Quality Ain't Easy
Indie RPGs are a rare breed of game. They typically require such a tremendous amount of content that they are not worth making. It's far easier to throw together a match-three type puzzle game with a hundred levels or so than a roleplaying game with five hours of quests.

So my hat is off to anybody attempting ... and succeeding... at doing just that.

I recently came across an indie RPG that is for sale out there that looked like it was made with the same engine as Aveyond. For a few minutes, I was excited. After all, those tools facilitated the construction of a really great, involving game with a fun plot, great characters, and tons of content. I realized that a not-insubstantial portion of the artwork in the game was "stock" content from the toolkit. So I was anxious to see what another game developer could do with the engine. Particularly since he evidently thought it was high enough quality to go for sale.

I won't mention the name of the game to protect the guilty. Let's just say I'm glad that downloadable games are "try before you buy." I was bored within seconds.

Now, props to this guy for actually completing a game - an RPG no less - and everything. That takes a lot of effort and guts, and I don't want to slight the developer in any way in that regard.

But the difference in quality between this game and, say, Aveyond, or Cute Knight, or one of Spiderweb's excellent RPG titles, was pretty stark. The game functioned pretty much as expected, but it was the attention to detail that was completely lacking.

For example: You had big ol' rooms with one NPC to talk to stuck up in the corner. What's with all the empty space? Did someone rob the place of all its furniture? If so, the single NPC in the corner wasn't talking. The space just looked... artificial.

Another example: The NPCs served no purpose but to hint you in the direction of a quest. There was nothing to tell you why you were there, or what the town was like, or anything else of any kind of flavor. In one spot, you have no idea that you've left the safety of the city into an area infested with monsters until you are either attacked or meet the NPC who says he's afraid to go out to where he's currently standing for fear of all the monsters that are around.

If you play Neverwinter Nights and have tried any of the THOUSANDS of fan-created modules, you are probably familiar with this phenomenon. Neverwinter Nights is a powerful game engine, with an amazing amount of functionality built into it. And the tools for creating content are nothing short of phenominal. The scripting engine is amazingly robust, and has been used to create little "mini-games" that have nothing to do with the core engine. There are new user-built models and tilesets appearing all the time, many of which are of high quality.

With something like 4,000 user-created modules to choose from and an extremely powerful and flexible game system that can be modded like CRAZY, why would you ever need to play anything else? There's enough content out there to keep you busy until your computer falls apart under its own weight and rust.

EXCEPT.... all but the top 5% of those user-created games are pure crap. And even of those, only a few dozen transcend mere adequacy and become a quality gaming experience actually worthy of one's precious and rare spare time to play.

Quality ain't easy to even recognize, sometimes, let alone implement. It' s what you get where the science of what you are doing meets with real craftsmanship, expertise, and a real desire to do something great. Having great tools and a great engine can certainly help you get there, but it's no substitute. Quality is a big part of the 20% of the job that ends up taking 80% of the time.

But hey, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it, right?

Labels: Biz, Game Design

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:29 PM (Permalink)