Last week I did something that’s become so commonplace that I don’t even think about it anymore: I opened GameMaker. This time was different, however, as I was greeted with a message that prevented me from opening my save file: My one-year subscription was up. I had to renew.
“Time, Dr. Freeman? Is it really that time again?”
I knew I had been working on my project for a while, but I didn’t know just how long. Between (other) side projects, holidays, birthdays, and moving, the months really got away from me. But now that’s it has been a year, and I started this here blog, I figured…what the heck, might as well write a reflection piece!
If you don’t know, I’m working on a game right now. It’s, tentatively, called The Other Side of the Galaxy. It’s a rouge-like, turn-based combat game IN SPACE. The C.A.S. Oriskany, pride of the fleet, has gone missing behind enemy lines. It’s your job to traverse three sectors of space and rescue the ship from the clutches of the evil Tal Empire. In your journey you’ll face multiple battles, depots for learning new skills and repairing, and special events that add an extra layer of risk/reward to your quest. It’s a game about decisions; long-term strategy vs. short-term gains. Four different ships are available to you, each with different stats and some unique skills, so it’s up to you to determine your build and come up with a plan.
Have I effectively sold you on a game that has no release date yet? Good.
Fair Warning: unlike my other posts here, this one will lack the hard thesis that my other entries usually have. This is much less structured, so Editor Alex will have a hell of a lot more work to do that Writer Alex! No, the paragraphs below are devoted to the twists and turns and lessons learned.
Lesson 1: Steal Stuff. This lesson is two-fold. There’s the obvious stuff that lays my thievery bare, and the other elements that you may not notice. One is more acceptable than the other, but both are important. Here’s the stuff I’ve obviously stolen: Art and Sound. I spent hours designing a ship in Photoshop and animating it. Hours. I fiddled with the textures, the size, the position, everything. All that fiddling was in service of coming to the conclusion that I’m not going to use this ship since I’m redesigning the look of combat. That was time wasted, as I didn’t learn anything from designing the ship and the product won’t be used. I was so concerned with making sure my ship was unique and legally mine that I went down a road that turned out to be a dead end.
This early in the game, there is no point in stressing over the look of models and sprites. I’ve made far more progress in the last 3 months because I stopped designing ships and just started Googling. Now when I run the game, I’m fighting TIE Fighters and Battlestars and the USS Enterprise. That’s fine. It’s not permanent; it’s a placeholder. It’s there so I can have something to display when I test everything around it. Sound effects work the same way—instead of stressing over the sound of an explosion, just insert something you found on the internet. It’s there to illustrate what your vision is and how things will shake out further down the line. Assets can be replaced, so focus on gameplay now.
Stealing also works with gameplay, too. Code, however, is subtler. For one, it’s not as legally problematic. Nintendo can’t sue Sega just because Sonic jumps just like Mario. For me, however, this is more ethically problematic. It’s important for me to make something distinct. If I’m going to remake another game, what’s the point? If this is my game shouldn’t there be my ideas in the code? The answer is both yes and no. Much like writing a story or drawing a picture, things may not come into view until you start working. For you to start making progress, you need to build on something. For me, that inspiration came from Slay the Spire. It’s also a rogue-like, turn-based game. I enjoyed the game quite a bit and, because it was developed by a small team who had never made a game before, it gave me the confidence I needed to get started. I was also going to make a rogue-like, turn-based game!
So I stole that idea…but things started changing quickly. Slay the Spire is a deck-building game, so your actions in battle are determine by what is in your hand. Mine isn’t a card game; instead, you are a captain shouting commands at members of your crew. Slay the Spire’s actions, therefore, are card based…you must discard a card here, draw 2 cards there, shuffle this into a pile, etc. Those functions don’t apply to me. My balance comes from a “cooldown” mechanic…a measure of how many turns you must wait to perform an action again. From there, things began to escalate. I factored planetary environments into my game, something that doesn’t factor into Slay the Spire. They have items, I do not. I have a story that can be affected by the player, they do not. Stealing the core idea from their game (rogue-like, turn-based) allowed me to understand their game; and it gave me the freedom to take my game into a unique direction. My brain gravitated to elements I liked and away from elements I didn’t, the changes began to snowball, and now there are more differences between our games than similarities. Stealing works!
Lesson 2: Play Video Games. When you start working on a project, you have all the energy in the world. This is your thing! It’s gonna be great! You spend days on end working towards this new goal because you want to see this idea become a reality. After a week or so, you take a break. What was seven days a week spent working becomes six. Six becomes five. Five becomes four. Four becomes three. Now you’re sitting on the couch, playing Kirby and the Crystal Shards, asking yourself: "Is this the best use of my time?" How is Kirby jumping up and down going to get your project done? At this rate, the game that you thought you could finish by the spring is now being pushed back to summer, then to fall. You see other indie games getting released and blowing up in popularity…then the guilt sets in. Are you missing your moment?
