Bad decisions you've made over the course of creating a game and the reason why

[BurningOrca]

Basically what the title says. I just want to read about it.
Here is my entry:

This was a very bad decision. Not only for the play who might try to reset on this in order to
get the best stats. But also for me, as I have to balance the game around this.
Just an example how bad it is.
Level 1 Stat = 20
Min Level 99 Stat = 20 + (98 * 8) = 804
Max Level 99 Stat = 20 + (98 * 10) = 1000
If you are very unlucky you might end up with 196 stats less. With a level one stat of 40 it might become 392 stats less.
But at least the chance, that this might happen is fairly low.
And I started this using 30 to 50%. So 40 is already an improvement.

Also choosing that font as one of the options was also a bad idea. I now always have to make
sure everything fits into the different windows also in this font. It's also not the most readable one.
I took it just because I tought it looks nice, when I first saw it.

I hope this is correct place for this thread.

 

[MushroomCake28]

A bad decision most devs made when planning their game is probably planning it to be too big. Then, halfway through, you realize that the game is too big for you to complete alone, but since the story and everything else is already designed you can't cut content without redoing the entire story/world. Gahhh, it happened to me a couple times in the past lol. Fortunately I learned from that mistake and try to cut as much as I can before going forward with a project.

 

[gvduck10]

A bad decision most devs made when planning their game is probably planning it to be too big. Then, halfway through, you realize that the game is too big for you to complete alone, but since the story and everything else is already designed you can't cut content without redoing the entire story/world. Gahhh, it happened to me a couple times in the past lol. Fortunately I learned from that mistake and try to cut as much as I can before going forward with a project.

This is why I have been working on the same game for over a year! But I'm too far in now to stop. It must be done. My precious. (Do you see in my signature... FIFTY characters? Yeah, that's the one)

 

[Nightblade50]

restarting the game and revamping it

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

I made an entire system where the player could collect memories of objects and build their own world in the status menu... Basically like having your own RM editor in the game. Then scrapped it because there was no compelling reason to do it. It was kind of fun though, so maybe someday I'll use it for something else.

As to why I made it, well I used it as a very odd form of progression. Mostly though, it just distracted from the main gameplay.

 

[Cythera]

Adding in a feature because 'every game has a button-mash series of minigames that you win prizes from!' so now I have a whole system of minigames and arcade tokens that I put time into making only to later realize it has no place in my game
Another, lesser evil, obtaining great resources halfway though the making of the game and going back to change out all my old graphics. Sure, my game looks much better and needed a visual upgrade, but I wish I had done this earlier. Very painful...

 

[TheoAllen]

I don't exactly have a really bad decision because I always learn something new and nothing was lost (including started big and realized it's too big). The worst I've ever done was probably release a demo prematurely that I ended up taking it down because I revamped the game. Imagine people get confused and/or save your shame somewhere in someone's disk.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I'm not sure if mine is a bad decision, or just being a dummy, but I've gone with an idea of a 'theme' for how I want descriptions, icons, DMG formulae, etc. to work and come across to the player... Only to realize everything is 'wrong', is incoherent, or just doesn't work well together. I can't tell you how many times in the past week I've redone the description text of skills and the damage formulae for skills this past week. Hopefully, what I've learned is to test things out FULLY, and decide on one standard way of showing information, before I do anything else in the database.

My bad decisions usually involve taking something too far before really looking at it objectively.

 

[Willibab]

My bad decisions have usually been choosing to use Moghunters plugins....They are amazing but its so much work that by the time im satisfied with the menus etc.....Im just....done

I also tend to just....delete everything and start over.... Never continuing any project :3


oooh and over reliance on plugins.... Not even bothered to learn variables or common events yet xD Always a plugin for everything :3

 

[Aesica]

Most of my bad decisions happened in my days playing with flash, so I've pretty much learned my lesson from most of them:

Spoiler

This one probably doesn't apply to RM much because we have a handy program to make and store sprite/map/etc data for us, but I'll share it anyway:
I thought I was so clever, using the argb values of pixels to contain data in various ways, from game maps to an awkward spritesheet system I cooked up for myself.

For the maps, each argb value represented different tiles, area effects, and whatnot. While nice when you have no map editor, it's...yeah still kind of yucky.

With the spritesheets, it was nice having variable-sized sprites in the same sheet without ever needing to pass them into a function when loading the sheet, but overall, it was more tedious than it was worth. In the end, I found it better to just use json data. It was more flexible, too.

Spoiler

My biggest mistakes of all though was this:

• Immediately obvious is that I tried to be an artist when frankly, I'm not. This problem is compounded by the fact that I tried to use an art-heavy dialog system (busts not portraits) with shoddy crap I drew (horribly) myself. I've since learned the value of using assets created by people who know what they're doing.
• I was really lazy with dialog--so much of the dialog in this game was bad to the point it took away from the story I was attempting to (poorly) tell. Bad dialog is a mistake I've been very careful not to repeat in my RM games.

So yeah, that's my contribution.

 

[BurningOrca]

A bad decision most devs made when planning their game is probably planning it to be too big. Then, halfway through, you realize that the game is too big for you to complete alone, but since the story and everything else is already designed you can't cut content without redoing the entire story/world. Gahhh, it happened to me a couple times in the past lol. Fortunately I learned from that mistake and try to cut as much as I can before going forward with a project.

