Making a good game/a noob's ramblings

[FC Groningen]

Hello everyone,

While I'm relatively new to this community and basically just started on my first project, I would love to see people share their visions on what makes a good game and see if people agree. If there's already a topic for this, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just in a rambling mood and see if people agree on these aspects that would improve a game in my book. Obviously I cannot deliver such quality in games yet, but as a gamer, I would love to see people maintain these personal guidelines.

1 Build up/Pace

In some of the rpg maker games I've played or read about, the game starts with a full party, epic custom named weapons and armour, (starting) classes that hint on the protagonist being some kind of one man army already and standard enemies that already have complicated names and attacks. I personally prefer a slower start which allows a more gentle curve in development. It would also seem strange to me that one portraited that powerful already would ever break a sweat after beating a standard horde of enemies. I also phantom it difficult to build up from an already "epic" start. If for example, you start off killing "demon kings" with a "Soulcrusher" in the first hour, I wonder where the game could go the next 20 hours. Unless of course the protagonist would lose their powers for some sort of reason. I also like to start off with a small party as a game simply plays different with limited party members. Combat strategies can vary very easily if you start off alone or with two, instead of fighting with four through the entire game. I also consider finding new party members to be part of the exploring of the world and it allows a proper introduction of said character.

2 The badass protagonist

Maybe in combination of what I wrote in "1", usually comes the "badass protagonist". Most protagonists kick butt at the end of the game, but there is something wrong if they already need to buy special soap to clean buttocks smell from boots at the start of the game, so to speak. I would also advocate against protagonists that are portraited with "bad ass personalities". Main reason ISN'T because I think it is overdone. I think developers pick the "bad ass protagonist" or "bad ass side kick" because it's relatively easy to write and widely popular amongst a certain group of players. Needless to say, I do not belong to that group; In fact, I think having the story revolve around such characters will eventually usually means a lack of character development, or motivation for these characters to continue. "Bad ass characters" usually barely develop to my taste, except in "softening up" at times regarding a love interest or "seeing the light". Yet, I must admit that this point strongly revolves around my personal tastes. 

3 The difficulty curve

Another thing that strongly revolves around my personal tastes is my vision on the difficulty curve in a game. Lately, the general opinion is that most games aren't as "unforgiving" or "challenging" as they are used to be. People certainly do have a point there as there are some modern games that all of us would beat without even trying. Yet, I also think that nostalgia and our young age influenced our opinion on it's difficulty curve at times. Most gamers simply aren't very good at gaming below, or around the age of 10. Yet, even if a game would be challenging to the point that you'd spent more time retrying specific parts than "playing" the game, would that be a point in it's favor? In such cases, especially turn based RPG's, then eventually start to rely on luck as well. Will that boss be faster than character "C" this time? Will that mob do the same attack twice in a row? Will I make it out of this cave before I run into another random encounter? Maybe you'll eventually succeed because a boss missed twice at a vital point or because you scored a critical hit while you were almost down. I'd personally say, if you want to give your audience a challenge, by all means, but do not make the game "extra hard", just for the sake of making it "extra hard". Regarding that, if people wish to grind to be overleveled, let them. If people wish to play the game whilst being challenged to a lesser extend; let them. If people wish to play the game with an extra challenge, let them too. Personal note; Please don't make a game hard by making mobs or bosses spam status effects.

4 Final boss

In a lot of games in generals, boss fights have lost their value. In most cases, specific "optional bosses" prove to be more of a challenge than the actual final boss. I get the idea of providing the player with an optional challenge. However, in such a case, most of the times these optional bosses can be fought only before the final boss. After you defeat said optional boss, you are rewarded with even more experience points and usually some bonus like a AAA+ weapon or some status booster which would only make the final boss even easier. The prime antagonist is built up through the story and should be "hyped" until the moment you finally face him/her/it. If he/she/it turns out to be a (relative) pushover, to me, both the story and game lose in appreciation. 

