Silvaring is talking about "high art", and is suggesting that the team that made Ibb and Obb aspire to make games like Tombraider... the old Tombraider? The ones that were about Lara Croft's cleavage and her exploits stealing treasures from savages in foreign lands.
Silvaring has got to be trolling?
No, I don't think so. Probably just crossed communications and the odd misconception. I don't expect many people researching games (in what I assume is an academic capacity) to be as clued up about the indie game development scene as we are - maybe we should focus on dispelling those misconceptions and listening more :)
The "high art" thing makes sense to me now: The idea is that something created is art. But many things are created and not all of them are remarkable. Those that are remarkable or worth noticing somehow, need to be seen as valuable by some people (presumably tastemakers) and then that value perception gets communicated to others, this elevates a piece of art to "high" art. In this context, a game that's high art might be a game getting a ton of extremely positive reviews, masses of youtube/stream coverage, winning awards or being invited to trade shows and expos.
@silvaring seems to simply be saying that getting your game noticed is hard, which we all agree with. The parts that don't make sense to me are the arguments around how innovation doesn't stem from independence (although not so much in those terms, because those are our ways of talking about game development) and that teams produce the best stuff. I mean, yes, teams are awesome, I can't argue with that - the thing that's weird is the lack of realising how the responsibility that a team places on a team leader makes risky decisions less likely. This is probably just an issue of perspective - big teams make impressive looking things. Few people know how small id was when they made Wolf 3D, for instance ;)
@dislekcia That's where Silvaring's argument is falling over for me. Silvaring appears to be using a specific set of academic terms, probably from studying social sciences... yet Silvaring thinks that the original Tombraider is more "high art" than the much less problematic reboot.
I can't imagine a situation where both those things are true. That the person is academically involved in game appreciation, and that person also thinks the original Tombraiders are games to aspire towards creating.
My confusion is not that Silvaring doesn't appreciate indie games. It's that the online persona of Silvaring is displaying internal inconsistencies.
I think it might be a consistent thing to say if the only criteria for "high art" is popularity/common regard. Many people didn't like the new Tomb Raider reboot and it earned a lot of controversy over the early marketing material's rapeyness, maybe that doesn't compare well to the almost universal positive regard (in popular game media) for the earlier Tomb Raider games. Maybe that's all that's being compared?
It doesn't seem like there's anything else to the "high art" term, TBH. Where you or I might critically engage with a game in order to call it high art and judge it on a whole host of qualities, I kinda don't feel that that's what's happening here. Although I do agree that it seems like a weird thing for an academic games researcher to be saying... I'd expect someone in that setting to be much more aware of the gender issues in Tomb Raider games than we are (maybe there's something in the new Tomb Raider that's even more problematic?) ;)
"High Art" does have some usage in academia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_culture#High_art But it's one of those terms that is inherently subjective (in that a value proposition is perceived to be made every time it is used).
I agree though that in Silvaring's text Silvaring appears to be distinguishing "art" from "high art" in that "high art" is regarded as the pinnacle of the art form by him (and others who share his taste).
(Assuming Silvaring is not just using the term to troll)
If I can jump in and say that when we were taught about 'representation' in first year they vigorously examined how art has and is classified.
The impression I received during this period is that "high art" is a term that has been more or less abandoned by academic artists. It referred to the 'holy 'arts of Opera, Literature, Theater and anything that you need an upturned nose to appreciate "fully". Under the classifications of high art, games wouldn't be art at all (which is where the prevailing notion that games aren't art, stems from).
'High art' is a very specific collection of art media that isn't particularly useful anymore. Not since popular and mass culture came into widespread usage. Part of high art involved the critics and other important people deciding on the cannon of a medium, or it's most valuable works - which is why for some reason, Heart of Darkness is considered a great work of literature. But this is problematic, because often these works weren't widely agreed upon.
I think @silvaring is trying to restructure the meaning of high art to include the best works of all media, not necessarily just the traditional ones. From what I'm aware and was taught in first year, this isn't a particularly widespread reinterpretation of high art, though - so I'm not sure it's one that's particularly useful here.
Of course, both the traditional and @silvaring's interpretations of the term are essentially about separating 'good' art from 'bad' art. That's of course quite a slippery thing to attempt, and not altogether a valuable venture, I believe.
My current thinking on the matter is that artists should be able to both 'objectively' and 'subjectively' analyse art. Objectively, why is this game good (why do the critics and important people think it's valuable [often the plebs won't appreciate it for these reasons, or at all]. Subjectively, why is this game good (why do lots and lots of people like this game). I'm quite interested in studying the intersection of these two perspectives.
They form quite a lovely Venn Diagram, I imagine. Bad games are outside of these circles altogether, while other games fall somewhere in the two circles' area. Often there are games that are both objectively and subjectively praised and loved. These games, for me at least, are projects which are admirable to aim to develop, even if it's very difficult to do so.
Of course, even subjectively/objectively there's still a lot of personal interpretation. Which just leads us to the conclusion that art is subjective, and should be developed and appreciated as such.
Also, did no one else feel the sudden inclusion of 'high art' was a bit left of field, considering this discussion was about game engines? If @silvaring isn't trolling, I feel they chose a strange thread to start this discussion.
@Bensonance: Yup, the "high art" term felt strange as hell, I felt like @silvaring might not have read anything else in the thread. I was just trying to figure out where a meaningful discussion might lie :)
I started this discussion, after seeing a video that looked like it contained some good advice, little did I know this was what's going to happen...*refills popcorn*
I didn't mean to derail the thread or post irrelevant content, and I don't believe I did, as the original video posted is at its core about one person's use of their time to make something they perceived as valuable. I wanted to bring to light the difficulties I face as a game reviewer to see that value, because games by themselves lack so much context.