Oh yes, I believe I did that too. I still think I can complete it someday, but I am very aware of the fact that I may also never finish it. But I wont start a new project until it's done.

 

[CraneSoft]

I've made a lot of bad decisions in the recent years mainly in the way I make my events extremely convoluted, unstructured, difficult to modify etc., and planning way more features than necessary before I realized the workload is too much. The consequences are I had to keep remaking alot of things just to modify stuff, at least now those are learnt from experience.

 

[cthulhusquid]

restarting the game and revamping it

I am revamping a game right now, I don't consider it a mistake. However, I can see it might be for others if you can never get anything done.

 

[Tai_MT]

Mistakes I've Made
*My game is very large. However, as a storyteller... I find it difficult to tell "short" stories. But, that's okay, because my large game has given me a lot of enjoyment in designing it. The forums here tend to keep my motivation at least existent, and making slight bits of progress just keep me working on my game.
*Initially had a feature of my game be a "morality" system. After obtaining feedback here as well as analyzing the way me and my friends approach "morality" systems in games, I realized it was a waste of time as well as very silly. I opted instead to have choices that were more thematically appropriate to the story being told.
*Initially had my "Sins" in the game (a feature in which players equip items that nerf the crap out of their stats) require a "Time Limit" run out before the items transformed into something insanely beneficial. This was a feature that added endless frustration in player tests as well as didn't serve the initial design goal of implementation. That goal was to give the players a means of overcoming the character's biggest personal flaws, which could and would affect the story as well as interactions within the party. Nerfing stats simply provided too much punishment and not enough reward for what was intended to be accomplished. Now, the items still "nerf" stats, however, they open up new dialogue options, new choices, and even new questlines while they are equipped. These equips are also signposted much better and have appropriate flavor text (as well as some of them having effects that aren't just nerfing a stat) so that players know there is a reason to equip these items. Finally, even if these items are "transformed", the dialogue choices remain for the rest of the game so players can safely unequip even the new equipment once it's purpose is served.
*Too hard of a start. I wanted to provide the feeling to players that they needed to scrimp and scrounge and save for every GP and every consumable and every bit of progress they made was earned. The problem was that the player starts with no equipment, no money, no consumables. This made it very unapproachable for even "hardcore" gamers looking for a challenge. The start had to be "reworked" in order to provide less of a "Dark Souls" feel, but still a challenging feel. Player starting position was moved, signposting on the first steps of the journey were improved, players are given a free weapon and 10 free healing items to start with, and the monsters in the immediate area were given 100% drops on a Quest Item which was then also able to be sold for small amounts of cash to buy more consumables. There was also a shop put close by to buy consumables and sell the Quest Items (if the player needs to), and a Questline was created in order to provide the player with their first set of gear and some stat ups by just walking around in circles near where they started. This starting zone was made more "player friendly".
*Bad Intro. I initially had an intro that is like most of the standard RPG Maker intros you've ever seen. Vagueness. Mystery. Lots of people and terms and stuff being thrown around that you don't know anything about. The intro was very "off putting" to play testers and they'd often ask me a ton of questions about the setting and what things were without wanting to wait to see if/when I'd reveal that information. I opted, instead, to have an intro that actually set up the plot and didn't use anything "unfamiliar" to a player except the main Antagonist of the setting. Each part of the intro sets up the events that lead to the current events of the game and sets up enough of the world that my players stopped asking me questions right away. However, this intro is still pretty long, about 10-15 minutes depending on reading speed, but at least it gets across the crucial information it needs to.
---
That's... my short list, I guess? I'm sure I'll run into other issues as I get far closer to demo release and begin having strangers playtesting my game and being more rigorous. But, those are the major issues I've had from "concept" to "actual gameplay exists".

 

[Cormorant42]

I made an entire system where the player could collect memories of objects and build their own world in the status menu... Basically like having your own RM editor in the game. Then scrapped it because there was no compelling reason to do it. It was kind of fun though, so maybe someday I'll use it for something else.

As to why I made it, well I used it as a very odd form of progression. Mostly though, it just distracted from the main gameplay.

I'd sure love to see that system, it sounds impressive

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

Hmm... Maybe I should make a video on it or something. I'd have to dig it out, been probably 9 months since I used it. Chances are I'd just consider it embarrassing at this point. So I'd be forced to make it cooler.

 

[Cormorant42]

Hmm... Maybe I should make a video on it or something. I'd have to dig it out, been probably 9 months since I used it. Chances are I'd just consider it embarrassing at this point. So I'd be forced to make it cooler.

Still tho, unless I'm wrong in my interpretation of your post, you created a system where players can make (and then presumably play on) their own maps. That's nothing to laugh at, that opens up a lot of options for developers.

Granted, as you said, you'd have to make sure it doesn't distract from the core gameplay. But it's still very cool!

 

[Black Pagan]

I had to abadon a game mid-way because some Resources did not fit in to the rest of the game both in a graphical and story sense and i did not know this till i reached the Half-way mark.

Unable to find replacements, I had to abandon the game. I learnt a valuable lesson that day - Always plan resources before making your game. Not just a few but all of them !

 

[ImaginaryVillain]

Sweet, I found it. Wow was my game different back then. I was still using the randomized rooms that connect together and remember what they connected to. Ha ha, imagine needing multiple maps.

 

[Cormorant42]

Sweet, I found it.

Any way to try it out, or am I just pushing my luck? lol