5 Names

All divine entities know it's hard to name characters, locations and items. Yet, I would request to keep these names a bit more simple in general as difficult and long names do not appeal in general. I'm refering of course, for a example, to a "protagonist called Hydrighynia, that is sent to retreive the holy weapon of Longigronthris in the lands of Zharxopynkra". Go easy on the syllables and sometimes regular names will do the trick even better. 

6 Combat systems

I've seen some innovative new systems that are being developed for turn based combat games. I've lost the name of it, but I personally can't get used to the system in which you wait for a bar to fill up before it is your turn to select a move. Just that wouldn't be that bad, even though I personally just prefer to just select all of my party member's moves at the same time. What really irks me is the situation in which you select a move or something special, while the other bars continue to fill. In most of the times, I just ram the space bar to select "attack" to avoid losing precious "speed" or "dps" by casually strolling through the battle interface. Combat which just requires "auto attack" or button mashing doesn't feel balanced or innovative to me, but maybe I'm just not cut for such a game. Yet, I strongly feel that turn based combat works in turn based RPG's because it's turn based. 

7 Originality

Sometimes people try to be original by either adding plot twist after plot twist, starting off with a special event, or try to add gameplay mechanics to have their game stand out. While I do not wish to appear a fanatic conservative gamer, or discourage innovative ideas, I would warn developers about it. Too many plot twists just causes confusion, or would ironically sometimes even make the game predictable, or full of plotholes. If you add something new, like for example a mechanic that requires a party to hunt for food to survive, make sure it fits in the game and is not an annoyance or distraction from the game. People usually say, "write what you know" and I'd like to add "make what you can". In general, execution of what you write and code will make your game stand out much more, than throwing in a few (plot) gimmicks.

8 Large worlds

A lot of developers start off with the set of mind to create an epic large world (like me), but often end up squeezing it down, or solve it by adding a world map. I'm not against world maps, if executed well, but to me, it feels wrong to walk from one side of the map to another in a few minutes, while a standard forest, or mountain range would take 5 times as long. I know a world map helps against backtracking and such, but to me, it just feels wrong to explore new territory on "the map". 

I hope you guys understand my ramblings. Reactions would be welcome. If people wish to attempt me to "convert" my ideals; by all means try. I might just learn something. 

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere (old)]

Your ramblings are absolutely unconscionable; I refuse to listen!

Jokes aside, you bring up many valid points. It's always important to discuss the contribution of various factors that constitute a good game. Let me examine your points one by one.

1 Build up/Pace

Definitely important. There's nothing worse than an RPG that goes nowhere fast. If your game is waffly, or doesn't grab my attention immediately, I tend to just put it down and not pick it up again. I think it's just the case of keeping the player interested throughout the entire game. That's what I want in a game or any piece of media: engagement. That comes through proper pacing and going somewhere via points that don't swerve too far from the plot arc. Consistency.

2 The badass protagonist

It depends what you mean by "badass". The dictionary defines it as a "tough, uncompromising, intimidating" person. So what you're saying is that the badass has no room for character development because they already have the traits of strength and control and do not need to improve? I think that you can make a badass protagonist interesting by providing him with a cynical view of life at the start, but then he slowly begins to understand the world around him isn't as straightforward evil he previously thought, and love makes its way into his heart until he figures out he needs others.

3 The difficulty curve

There are different kinds of difficulty in my book: fair difficulty and unfair difficulty. Fair difficulty is when you can use strategy to overcome it, without much thought. Unfair difficulty is that, even when you use good strategies, you can still lose and it wasn't your fault. So I think that a game can be easy or difficult as long as when you die, it's completely your fault. If you die without any influence of your own, then it's hardly a game, now is it?

4 The final boss

The reason why final bosses are usually weaker than optional bosses is because people want to finish the game. If you place an extremely difficult boss in the linear path of the main storyline, then the person will be stuck there for ages. Placing a difficult boss as an optional sidequest enables the player to skip past it if they're not good enough to finish it, and then come back later depending on how skilled a player they are.