This is not a warning against burnout. Burnout is real and you absolutely need to be mindful of it, but this is not me telling you how to deal with that (because I haven’t found a solution yet, either). No, instead I’m telling you that playing video games is not a waste of your time. When you are playing a video game, you are learning. There are dozens (hundreds?) of different genres out there, but they all boil down to one truth: Video Games are designed for players to have an experience. When you play Super Mario World, it’s an experience. When you play Bloodborne, it’s an experience. They are different experiences, of course, but the goal of the developers was the same. They thought about what type of experience you would have when playing their game.
From there, they built mechanics. How would the things you do create that experience? How would you feel about running, jumping, punching, shooting? Will it evoke the feelings they wanted you to feel? From there, the levels/worlds were built. Reward were added. Goals were defined. The game was made…and by playing that game, you’re learning all of that. When you set down a controller after clearing a dungeon in Twilight Princess, you can ask yourself why it was fun. “I beat the Temple. I was able to use the clues in the temple to find a new item. That item then allowed me to reframe the places I’ve been and see new paths as a result. I felt smart because I solved the puzzle.”
A few minutes of reflection after turning off the game can transform this from “mere” fun to a comprehensive learning experience. You just took a class on game design, and you didn’t have to throw yourself into debt to do it! Stephen King says that if you want to write a book, you better have time to read a book. James Gunn, likewise, feels that watching movies is critical in being able to make movies. Game design is no different. The effect that replaying Metroid Prime (for the umpteenth time) had on my game cannot be understated. Paper Mario forced me to go back to the drawing board on one aspect of my game. Hell, a core mechanic of my game was inspired by something completely out of left field (though I won’t tell you which game I'm talking about...I can’t spoil my project quite yet)! Playing a wide variety of games will, of course, turn you into a well-rounded gamer. Being well-rounded on how to play games will then, by extension, lead you to think critically about the elements of a game, which will allow you make something subversive and unique. Playing is learning!
Lesson 3: Make Something Else. Not everything you make needs to be packaged, shipped, and delivered. Sometimes you can just make something. A few months ago, a friend invited me to an event he runs with a few friends. Once a month, they make a board game. In just two hours, they decide on a theme, a setting, and a mechanic and get to work. The game is never finished after two hours, of course, but it’s remarkable how quickly you can come up with a skeleton game, and how that skeleton can improve through just two or three iterations. I’ve done this three times now and it’s a blast.
Part of my enjoyment from this event is the total lack of pressure. Nothing is riding on this board game’s playability. We all know it’s going to be rough after two hours. Everyone understands that polish is not the point of the exercise. The real goal, of course, is to get our brains out of their comfort zones. We are free to suggest mechanics that are absolutely wild because, hey, why not? It’s a low stakes situation, so why not add a time-travel element to our resource management game?
Sure, this example was game-development related, but the things you decide to make don’t have to be. I could have spoken about how I also chose to make a short horror film, took up Taekwondo, futzed around in After Effects to make my name in the style of the Netflix logo, and started the blog that you are reading right this very minute. I honed skills from each of these projects: shot composition, pacing, strength training, form, balance, motion graphics, thematic refinement, etc. I know I’m never going to direct a Star Wars, be a championship fighter, develop TV-grade logos, or write the next great American novel. Each of these tasks utilized a different part of my brain in ways that it otherwise wouldn't have been had I devoted myself to a schedule of work, code, eat, sleep, repeat.
The human body is a shitty piece of equipment. We can marvel over our circulatory systems all we want, but our muscles are temperamental and our brains are full big dumb biases. But I’ve found that the biggest leaps in my game’s design came a day or two after I did something completely unrelated. Whether it’s just because it got my mind off of game design long enough to re-evaluate that thing I’d been stuck on, or because I actually saw the solution to my problem burned into my toast, it doesn’t matter. You'll, likewise, go on a tangent and came back with a fresh set of eyes. Those tangents are invaluable, so cherish them.
So, there you have it. The three biggest lessons I’ve learned after one year of game development. While there have been bumps in the road, the last year has been a rewarding one. I have something saved to my computer (and backed up in three different places) that I’m excited to continue working on. I have an idea that has grown and changed and evolved much in the same way that I’ve grown and changed and evolved as a person. I have The Other Side of the Galaxy, I have it because I made it, and it’s mine. No, it’s not done, and I have no idea when it will be, but I’m excited to see where we’ll find ourselves after another year.
And you’ll be the first to know when we get there.
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