My last post was a response to dislekcia, who mentioned working on the most rewarding & interesting things they can. I wanted to throw my view as a player into the mix. That said, I'd be more than happy to stop commenting now, as it would mean not having to respond to the multiple messages that have gone on in the last day or so, from opinions on Tomb Raider, to the historical meaning of high art. @JediN1nja, I wish we could have all done this in person!
I didn't mean to derail the thread or post irrelevant content, and I don't believe I did, as the original video posted is at its core about one person's use of their time to make something they perceived as valuable. I wanted to bring to light the difficulties I face as a game reviewer to see that value, because games by themselves lack so much context.
My last post was a response to dislekcia, who mentioned working on the most rewarding & interesting things they can. I wanted to throw my view as a player into the mix. That said, I'd be more than happy to stop commenting now, as it would mean not having to respond to the multiple messages that have gone on in the last day or so, from opinions on Tomb Raider, to the historical meaning of high art. @JediN1nja, I wish we could have all done this in person!
No sweat! It would have been great in person but now it's here nicely written down! Don't apologize for you msgs, I found it quite interesting that the engine topic was brought up.
Holy crap, if ever I was fearful of posting something on these forums I am now. As an indie I only have so much time to dedicate to social media/blogs/advertising/conversion rates/peer communities/day job/family/sport/life and the very first post I open after logging in here having been inactive (on this forum) for the above reasons and again it's a tit for tat about game engines.
So I don't use unity, I make games using my own engines and I also finish them. This topic is fast becoming bleh.
Holy crap, if ever I was fearful of posting something on these forums I am now. As an indie I only have so much time to dedicate to social media/blogs/advertising/conversion rates/peer communities/day job/family/sport/life and the very first post I open after logging in here having been inactive (on this forum) for the above reasons and again it's a tit for tat about game engines.
You should probably read the thread again if that's what you thought it was about :)
@LazyLizzard I think the overall conclusion is that we will encourage you to not reinvent the wheel, so that you can spend more time on making games. You should not be discouraged about posting about your game engine, or your art, or your sounds, as these are all aspects of making games. Though the main aspect is designing actual game play elements, and that is the focus of these forums, and in particular this very thread. We are simply discouraging new comers from relying on their own engines for the purpose of making games, for fear that they may get demotivated if they fail - you should know, engine work is not easy. You should also know that the engine work and the game design bits are pretty exclusive. Yes your game uses your engine, but the engine isn't the game. Just as an artists can't show you a drawing and claim that it is a game. That's all we are (generally) saying. You might not agree with this sentiment though, but I think it's pretty much proven that using existing technology where possible works (if you are trying to be efficient).
Don't at all feel discouraged at sharing your work though! I am not in any way anti-game engine. I went that way as well. I've made about ~4 games using their own "engines", the last one used Unity, but I used it pretty much for rendering and sound, the rest was all my own (the physics, etc.) I did this, not because I did not agree with warnings not to (make my own engine), but simply because I was not comfortable with using a game engine (like Unity), and had to go through a learning process. I since learnt Unity, through another game Cubez, that took me about 5 working days to implement. This was a great learning experience but the game would've taken me weeks to do (maybe even months), if I did not have Unity.
I have since started remaking an old game (the one where I used Unity, but rewrote my own engine framework on top of it), and have come A LOT further in probably 10% of the time. It's really amazing. But it was all a learning experience and I regret none of it .... well, maybe I wish I just went through it faster!
Guys, I totally understand WHY you are doing it. What really irritates me is HOW you do it. I stopped reading this thread halfway through because you lot come across as trolling, picking a fight rather than being constructive. Engines are clearly a button that once pressed, spawns huge arguments. Don't you see that? I get that this comes from a long history of engines that went nowhere but I am suggesting that you are now on the complete opposite side of the same scale where the same fight is being fought for completely the opposite reasons.
As a non unity/gamemaker outsider, it literally feels like you guys wait for the opportunity to bring up this debate and you secretly love the fight. I say it FEELS like that simply because of how you do it.
So dislekcia, with much love and respect, you want me to re-read the thread, but how about you read your posts from the beginning and try to understand that by saying things like 'What is it that you thought I was saying that needed countering' you rub people the wrong way and inflame the topic.
Also the constant referal to 'we make games' and this is called 'makegamessa' not 'build engines sa' is a narrow minded view in my humble opinion. There is much more to making games than the gameplay. In fact, making the game is probably the least of the total effort for a process that altogether means you are making a game.
I am saying these things because this is supposedly a community about making games. For everyone. Not just for those who use unity in this specific way or that specific way. How about we start respecting each others viewpoint and treat each other like adults, we start by being a little less aggressive and not treat game making like a religion where everyone but you is doing it wrong.
Once we start doing that, we can be an inclusive community rather than an exclusive community.
@LazyLizzard yeah I get what you're saying. It's difficult to see how one's own passion can look like trolling. I do that all the time personally (not on this, about all manners of other stuff) and it's definitely a fault with the way of communication.
I've personally been on a long crusade to self-improve to stop sounding like a dick about my beliefs. So I'm all for any suggestion on how to talk about this stuff without aggroing everyone.
On that same note, here's the crux of the aggro, I believe:
Most "anti-engine" advice people here give are given to those who ask for advice - and those are typically beginners. Beginners are typically going to not have great results making games when they start by building an engine.
Most "pro-engine" advice givers are anecdotal "I made an engine and I made a game or ten from it, so it can be done". These are typically not beginners!
So there's a mismatch between the two ends of this conversation... Which causes RAGE and RAWR. We need to recognise that.
@Tuism Yeah I think what you summed up is pretty much it.