5 Names

Totally. Long names suck. As an addition, try not to make names up for things that already exist. People don't have that good a memory, you know, and fantasy thrives on a mixture of familiarity and unfamiliarity. You are in a world where certain rules apply that apply in real life, but there's also new awesome rules that you must learn and adapt to, and that's part of the fun of being thrust in a magical world - it's your life made interesting. New lands to explore, skills to improve, and lessons to take. It's the life you wanted, but never had.

6 Combat systems

I think it's called ATB. And it sucks. Don't use bars that fill up in your games. It doesn't provide anything to them.

7 Originality

Plot twists are interesting, but plan them out beforehand. In fact, the biggest problem amateur developers make is that they make the story structure up on the fly, and there begin the plotholes because they haven't thought it through enough. They don't flesh out character motivations, thoughts and reasons why they'd turn into the bad guy at this certain moment, or why they'd fly into the sun just to save their girlfriend when they can just do this thing instead and save her another way. And why doesn't that all-powerful mage just blast the bad guy into oblivion? Doesn't he have the skills?

8 Large worlds

I didn't really understand this one. Would you like world maps to be bigger or smaller? Are you talking about locations you enter from the world map, or the map itself? Or are you just uncomfortable with the player sprite being larger than an entire floating city?

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

Only a perfect being has no room for improvement... as long as it's not perfect, it can be improved...


If the optional bosses are weaker than the final boss, then I guess most players will then tend to fight them beforehand which kinda hinders the "optional" part...


ATB are fine, really... it all depends on how you do it... 1 ATB that I really liked was FFX-2's


Originality? I've yet to see something original

 

[Cadh20000]

Only a perfect being has no room for improvement... as long as it's not perfect, it can be improved...

If the optional bosses are weaker than the final boss, then I guess most players will then tend to fight them beforehand which kinda hinders the "optional" part...

ATB are fine, really... it all depends on how you do it... 1 ATB that I really liked was FFX-2's

Originality? I've yet to see something original

To quote FC:

4 Final boss

However, in such a case, most of the times these optional bosses can be fought only before the final boss.

I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like his gripe isn't so much with optional bosses being so strong as with optional bosses who are that strong only being possible to face before the final boss in many games.

 

[EternalShadow]

I actually do already have a topic on this sort of thing in the tutorials forum - the secrets of game design. However, it needs updating.

Personally, I think the way the game is made doesn't actually matter as long as it is executed well. For example, FF4-9's ATB system was a bit unneccessary due to the turn-based nature of the battles anyway, but Final Fantasy 12 fixed that with attacks happening all the time, in real-time, from all directions. This made ATB gauges actually relevant.

 

[FC Groningen]

To quote FC:

I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like his gripe isn't so much with optional bosses being so strong as with optional bosses who are that strong only being possible to face before the final boss in many games.

You are right. It's a minor thing of course, but something I felt like mentioning anyway. 

And you are right Hotfirelegend; A game can ignore my wishes here and still be enjoyable. I personally just have a real hard time with the ATB system once it requires more than selecting attacks. 

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

an ATB that waits when you're selecting attacks is basically just a worse version of a charge turn battle... since then the only difference will be CTB don't have bars while ATB has them... and in which case the time bars won't really make much sense anymore... as HotFire said, the ATB gauge is relevant when it's real-time (doesn't have waits and such)

 

[FC Groningen]

Your ramblings are absolutely unconscionable; I refuse to listen!

Jokes aside, you bring up many valid points. It's always important to discuss the contribution of various factors that constitute a good game. Let me examine your points one by one.

1 Build up/Pace

Definitely important. There's nothing worse than an RPG that goes nowhere fast. If your game is waffly, or doesn't grab my attention immediately, I tend to just put it down and not pick it up again. I think it's just the case of keeping the player interested throughout the entire game. That's what I want in a game or any piece of media: engagement. That comes through proper pacing and going somewhere via points that don't swerve too far from the plot arc. Consistency.

2 The badass protagonist

It depends what you mean by "badass". The dictionary defines it as a "tough, uncompromising, intimidating" person. So what you're saying is that the badass has no room for character development because they already have the traits of strength and control and do not need to improve? I think that you can make a badass protagonist interesting by providing him with a cynical view of life at the start, but then he slowly begins to understand the world around him isn't as straightforward evil he previously thought, and love makes its way into his heart until he figures out he needs others.

