move them out of the path of the PC or allow the PC to walk through them. If an activity is not required for general game play, but can help with bonus play, do not force the user to learn it.
You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
If a project is to have a chance of becoming finished, it needs at least one person involved who is rabidly determined that it will get done, no matter what, no matter how long it takes. This person needs to have the will to take back responsibility/control from anyone who's not getting some part of it done, and the ability to either do all those parts of the project themself, or to find someone else who will do them. If you have a person with pit-bull like persistence and determination on a project, it is decently likely to get done. If you don't, it's hard to finish unless you're doing something pretty easy.
Furcadia - A free online game with user created content, DragonSpeak scripting, & more.
Another piece of advice: If you are writing the game just for fun, anyone who offers to contribute to it in anyway is not under any obligation, and may never get round to it. So try and rely on yourself as much as possible.
People
Most games (hell, software projects of all kinds) don't get finished mainly because they are started by the wrong people. Some joker with minimal OpenGL experience comes up with a "wouldn't it be cool" idea and then immediately thinks they have to announce it to the world. They then spend all their time without a solid plan engaged in activities that do little more than stroke their own ego. Those people are best told not to finish, but to not even start.
I think the underlying issues mentioned in the article -- principally aiming too high in various areas -- hold back a lot of personal developments, games or otherwise.
Now, I'm as much a fan of good design as anyone. I advocate it frequently, and I believe it more than pays for itself in time and effort over the lifetime of a project. But there comes a point where the best is the enemy of the good, and good enough is what matters. There is never a perfect architecture anyway, simply because projects evolve and you rarely know exactly what the future holds.
Similarly, you have to know how much one person, or a small team, working in their own time can realistically achieve. I have a few useful and significant techie projects under my belt, but for the majority I did nearly all of the legwork in a weekend or two, with occasional tidy-ups and fixes during the weeks immediately afterwards.
Perhaps the most impressive project I've worked on non-professionally was a complete redesign and content update of a reasonably large web site for a club I belong to. Without going into all the gory details, we're talking about well over 100 pages, a new graphic design, a new navigation system, and a completely reworked technical architecture based on XML+XSLT. The basics of that project took several hundred man-hours, of which probably the majority came from me over several weeks. However, I had help from a couple of other people on the web design and architecture front, checking things over and filling in some blanks. We also had several of the other club organisers providing content. Then one of the guys spent considerable time porting existing "minor pages" to the new scheme, etc.
Now, I could have done all of that on my own, but realistically I was always focussed on the technical architecture, the overall site structure and graphic design, and the top 25-30 content pages that everybody was going to see. I might have taken on the "project lead" role, but without all the back-up, a lot of it probably still wouldn't be polished up even now, a year later. As with the games, you've got to know, honestly and realistically, what you can achieve yourself, and when you need help if something's going to get done.
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