I'm actually all in favour of making game engines. I feel there is a lot to learn (at least for some, including me). But as you say, maybe not necessarily the best choice for people that can't even code properly yet (or those that can, but can't make games). I quite like GameMaker for this :) Though I haven't touched it in about a year. EDIT: I guess I'm not saying much new :P
Allow me to dredge up an earlier topic again. What exactly does "engine" mean anyway?
Example. I decide to make an original game featuring a little bird that has to avoid flying into pipes that scroll at him from the right. If you tap the screen, the bird goes up a bit. If I don't tap, gravity pulls it down with increasing speed. I get the to the flapping and gravity parts of the game:
1. I could make this using Unity3D or Unreal or whatever, attaching some premade components to my sprite that will take care of gravity, collision and upwards motion, but I choose to go for the next option:
2. I don't use either of the above. I move my sprite up and down using simple maths. Downward speed increases based on a tan(). Tapping a key will increase the vertical speed a certain amount. Collision is when my sprite's nose is within the x1,y1,x2,y2 bounds of the scrolling pipes.
@rustybroomhandle Well I think it's a little more complicated than that. Firstly, we are speaking generally, and generally games are more than just 1 input for i action + gravity and minimal collision checked. You can literally list that games features on one hand.
Secondly you are still oversimplifying the situation. How will you render your sprite and the background? And the scrolling? And check for inputs? Some of these things are just easier to implement in a game engine. My first game was coded in Borland Delphi 7, and it was a simple image that moved around on a canvas. There already I was reusing technology and not making use of my own canvas and image implementation. But it was flickering like hell, and I had to do research and learn about stuff like double buffering. So it's good that I learned these things, but truthfully it's not too useful for me anymore because I can do something better in unity in less time.
This guy: makes a nice big chunk of minecraft in Unity in one week. I'm sure it would've taken MUCH longer if he went Markus Persson's (aka notch) route of using java and lwjgl.
I picked a simple game as a simple example. Let's say I added the sprite code and input handling too - is it an engine now? What does "engine" mean? At what point is it an "engine"?
And Denzil - time is just one factor for deciding how to go about building a thing. What if your goal is to build something with a small footprint?
Sigh, guys, let's not escalate this, please. The arguments you guys are throwing about here are nothing new at all.
Yes great things can be done with great technical expertise. That expertise is a long term goal.
We will ask people who ask for advice: "Do you want to become a technical master in the long term or be able to make games in the short term" if a beginner asks us "hey how do I go about making a game".
And then based on that, we'll assign them the relevant advice. Is that fair?
We will ask people who ask for advice: "Do you want to become a technical master in the long term or be able to make games in the short term" if a beginner asks us "hey how do I go about making a game".
What about asking them what they want to make? If they said "point & click adventure" I would not point them at Game Maker or Unity, for example, I'd tell them to try OpenSLUDGE or AGS. If they said "anything, I just want to make games", I'd suggest they actually decide on something to make, and then go back to advising accordingly.
Also the constant referal to 'we make games' and this is called 'makegamessa' not 'build engines sa' is a narrow minded view in my humble opinion. There is much more to making games than the gameplay. In fact, making the game is probably the least of the total effort for a process that altogether means you are making a game.
I have to second this point. There are many many projects that go nowhere not just engine ones. The skills will be useful either if building your own engine works out. Because they remain relevant even when working with existing engines.
We happy to discuss the following things
1) Animations 2) Marketing 3) KickStarter pages 4) Gender issues 5) Art style and approach 6) Greenlight 7) The various comments from famous people online 8) The state of what an indies really is
It feels a little odd to say engine building design and abilities are suddenly excluded while all the rest of these topics don't get a 2nd thought. I have seen more then a few people alienated from our community over this topic and I have also seen many artists online that are not finding technical guys to partner with. We can not afford to exclude the people with the technical skills from the community just because they might be doing something we don't believe will work out. We certainly don't push a game team away if we don't think there game will work, so why is this so important when its an engine.
From my point of view @LazyLizzard if you interesting in making games then you are welcome here. That having been said I don't think this forum is a place where you might get tones and tones of assistance or code examples that will be handy to build your own engines. You can expect a lot of comments about your game as it grows irrespective of if its in your own engine or not. There are a handful of people who might be able to assist with really deep tech questions but its not the primary interest of the community any more then giving specific assistance for blender would be.
I picked a simple game as a simple example. Let's say I added the sprite code and input handling too - is it an engine now? What does "engine" mean? At what point is it an "engine"?
Its really a semantic you always going to build some of your game in one or other excising framework. Its not like we going to build the OS or compilers. I would suggest the main description is where you start on a platform that was not specifically build to be a game engine already. But it's only a word it wont change the result.
We will ask people who ask for advice: "Do you want to become a technical master in the long term or be able to make games in the short term" if a beginner asks us "hey how do I go about making a game".
What about asking them what they want to make? If they said "point & click adventure" I would not point them at Game Maker or Unity, for example, I'd tell them to try OpenSLUDGE or AGS. If they said "anything, I just want to make games", I'd suggest they actually decide on something to make, and then go back to advising accordingly.
Nothing wrong with that :) Unity and Gamemaker are just two choices out of many, heck, Twine exists. So did Klik n Play. And Flash. Etc etc etc :)
Yeah, I have to say I'm tiring of the persistence of this argument popping up.
The argument that "we make games not engines" is great and all, even if problematically exclusive. But now it's getting to the point of hypocrisy because between @LazyLizzard and @SubiyaCroylite (and a few others) we do have people that are successfully completing games whilst using game engines. That's kind of the end of this argument because if you say "well they could be making them better/faster/more money" etc - that's beside the point because your own criteria was that they make games, don't be two-faced and now decide they need to reach a certain threshold of game or success.