3 The difficulty curve

There are different kinds of difficulty in my book: fair difficulty and unfair difficulty. Fair difficulty is when you can use strategy to overcome it, without much thought. Unfair difficulty is that, even when you use good strategies, you can still lose and it wasn't your fault. So I think that a game can be easy or difficult as long as when you die, it's completely your fault. If you die without any influence of your own, then it's hardly a game, now is it?

4 The final boss

The reason why final bosses are usually weaker than optional bosses is because people want to finish the game. If you place an extremely difficult boss in the linear path of the main storyline, then the person will be stuck there for ages. Placing a difficult boss as an optional sidequest enables the player to skip past it if they're not good enough to finish it, and then come back later depending on how skilled a player they are.

5 Names

Totally. Long names suck. As an addition, try not to make names up for things that already exist. People don't have that good a memory, you know, and fantasy thrives on a mixture of familiarity and unfamiliarity. You are in a world where certain rules apply that apply in real life, but there's also new awesome rules that you must learn and adapt to, and that's part of the fun of being thrust in a magical world - it's your life made interesting. New lands to explore, skills to improve, and lessons to take. It's the life you wanted, but never had.

6 Combat systems

I think it's called ATB. And it sucks. Don't use bars that fill up in your games. It doesn't provide anything to them.

7 Originality

Plot twists are interesting, but plan them out beforehand. In fact, the biggest problem amateur developers make is that they make the story structure up on the fly, and there begin the plotholes because they haven't thought it through enough. They don't flesh out character motivations, thoughts and reasons why they'd turn into the bad guy at this certain moment, or why they'd fly into the sun just to save their girlfriend when they can just do this thing instead and save her another way. And why doesn't that all-powerful mage just blast the bad guy into oblivion? Doesn't he have the skills?

8 Large worlds

I didn't really understand this one. Would you like world maps to be bigger or smaller? Are you talking about locations you enter from the world map, or the map itself? Or are you just uncomfortable with the player sprite being larger than an entire floating city?

Right, first of all, sorry for quoting such a large text. I think we agree completely on points 1, 3, 5, 6 and 7. 

With 2, I meant that I feel that such characters are often not fleshed out well in rpg maker games and most of the times go through the game like an emotionless brick as they are too busy to kick ass. To me, these guys are the equivalent of the typical "burly white dude" in modern shooters who shoot at anything they are yelled to shoot at. There are obviously some exceptions, but I rarely empathise with such characters like Krathos in Tales of Symphonia or Auron in Final Fantasy X (first examples that came to my head).

4. I get that. But regarding the difficulty, I've grown up with the idea that the final boss is the biggest threat in the current world, the final test before you "grade" and the last threshold before you are rewarded with the ending of the game. I can see both sides have merit though.

8 I'm not sure how to explain it. I just rather not explore a world by traveling over the world map. It can be done of course, but in some games, a world map just exists for "fast traveling" while nothing happens on the map. If you travel somewhere for the first time, I strongly prefer to just pass through mapped fields, forests, swamps, mountains etc. 

edit: You might be right on the ATB system. I just can't get used to the system. It's about personal preference here.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

The only time I hated ATB was during the Shiva fight on FFX-2, because Shiva is so freaking fast that she gets I think around 4-5 hits before even 1 of my character's ATB gauges gets filled...

 

[Kes]

ATB systems also depend on the player having fast reflexes, which sadly I don't have, which is why I hate them, and why I agree with the OP on this one.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

at the very least reflexes don't matter as much on ATB as they do on ABS, especially those that rely heavily on manual dodging (I'm looking at you Monster Hunter)... those are the bane of my gamer life, I really suck at those...

 

[Cadh20000]

Personally I prefer a full ABS where you can freely move, even if only within a confined battlefield, or a fully turn-based where you select everyone's orders and sit back while the computer quickly decides who strikes first and all that, over a ATB where you are sitting there completely helpless to do anything at all as you wait until that bar fills up.

