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What Nobody Tells You About Being a Game Dev
An anonymous reader writes "Alex Norton is the man behind Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox, an upcoming indie action-RPG. What makes Malevolence interesting is that it's infinite. It uses procedural generation to create a world that's actually endless. Norton jumped into this project without having worked at any big gaming studios, and in this article he shares what he's learned as an independent game developer. Quoting: "A large, loud portion of the public will openly hate you regardless of what you do. Learn to live with it. No-one will ever take your project as seriously as you, or fully realize what you're going through. ... The odds of you making money out of it are slim. If you want to succeed, you'll likely have to sell out. Just how MUCH you sell out is up to you.' He also suggests new game devs avoid RPGs for their first titles, making a thorough plan before you begin (i.e. game concepts explained well enough that a non-gamer could understand), and considering carefully whether the game will benefit from a public development process."
People didn't know this?
-1 point: Article talks about Procedural Generation of the game world, but fails to mention MineCraft.
I fully agree about not making the first project an RPG. A good RPG needs good story, graphics, game balance, hopefully multiplayer and there are a lot of "gotchas" to be found. Plus any good-sized RPG will end up being huge. Almost any other type of game is probably easier for a single-developer studio to create.
Also a generated world.
In the article he claims that it would take three weeks to walk across one segment of the map, even with noclip enabled, and then it would just create a new segment.
I just am wondering who would play a game that much that they would even care? Few people are going to really "complete" even Skyrim much less an "infinite" world.
Ok, so how do you create an infinite world with procedural generation?
You can't limit yourself to, say, a 64-bit int, cause that's not infinite. You could, presumably, use linked lists, but then you'd run into speed issues. Arbitrary length BCD (or similar)? Yeah, but the procedural generation routines have to be able to handle them. The memory required quickly grows towards infinity too.
Also, a procedural generation based on coordinates (which, when all comes to all, just is a seed number) has to be robust enough to not repeat as the seed becomes arbitrarily large. A simple PRNG won't do, or someone may find out that the world repeats if going flaxtythree billion miles in either direction.
Too bad there are no details in just how this is done, because that's clearly the interesting part.
however if you are experienced and have a good game idea, how would this advice apply?
Sent from my ENIAC
What Nobody Tells You About Being a Game Dev
Unless you follow Slashdot and all the stories about the Game Dev Surfs and the sweatshops they work in... How many times a year? 5 or 6 or 10?
Poor, poor Game Devs... One really hurts for these people working in servitude...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
" If you want to succeed, you'll likely have to sell out." I'm fine with that. What are the steps required to sell out? Count me in.
When it comes to creating anything, being the only person who knows how much work went into it or being the only one to appreciate its supposed depth is pretty much par for the course. This guy's experience is basically that of anyone who has ever made anything, and most of his bullet list about independent development could be applied to writing, physical art, music, etc. Part of game design becoming more accepted as an art form is learning to accept that everyone's a critic.
Title says it all.
It is a great looking game, but unfortunately it seems to be buggy. After clicking around in the first scene (the island), there is a bad rendering issue going on, and the game becomes unplayable, text becomes hardly visible:
http://www.anonmgur.com/up/7b4104f09fe37214d5919c78e34c4f27.png
"You can read 1000 praising comments, but if just one of them is bad, it will ruin your whole day.
The fact that I was trying to do something new with my game was evidently a horrible crime to many people and I would get utterly horrible comments ranging from put-downs to persanal abuse that would get them arrested if said in person… Even one or two death threats. It’s a sad fact of life that people who are too scared to follow their own dreams will often try to talk you out of following yours. It’s easy for people to say “just ignore those comments” but that’s simply not possible.
"
This is the internet, your not going to last long if your easy troll food. I don't anything as epic as this guy does, but we all get trolled every one in a while. If you
Advice - roll with the punches. Surround yourself with supporters.
... always look like crap and gives bad gameplay
I can tell you why nobody plays it: it's awful. Don't quit your day job.
KimmoA.se? As in Kimmo Alm from anontalk? Somehow it doesn't surprise me that the game you made is:
a) glitchy to hell and back, and
b) played by absolutely no one.
[nt]
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
lol is he still living with his mom? Or did she finally get sick of all his pedophilia and boot him out.
that is pretty awful dude, way to spam crap
Yeah, another point about being a game dev, which your program demonstrates,
these days developers matter less and less as artists matter more and more.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Reading your website (http://www.kimmoa.se) leads me to believe you are one of those 20-something man-children who never grew up. Thanks for the laugh.
If I were a game developer and nobody hated my game, I might be worried about that. If all the public does is collectively shrug its shoulders at your work, you might be in trouble.
Yes, exactly. If you're not indie, then? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=617lGZjYyNo
Sorry, but if you want to survive in the Internet economy (as opposed to the Content Mafia one), you got to know how to work the masses. How to create excitement in the masses.
You have to have creative leadership. Inspire people. Touch them.
Just look at things like Nuka Break. Or the Humble Indie Bundle.
Everyone loves them. Because they are nice, and honest, they offer something we love, and everyone knows it.
The lame shitty pseudo-"ideas" that fly with the Content Mafia won't fly with real customers. You can't just make total shit like FIFA 2012 or any EA "game" (based on target group studies where everyone went one single point higher than "meh") really, and expect them to cheer for you.
It has to resonate with their feelings. Like a really great song.
You can't ever do that by working the way the Content Mafia works. Ever.
You have to work like an artist. A true artist that doesn't compromise because he knows he has something special.
And it's clear that not everyone comes up with something special just like that.
Only great people do.
And apparently, your view of how great your idea is, is vastly overblown by what usually flies with the Mafia.
Or you just are a rare kind of personality in this society. That is understandable, but then you can't take those rare experiences and assume they are common in people.