I agree warning off beginners from making their own engines is a good thing, but the aggressiveness and persistence that it occurs with has frequently stopped people from engaging with this community - which is a massive problem because diversity of all kinds in a community is highly important, and is something MGSA struggles with.
So dislekcia, with much love and respect, you want me to re-read the thread, but how about you read your posts from the beginning and try to understand that by saying things like 'What is it that you thought I was saying that needed countering' you rub people the wrong way and inflame the topic.
I'm sorry. I was honestly asking what people thought I was saying in order to better construct future forum posts and avoid misconceptions and emotional triggers on this topic. If asking that question is itself an emotional trigger, well... Fuck? Guess we're not getting to the constructive part of criticism now, are we?
And yes, I do re-read old posts to try and find out why people might be responding to them in certain ways, hence asking that question in the first place.
There is much more to making games than the gameplay. In fact, making the game is probably the least of the total effort for a process that altogether means you are making a game.
Esplain pls? Am honestly curious about where more effort goes in your process. Perhaps my effort is equally distributed, perhaps not, but either way there's probably learning hiding there for both of us.
I am saying these things because this is supposedly a community about making games. For everyone. Not just for those who use unity in this specific way or that specific way. How about we start respecting each others viewpoint and treat each other like adults, we start by being a little less aggressive and not treat game making like a religion where everyone but you is doing it wrong.
Once we start doing that, we can be an inclusive community rather than an exclusive community.
Honestly: Build a game, no matter how, great. We'll talk about the game. People will be happy that you made a thing they can play. Win! Etc.
Nobody here is saying that Unity is the one true path to game development (what?). Historically, aggression tends to come from people defending choices that they've made with poor information, which is often why simply asking questions gets people so upset. What am I defending? How am I lashing out and why would that be my goal?
An engine must be able to house all game components with ease. Eg. A 2d engine must include
Sprite Manager Input Manager Resource Manager Collision engine Tile engine Scene graph HUD particle system
With other components like physics or path finding being optional. Some types of games may not be suited for being developed using a game engine, think about chess for example. Game logic in chess is more important than next generation particle system, so you might want to save yourself from waisting resources by using an engine.
Again there might be other reasons why you might want to use your own engine.
For example, me as a hardcore coder, I always move away from using complicated user interface, I like my notepad++ and the most complicated IDE I use is visual studio and that's only when Im coding DirectX or xna. Im a left brain person, I can see numbers more clearer than pictures that's why I got annoyed whenever I tried unity or even game maker and completely bashed them. Other reasons may be finances. Writing Your own engine is completely priceless and Microsoft even allow students to write for windows store without paying a cent. By using commercial engines students may be discourages to test their work on other platforms.
So whether we use someone's engine or our own engine, what's important is that we love making games....
But now it's getting to the point of hypocrisy because between @LazyLizzard and @SubiyaCryolite (and a few others) we do have people that are successfully completing games whilst using game engines. That's kind of the end of this argument because if you say "well they could be making them better/faster/more money" etc - that's beside the point because your own criteria was that they make games, don't be two-faced and now decide they need to reach a certain threshold of game or success.
Would you mind explaining the hypocrisy here, and who is doing it?
Surely there's a point at which developers that have tried to make games can compare processes amongst themselves? Like, I get that defining axes of comparison can often be tricky - but does that invalidate the entire point?
If we're talking general advice to game development newbies, how do we rationally evaluate what to say? If we're talking to people that have made games, should we talk about their games or should we insist that they're game development newbies because they're new here?
There is much more to making games than the gameplay. In fact, making the game is probably the least of the total effort for a process that altogether means you are making a game.
Yes there is more than just the game play, but the game play itself shouldn't be underestimated in my opinion! :)
There's more than the gameplay in making games, but they all support the gameplay. Without gameplay, what do you have? A film? Even call of duty has gameplay :P Even Dragon's Lair has gameplay :)
Since I started this thread, and titled it "Some Advice For New Game Designers/Developers"...NOW...lets come back to that. How about everyone post a single line....1 LINE ONLY that is a piece of advice that you've learned while making games. And yes it can be, not making my own game engine (whatever you think makes an engine) saved me a lot of time. Or making my own engine gave me more freedom blah blah blah. Get the picture? Here I'll start:
Don't be scared of failing when you try to start something new. That's how you learn.
Make stuff, find like minded people, don't stop making stuff, with whatever you can, whether it's Unity, Gamemaker, C++, paper, MS Word, Google Drive, dice, spaghetti... And always put it in front of other people sooner than later :)
Assess your own skill and experience, if you have less than 3 years industy experience - clone, if you have more but less than 6 - clone 70, innovate 30, if you have more than 6, do master work. Learn from others until you fully understand everything they do, before you do it on your own.
@Bladesway I disagree, respectfully :) I don't see the need to clone. In fact, it might be really hard to do if you don't have their level of experience. That said, I tried to make a minecraft clone once (just for myself, to see if I can). Also, I haven't made any commercially successful games, so maybe my opinion doesn't mean anything :P
@Denzil well, cloning does not require you to have the same level of skill if you have basic analytical skills and the willingness to observe, question and learn. It is the fastest way to gain understanding. Clones are safe because you have a fall back, but clones are never super successful (more successful than a master work attemp by most junior devs) 70/30 is usually the super successes.
Basically, cloning is like working under an experienced designer when you dont have access to one directly.
@Bladesway well you should at least choose what to clone properly. As an extreme example, I can't choose to clone Elder Scrolls Skyrim and expect to even nearly finish it. Although I know this is not what you mean. I just feel that if you choose to clone something, all you are practicing is technical skills, and not your creativity. And isn't this exactly what you want to practice? Or are you suggesting that you should get your technical ability up before sharpening your creative edge?
