Prototyping Means Sucking Less Sooner
I had this whole new, revolutionary system for controlling characters in an RPG that combined the virtues of real-time and turn-based combat. Oh, and a really clever idea for handling stats that added a great amount of detail and flexibility and a minimum cost of complexity. A couple of really great ideas. I spent the last few months off-and-on working prototyping these and other systems.

Only to find they sucked.

Lesson to remember: Things that sound GREAT on paper are often less than wonderful when they make the transition to mouse-and-screen. This is why getting a playable prototype is SO CRITICALLY IMPORTANT. So now I can go back and change things before committing the game to these elements. Sure, I've wasted a little bit of effort (some of which went into premature polishing... something else to avoid), but an early retooling is better than a late one. And many of the tools I've created are still useful with only minor redesign.



A friend of mine (Steve Taylor, of NinjaBee) told me about his guiding quote for game design - which I then printed out and posted on the wall of my office. The quote is by Antoine de Saint-Exupery:

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

This has been expressed in design as the KISS method. Of course, a big part of the fun in an RPG (or most games) is the depth in which you can take the gameplay ... but it has to be done without adding complexity. The goal is always to have someone feel like they know how to play the game within the first five minutes (or less!!!), but have them also feel that there's a lot more to the game that they haven't seen yet (but want to see).

I've ended up dragging my feet a little the last few weeks revamping the prototype with the appropriate design changes. Part of is the reality of having a full-time job and some other projects in the hopper, and taking some time to play games again. But part of it has been trying to work on learning to do 3D modeling. I posted my evil mosquito-wannabe giant cootie bug a couple of weeks ago.

I've been working on another monster from the game - termed a "devil-kin." Think of small, fallen-cherub types that are invisible to most people, who drink the life from sleeping victims over a course of several nights. I'm about ready for texturing, which will probably be sloppy and horrible, but I'm feeling slightly more confident about my modeling skills in Blender. I'm still a beginner, but I feel I am sucking less:

Animation is still pending. Which is going to be a nightmare of a whole 'nother order. I haven't done any animation in Blender yet, so it's going to be yet another learning experience.

But I'm having fun doing it all. I remember a session in GDC many years ago on game design, and one of the key things the presenters asked was, "Is your team having fun making the game? Because if you aren't having fun making it, how do you expect your audience to have fun playing it?"

Labels: Game Design

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:10 PM (Permalink)