Conclusion: Don't let him tell tell you shit! You don't have to sell out... unless you're shit. Just find something that resonates with more people
And: Yeah, a few thousand people can be enough. Look at how few people it took to finance those Kickstarter projects.
Sorry, my opinion still stands. When I was a n00b, I felt that I had to "sell out" to make make money selling software. Then, ten years ago I created some software purely guided by my own design ideas and principles, and today, 10 years later it still is paying the rent, so now I would have to disagree.
Sent from my ENIAC
Work for Zynga?
After reading through the first couple paragraphs, the tone of his whole article feels sensationalist and stereotyped to the point I really didn't care what he had to say. While it's fun to spout of hyperbole like "my computer illiterate producer who's only game play experience is Bejeweled" as if it represents what one thinks a whole industry is like regardless of reality, it's not very useful or constructive except for generating page hits.
I've spent 18 years in the game development industry (LoL, UO, TR, SWG, LOTRO, DDO) and while there are those occasional low points, it's not the norm.
One piece of advice he has which all budding indie game developers need to take to heart is do it for love and passion and don't expect to make any money out of it. If you do it for love and passion, players will notice and provide the greatest possible path to financial gain if your product is worth it. Regardless of financial world, you will have something that you created with that's genuinely yours and can leverage to land you bigger and better paying game gigs down the road. The key is to create something you love.
Runesabre
Enspira Online
should be What Internet Nobody Tells You About Being A Game Dev
Game developers are a textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome.
How much of this is due to having to "pay one's dues" by moving several states away and working for a well-known company for years in order to have a chance to earn the privilege to develop for a platform that has a gamepad? There are several genres that don't work well on mobile, where the only controller you can depend on is a flat sheet of glass.
What software is that?
It's an add-on for Tradestation. It enables traders to optimize the code which implements investment strategies.
Sent from my ENIAC
He is. He's also heavily into child pornography.
i created more buzz for a game by pirating it then if i bought it outright.
If you want to get a feel for what it's like to be an independent game developer, check out the movie Indie Game. Quite interesting and a bit frightening in some ways, particularly in how emotionally invested these guys are in their games.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
"A large, loud portion of the public will openly hate you regardless of what you do."
Sounds like he's been hanging around the forums at gamedev.net.
Crutchy's a noob that's done zero in computers. Go on, ask him to prove his statements.
A wild pedophile appears!
Pedo uses spam-terrible-game, it's not so effective.
Say hi to your mom Kimmo, you weaboo tard.
This drives me crazy.
First, everyone tells me this about being a game dev. Everyone. Oh, and how it's not glamorous and some companies (read: most of them) treat you poorly.
But once a week, we get a "what nobody tells you" about game devs article here or on Extra Credits or the Escapist or wherever.
Stop it.
Second, there is nothing interesting about procedurally generated anything any more. Diablo did this. The first one. In 1996. It can be a nice feature, but it's not noteworthy any more. The move from sprites to polygons was noteworthy for early titles like StarFox. But nobody is putting "polygon-based graphics" stickers on their game boxes today.
Touch everywhere, even when inappropriate.
LMAO & 'CruTcHy' (lol)? Quit projecting your own "StRaNgE" phantasies onto others, first of all, & secondly?
Hey - We KNOW you can't prove your words & "credentials" here -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3272015&cid=42083563 ...
APK
P.S.=> Lmao @ 'CruTcHy' (lol) "the blowhard"... lol!
... apk
go find your bug, idiot
What "bug"? My code ran PERFECTLY 5x IN FRONT OF YOU, here:
---
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42014943
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42016015
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42014957
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42014957
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3258205&cid=42015649
---
* Nothing like actual OUTPUT DATA to "silence" a "ne'er-do-well" troll, like (lol) 'CruTcHy'... that, & "ReVeRsE-PsyChoLoGy" (per my PERFECT code).
APK
P.S.=> So, 'CruTcHy': Listen - Is it MY FAULT you are an unaccomplished "ne'er-do-well" in the art & science of computing that can't even program C?
I mean, tell us: What accomplishments have you achieved in your professional computing career that others noted as good, such as in:
---
1.) Computing trade publications (books, magazines, newspapers)
2.) Trade shows like Microsoft Tech-Ed
3.) Commercially sold by certified MS partners that you wrote that WE can all verify?
---
You don't have those things, and you NEVER WILL, you pitiful little "ne'er-do-well" troll... lol! It's true and you KNOW it...
... apk
"output data" that you probably manually typed
i really don't care much about your code or your bug, but its fun stiring you up about it, and there is a bug in the posted code - the code you supposedly run is apparently not the same as what you post, but whatever... noob
To PROVE he is actually a "professional programmer" everyone:
"you're a moron for even assuming i need to justify myself... fuck knuckle if you don't like what i say, go back to fucking your sister" - by crutchy (1949900) on Monday November 26, @03:38PM (#42097505)
FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3272015&cid=42097505
Gee 'CruTcHy' (lol) - did someone touch a "sensitive spot", LIKE THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU NOT BEING WHAT YOU SAID?
At most/best? You're some arrogant little noob who codes in 2-3 "languages" (wuss tools imo, since I've used them & FAR more in my time) & considers himself "expert"... lol, you're THAT? When others SAY you are, not until then.
APK
P.S.=> I also note you can't show you've done a DAMNED THING in the art & science of computing that anyone noted as any good in trade publications (books, magazines, newspapers, etc./et al), esteemed trade shows like MS Tech Ed, & commercially sold software by certified MS partners (that YOU did the work for).
I've done all of the above, WHILE "the trollish likes of you" were STILL IN DIAPERS... which is how I know you're not telling the truth (or you are just SO "average" you'll never create anything of worth others notice - take your pick!)...
... apk