@Denzil as I first said, assess your skill. Lol. There are many aspects to creative process, and I have a few techniques I use myself that can work while cloning, and creativity can be evolved and improved seperately on a cheaper excersize than making a game ;) such as protopyting 1 day games etc.
I'm not fond of the idea of cloning myself... but only in the context of commercial release, and particularly in the context of beating the original game in it's own market.
However I think cloning is a great place to start learning to develop games (e.g. try make a Tetris game to start with, or try make Pong). I think this is the way I'd phrase what @Bladesway was saying.
@BlackShipsFilltheSky That sounds about right :) I'd actually say I'm impartial to the topic now. My first games were weird little games (not clones). Nothing beyond the difficulty of implementing a pong clone. And perhaps even simpler. But I see what you are saying.
My conclusion: If you clone, try to clone something manageable like pong or tetris. If you make your own, be very serious about limiting your scope. What ever you think you want to make in your head right now, cut half it out, then cut half it out again. And if you still struggle, cut another half out :P (As in half of what's left, otherwise you are sitting with negative a half, and that don't make sense!). Either way, the key is to have a limited scope, and to realize that you aren't making a hit, you are LEARNING (and hopefully having fun :P)!
I'll say read "game programming books" , that way you get to learn game programming principles while making games and you don't have to worry which games which will you be making.
Some authors are horrible at teaching simple concepts so I suggest that you be careful at choosing game programming book. Out of hundreds of books that I have read, there are only few good ones... So this are the Authors that I will recommend:
Rex van der Spuy (html5 and actionscript) Frank Luna (directX) Mario Zechner (android), creator of libgdx Emanuele Feronato (actionscript) Makzan (html5 and actionscript) Jeff and Steve Fulton (html5 and actionscript) Mark Overmars (XNA), creator of game maker. Kurt Jaegers (XNA) Jason Zink (directX) Mike McShaffry (directX and game architecture)
Note I have not mentioned authors who write only on specialized fields like AI, computer graphics, physics, etc... But I've before given a list of books you can choose from if you are starting out. Some authors may require you to know some language before you read their books, but athours like 'Rex van der Spuy" will take you from zero to hero!
One more bit of advice I can conjure up for new designers, build your tool box! There is no silver bullets for problems, each game will present new problems but you need a versatile tool box to be able to adapt and address any issue quickly and efficiently.
Know the complete office package and know it well. Especially Excel and Power point.
Keep your design documents short and focused on a mechanic that can be attached to a user story(see agile development techniques). Massive game design documents are pointless and never get read by anyone, not to mention a pain to up keep.
Use power point to wireframe screens, do not expect a ui artist to do it, you do it, then get the UI artist to make it look good.
Presentations are a key part of your arsenal, both for team buy in, convincing your manager/client of an idea or to get an investor onboard. If you present well you have a better chance of getting the result you need.
Excel excel excel, incase that isnt enough, excel. If a game formula is used for more than 1 thing, make the result read from a CSV and do the formula in Excel. Because excel is easier to debug than code and faster too. If you make those values read from a server you can even balance the game while it is already live with no submission required.
Balancing. Math is awesome and important to a game designer, make sure you have lots of reference. When you balance things against each other, do it off a single comparable value and work back. Dont word from damage and health to get hits to kill. Work from hits to kill back to health and damage.
Use pen and paper. Have an idea? Write it down, draw little pictures and connect them with lines. We get so caught up in using tools that we don't spend enough time working through an idea. Also, paper prototyping. If there is anything we all know here, it's how to work on a piece of paper doesn't matter what level you're on
Clones are safe because you have a fall back, but clones are never super successful (more successful than a master work attemp by most junior devs) 70/30 is usually the super successes.
Vomits in mouth
If you mean "remake an existing game", then say that. Say it without the other stuff that implies you're going on to sell something and advocating cloning...
@dislekcia Not for you, and not for me or any other experienced Dev, and I do not condone Plagiarism.
I have no problem with a Junior designer doing a Tetris or Bejeweled or Platformer or First person shooter clone with their own flavor, art style, balance and story to sell. To be clear, by cloning I do not mean blatantly ripping off another game in every way and then calling it your own, but a game that uses another game as reference in the same way an artist starting out would use another artist's work as reference (Use the game loop, the design principles and the control scheme).
None of us were able to support ourselves with our first game out the door. Re-inventing the wheel as a Junior designer is a bad move that will cost lots of blood sweat and tears, pushing that self sufficiency further away than it need be. The vast majority of today's successful games are 70% clone and 30% innovation (By success I don't mean some couple of hundred K USD total earnings. I mean +20k USD per day for over a year). If you have a wheel that works and you are starting out, just use the wheel everyone else is using until you are good enough to come up with your own version of the wheel. In some cases that will be never, because the world only needs one version of that thing.
So if you want to intimidate beginner into trying to be super creative off the bat beyond what they are capable of, that is your business, I will continue to encourage them to work from reference and fall back on it when they need to, saving themselves the disasters I brought on myself when I started.
Comments
The "high art" thing makes sense to me now: The idea is that something created is art. But many things are created and not all of them are remarkable. Those that are remarkable or worth noticing somehow, need to be seen as valuable by some people (presumably tastemakers) and then that value perception gets communicated to others, this elevates a piece of art to "high" art. In this context, a game that's high art might be a game getting a ton of extremely positive reviews, masses of youtube/stream coverage, winning awards or being invited to trade shows and expos.
@silvaring seems to simply be saying that getting your game noticed is hard, which we all agree with. The parts that don't make sense to me are the arguments around how innovation doesn't stem from independence (although not so much in those terms, because those are our ways of talking about game development) and that teams produce the best stuff. I mean, yes, teams are awesome, I can't argue with that - the thing that's weird is the lack of realising how the responsibility that a team places on a team leader makes risky decisions less likely. This is probably just an issue of perspective - big teams make impressive looking things. Few people know how small id was when they made Wolf 3D, for instance ;)
I can't imagine a situation where both those things are true. That the person is academically involved in game appreciation, and that person also thinks the original Tombraiders are games to aspire towards creating.
My confusion is not that Silvaring doesn't appreciate indie games. It's that the online persona of Silvaring is displaying internal inconsistencies.
I think it might be a consistent thing to say if the only criteria for "high art" is popularity/common regard. Many people didn't like the new Tomb Raider reboot and it earned a lot of controversy over the early marketing material's rapeyness, maybe that doesn't compare well to the almost universal positive regard (in popular game media) for the earlier Tomb Raider games. Maybe that's all that's being compared?
It doesn't seem like there's anything else to the "high art" term, TBH. Where you or I might critically engage with a game in order to call it high art and judge it on a whole host of qualities, I kinda don't feel that that's what's happening here. Although I do agree that it seems like a weird thing for an academic games researcher to be saying... I'd expect someone in that setting to be much more aware of the gender issues in Tomb Raider games than we are (maybe there's something in the new Tomb Raider that's even more problematic?) ;)
I agree though that in Silvaring's text Silvaring appears to be distinguishing "art" from "high art" in that "high art" is regarded as the pinnacle of the art form by him (and others who share his taste).
(Assuming Silvaring is not just using the term to troll)
But usually "high art" is used to denote timeless works appreciated by experts, and "low art" is art that is appreciated by the masses and will soon be forgotten. Though there is little agreement. http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/paper_fisher_high_low_art.pdf http://www.sciences360.com/index.php/culture-and-class-issues-in-determining-high-vs-low-art-forms-2-25628/ The terms "high" and "low" however don't really work for games because most games are designed for mass appeal (because video games have always been digitally distributed, unlike paintings or theater where supply is severely constricted). And so nearly all games are "low art" as art scholars would use the term.
And that's assuming that "low art" can be said to be art that is for the masses and is comforting/escapist in nature. Which is definitely contentious.
[Edit: @Bensonance's subsequent post now makes this post's mistakes/inaccuracies/redundancies apparent]
The impression I received during this period is that "high art" is a term that has been more or less abandoned by academic artists. It referred to the 'holy 'arts of Opera, Literature, Theater and anything that you need an upturned nose to appreciate "fully". Under the classifications of high art, games wouldn't be art at all (which is where the prevailing notion that games aren't art, stems from).
'High art' is a very specific collection of art media that isn't particularly useful anymore. Not since popular and mass culture came into widespread usage. Part of high art involved the critics and other important people deciding on the cannon of a medium, or it's most valuable works - which is why for some reason, Heart of Darkness is considered a great work of literature. But this is problematic, because often these works weren't widely agreed upon.
I think @silvaring is trying to restructure the meaning of high art to include the best works of all media, not necessarily just the traditional ones. From what I'm aware and was taught in first year, this isn't a particularly widespread reinterpretation of high art, though - so I'm not sure it's one that's particularly useful here.
Of course, both the traditional and @silvaring's interpretations of the term are essentially about separating 'good' art from 'bad' art. That's of course quite a slippery thing to attempt, and not altogether a valuable venture, I believe.
My current thinking on the matter is that artists should be able to both 'objectively' and 'subjectively' analyse art. Objectively, why is this game good (why do the critics and important people think it's valuable [often the plebs won't appreciate it for these reasons, or at all]. Subjectively, why is this game good (why do lots and lots of people like this game). I'm quite interested in studying the intersection of these two perspectives.
They form quite a lovely Venn Diagram, I imagine. Bad games are outside of these circles altogether, while other games fall somewhere in the two circles' area. Often there are games that are both objectively and subjectively praised and loved. These games, for me at least, are projects which are admirable to aim to develop, even if it's very difficult to do so.
Of course, even subjectively/objectively there's still a lot of personal interpretation. Which just leads us to the conclusion that art is subjective, and should be developed and appreciated as such.
Also, did no one else feel the sudden inclusion of 'high art' was a bit left of field, considering this discussion was about game engines? If @silvaring isn't trolling, I feel they chose a strange thread to start this discussion.
Still informative though :D
My last post was a response to dislekcia, who mentioned working on the most rewarding & interesting things they can. I wanted to throw my view as a player into the mix. That said, I'd be more than happy to stop commenting now, as it would mean not having to respond to the multiple messages that have gone on in the last day or so, from opinions on Tomb Raider, to the historical meaning of high art. @JediN1nja, I wish we could have all done this in person!
So feel free to keep discussing! :D
So I don't use unity, I make games using my own engines and I also finish them. This topic is fast becoming bleh.
Before you attack me, here's my 2 current games:
https://itunes.apple.com/za/app/stray-cat/id834767522?mt=8
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=straycat.lazylizzard&hl=en
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/floppy-scibbles/id874996864?mt=8
Don't at all feel discouraged at sharing your work though! I am not in any way anti-game engine. I went that way as well. I've made about ~4 games using their own "engines", the last one used Unity, but I used it pretty much for rendering and sound, the rest was all my own (the physics, etc.) I did this, not because I did not agree with warnings not to (make my own engine), but simply because I was not comfortable with using a game engine (like Unity), and had to go through a learning process. I since learnt Unity, through another game Cubez, that took me about 5 working days to implement. This was a great learning experience but the game would've taken me weeks to do (maybe even months), if I did not have Unity.
I have since started remaking an old game (the one where I used Unity, but rewrote my own engine framework on top of it), and have come A LOT further in probably 10% of the time. It's really amazing. But it was all a learning experience and I regret none of it .... well, maybe I wish I just went through it faster!
I get that this comes from a long history of engines that went nowhere but I am suggesting that you are now on the complete opposite side of the same scale where the same fight is being fought for completely the opposite reasons.
As a non unity/gamemaker outsider, it literally feels like you guys wait for the opportunity to bring up this debate and you secretly love the fight. I say it FEELS like that simply because of how you do it.
So dislekcia, with much love and respect, you want me to re-read the thread, but how about you read your posts from the beginning and try to understand that by saying things like 'What is it that you thought I was saying that needed countering' you rub people the wrong way and inflame the topic.
Also the constant referal to 'we make games' and this is called 'makegamessa' not 'build engines sa' is a narrow minded view in my humble opinion. There is much more to making games than the gameplay. In fact, making the game is probably the least of the total effort for a process that altogether means you are making a game.
I am saying these things because this is supposedly a community about making games. For everyone. Not just for those who use unity in this specific way or that specific way. How about we start respecting each others viewpoint and treat each other like adults, we start by being a little less aggressive and not treat game making like a religion where everyone but you is doing it wrong.
Once we start doing that, we can be an inclusive community rather than an exclusive community.
I've personally been on a long crusade to self-improve to stop sounding like a dick about my beliefs. So I'm all for any suggestion on how to talk about this stuff without aggroing everyone.
On that same note, here's the crux of the aggro, I believe:
Most "anti-engine" advice people here give are given to those who ask for advice - and those are typically beginners. Beginners are typically going to not have great results making games when they start by building an engine.
Most "pro-engine" advice givers are anecdotal "I made an engine and I made a game or ten from it, so it can be done". These are typically not beginners!
So there's a mismatch between the two ends of this conversation... Which causes RAGE and RAWR. We need to recognise that.
I'm actually all in favour of making game engines. I feel there is a lot to learn (at least for some, including me). But as you say, maybe not necessarily the best choice for people that can't even code properly yet (or those that can, but can't make games). I quite like GameMaker for this :) Though I haven't touched it in about a year.
EDIT: I guess I'm not saying much new :P
Example. I decide to make an original game featuring a little bird that has to avoid flying into pipes that scroll at him from the right. If you tap the screen, the bird goes up a bit. If I don't tap, gravity pulls it down with increasing speed. I get the to the flapping and gravity parts of the game:
1. I could make this using Unity3D or Unreal or whatever, attaching some premade components to my sprite that will take care of gravity, collision and upwards motion, but I choose to go for the next option:
2. I don't use either of the above. I move my sprite up and down using simple maths. Downward speed increases based on a tan(). Tapping a key will increase the vertical speed a certain amount. Collision is when my sprite's nose is within the x1,y1,x2,y2 bounds of the scrolling pipes.
Question: Did I just make an engine?
Secondly you are still oversimplifying the situation. How will you render your sprite and the background? And the scrolling? And check for inputs? Some of these things are just easier to implement in a game engine. My first game was coded in Borland Delphi 7, and it was a simple image that moved around on a canvas. There already I was reusing technology and not making use of my own canvas and image implementation. But it was flickering like hell, and I had to do research and learn about stuff like double buffering. So it's good that I learned these things, but truthfully it's not too useful for me anymore because I can do something better in unity in less time.
This guy:
And Denzil - time is just one factor for deciding how to go about building a thing. What if your goal is to build something with a small footprint?
Like this 4KB demo (extreme example, I know):
Yes great things can be done with great technical expertise. That expertise is a long term goal.
We will ask people who ask for advice: "Do you want to become a technical master in the long term or be able to make games in the short term" if a beginner asks us "hey how do I go about making a game".
And then based on that, we'll assign them the relevant advice. Is that fair?
We happy to discuss the following things
1) Animations
2) Marketing
3) KickStarter pages
4) Gender issues
5) Art style and approach
6) Greenlight
7) The various comments from famous people online
8) The state of what an indies really is
It feels a little odd to say engine building design and abilities are suddenly excluded while all the rest of these topics don't get a 2nd thought. I have seen more then a few people alienated from our community over this topic and I have also seen many artists online that are not finding technical guys to partner with. We can not afford to exclude the people with the technical skills from the community just because they might be doing something we don't believe will work out. We certainly don't push a game team away if we don't think there game will work, so why is this so important when its an engine.
From my point of view @LazyLizzard if you interesting in making games then you are welcome here. That having been said I don't think this forum is a place where you might get tones and tones of assistance or code examples that will be handy to build your own engines. You can expect a lot of comments about your game as it grows irrespective of if its in your own engine or not. There are a handful of people who might be able to assist with really deep tech questions but its not the primary interest of the community any more then giving specific assistance for blender would be.
The argument that "we make games not engines" is great and all, even if problematically exclusive. But now it's getting to the point of hypocrisy because between @LazyLizzard and @SubiyaCroylite (and a few others) we do have people that are successfully completing games whilst using game engines. That's kind of the end of this argument because if you say "well they could be making them better/faster/more money" etc - that's beside the point because your own criteria was that they make games, don't be two-faced and now decide they need to reach a certain threshold of game or success.
I agree warning off beginners from making their own engines is a good thing, but the aggressiveness and persistence that it occurs with has frequently stopped people from engaging with this community - which is a massive problem because diversity of all kinds in a community is highly important, and is something MGSA struggles with.
And yes, I do re-read old posts to try and find out why people might be responding to them in certain ways, hence asking that question in the first place. You'll note that this "argument" gets shot down pretty quickly whenever it's made :) Esplain pls? Am honestly curious about where more effort goes in your process. Perhaps my effort is equally distributed, perhaps not, but either way there's probably learning hiding there for both of us. Honestly: Build a game, no matter how, great. We'll talk about the game. People will be happy that you made a thing they can play. Win! Etc.
Nobody here is saying that Unity is the one true path to game development (what?). Historically, aggression tends to come from people defending choices that they've made with poor information, which is often why simply asking questions gets people so upset. What am I defending? How am I lashing out and why would that be my goal?
Sprite Manager
Input Manager
Resource Manager
Collision engine
Tile engine
Scene graph
HUD
particle system
With other components like physics or path finding being optional. Some types of games may not be suited for being developed using a game engine, think about chess for example. Game logic in chess is more important than next generation particle system, so you might want to save yourself from waisting resources by using an engine.
Again there might be other reasons why you might want to use your own engine.
For example, me as a hardcore coder, I always move away from using complicated user interface, I like my notepad++ and the most complicated IDE I use is visual studio and that's only when Im coding DirectX or xna. Im a left brain person, I can see numbers more clearer than pictures that's why I got annoyed whenever I tried unity or even game maker and completely bashed them. Other reasons may be finances. Writing Your own engine is completely priceless and Microsoft even allow students to write for windows store without paying a cent. By using commercial engines students may be discourages to test their work on other platforms.
So whether we use someone's engine or our own engine, what's important is that we love making games....
Surely there's a point at which developers that have tried to make games can compare processes amongst themselves? Like, I get that defining axes of comparison can often be tricky - but does that invalidate the entire point?
If we're talking general advice to game development newbies, how do we rationally evaluate what to say? If we're talking to people that have made games, should we talk about their games or should we insist that they're game development newbies because they're new here?
How about everyone post a single line....1 LINE ONLY that is a piece of advice that you've learned while making games. And yes it can be, not making my own game engine (whatever you think makes an engine) saved me a lot of time. Or making my own engine gave me more freedom blah blah blah. Get the picture? Here I'll start:
Basically, cloning is like working under an experienced designer when you dont have access to one directly.
However I think cloning is a great place to start learning to develop games (e.g. try make a Tetris game to start with, or try make Pong). I think this is the way I'd phrase what @Bladesway was saying.
(does that sound right?)
My conclusion: If you clone, try to clone something manageable like pong or tetris. If you make your own, be very serious about limiting your scope. What ever you think you want to make in your head right now, cut half it out, then cut half it out again. And if you still struggle, cut another half out :P (As in half of what's left, otherwise you are sitting with negative a half, and that don't make sense!). Either way, the key is to have a limited scope, and to realize that you aren't making a hit, you are LEARNING (and hopefully having fun :P)!
Build a game, any game. Do it in easiest way possible for you. Finish it! Get feedback. Improve. Fail...early...often. Repeat!
Some authors are horrible at teaching simple concepts so I suggest that you be careful at choosing game programming book. Out of hundreds of books that I have read, there are only few good ones... So this are the Authors that I will recommend:
Rex van der Spuy (html5 and actionscript)
Frank Luna (directX)
Mario Zechner (android), creator of libgdx
Emanuele Feronato (actionscript)
Makzan (html5 and actionscript)
Jeff and Steve Fulton (html5 and actionscript)
Mark Overmars (XNA), creator of game maker.
Kurt Jaegers (XNA)
Jason Zink (directX)
Mike McShaffry (directX and game architecture)
Note I have not mentioned authors who write only on specialized fields like AI, computer graphics, physics, etc...
But I've before given a list of books you can choose from if you are starting out. Some authors may require you to know some language before you read their books, but athours like 'Rex van der Spuy" will take you from zero to hero!
This is the list of book I recommend:
http://makegamessa.com/discussion/1574/how-to-be-a-game-programmer#Item_35
You can borrow this books from me if you live around Pretoria.
Know the complete office package and know it well. Especially Excel and Power point.
Keep your design documents short and focused on a mechanic that can be attached to a user story(see agile development techniques). Massive game design documents are pointless and never get read by anyone, not to mention a pain to up keep.
Use power point to wireframe screens, do not expect a ui artist to do it, you do it, then get the UI artist to make it look good.
Presentations are a key part of your arsenal, both for team buy in, convincing your manager/client of an idea or to get an investor onboard. If you present well you have a better chance of getting the result you need.
Excel excel excel, incase that isnt enough, excel. If a game formula is used for more than 1 thing, make the result read from a CSV and do the formula in Excel. Because excel is easier to debug than code and faster too. If you make those values read from a server you can even balance the game while it is already live with no submission required.
Balancing. Math is awesome and important to a game designer, make sure you have lots of reference. When you balance things against each other, do it off a single comparable value and work back. Dont word from damage and health to get hits to kill. Work from hits to kill back to health and damage.
And find more tools!
If you mean "remake an existing game", then say that. Say it without the other stuff that implies you're going on to sell something and advocating cloning...
Just... WTF?
I have no problem with a Junior designer doing a Tetris or Bejeweled or Platformer or First person shooter clone with their own flavor, art style, balance and story to sell. To be clear, by cloning I do not mean blatantly ripping off another game in every way and then calling it your own, but a game that uses another game as reference in the same way an artist starting out would use another artist's work as reference (Use the game loop, the design principles and the control scheme).
None of us were able to support ourselves with our first game out the door. Re-inventing the wheel as a Junior designer is a bad move that will cost lots of blood sweat and tears, pushing that self sufficiency further away than it need be. The vast majority of today's successful games are 70% clone and 30% innovation (By success I don't mean some couple of hundred K USD total earnings. I mean +20k USD per day for over a year). If you have a wheel that works and you are starting out, just use the wheel everyone else is using until you are good enough to come up with your own version of the wheel. In some cases that will be never, because the world only needs one version of that thing.
So if you want to intimidate beginner into trying to be super creative off the bat beyond what they are capable of, that is your business, I will continue to encourage them to work from reference and fall back on it when they need to, saving themselves the disasters I brought on myself when I started.
So, lets just agree to disagree ;)