 

[whitesphere]

I agree that it is very strange to start an RPG with the main character already at epic levels of power, a full party, etc.  The only time that would work is if the game started as the party reached the final battle, then, started a Flashback which was the game itself.  This seems to be a fairly popular style of movie storytelling these days --- start at the end, then flashback to the beginning.

Pacing and difficulty are very important, but hard to get right.  As the game developer, we know the best possible equipment for the party members, the level we expect them to be at, etc.  Here, playtesting is crucial to get that right. 

There are many ways to make a game easier or more difficult.  Personally, I enjoyed Chrono Trigger immensely even though it is mostly a very linear game, because the storyline was so interesting.

Originality?  It's probably nearly impossible to make a truly original story, because so many stories have been told.  What matters is how well you tell the story.  Are the characters engaging?  Is the game fun to play?  Does it ever feel dragged out?  

As for the badass protagonist?  That can be done well.  Equilibrium, for example, had a protagonist who was very badass --- but he was very emotionally vulnerable because, like everyone else, he'd been taking Librium to suppress his emotions...

The "badass protagonist" can be as bad as the "moody man with a troubled past."  It all comes back to how well the story is told.  If the main character spends most of the RPG complaining, why would anyone identify with him?  That's where good characters and good character development come into play.

It's not that emotional trauma for the party is bad.  But any one note which is overdone makes the characters one-dimensional.

 

[EternalShadow]

Not necessarily, regarding the power level thing. Zendir 2 actually starts at a high power level, but turns everyone weak again.

 

[FC Groningen]

Guess people are pretty divided on the ATB system. Just a matter of taste I suppose.

 

[Mouser]

Guess people are pretty divided on the ATB system. Just a matter of taste I suppose.

It makes two completely different kinds of games.

It's the same difference as Real Time Strategy vs. Turn Based Strategy games:  a lot of people like RTS games, but Turn Based Strategy is easily the most popular game genre in the world.

 

[amerk]

For your world map objection you're making the mistake of assuming the world map and dungeon maps are in the same perspective. World maps are basically a symbol or representation of where your character is going or where they are coming from, without showing everything in between. Nobody really believes they can cross a world in 10 steps or less, any more than they'd want to play a game that took real time hours and days to get from Point A to Point B.

When you see a world map, think of it more like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MdecIbg_xM

Here we see Indiana Jone's travels via an onscreen map represented by a red line, showing you where he's been, and where he's going. We don't get to see every stop along the way and the events that transpire there or the hours spent within each city, or we'd be in for one heck of a boring movie. All we care about is where he started at and where he ended, and the short clip of his map travels in between the two destinations gives us an idea of how long the journey must have really took. Getting to his next destination took less than 1 minute in screen time viewing. Does that mean people believe it really only took him 45 seconds or less?

In rpg perspective, that red line becomes your character, as he's traveling from his last dungeon and walking around the map to his next destination. It's the same thing, except in most rpg's, you'll face encounters along the way, unless the developer thought it best to remove encounters from the world map exploration.

 

[FC Groningen]

After pondering the matter, I think I'd personally go for a system where you'd have to explore all areas first and then can unlock a new area on a world map by touching a flagpole or something, which means you can fast travel on the world map, which you reach by using some item. It means you get to explore and travel everything once, but won't have to backtrack through many many maps. Now I just have to learn how to code such stuff.

 

[Cadh20000]

After pondering the matter, I think I'd personally go for a system where you'd have to explore all areas first and then can unlock a new area on a world map by touching a flagpole or something, which means you can fast travel on the world map, which you reach by using some item. It means you get to explore and travel everything once, but won't have to backtrack through many many maps. Now I just have to learn how to code such stuff.

So if I understand correctly, you go through the maps one to a time, but somewhere in each map is a marker.

When you touch the marker it makes that map accessible from the world-map?

And you have an item in your inventory that when used takes you to the world-map?

Most of that doesn't sound all that difficult, but I'd have no clue at all as to how you would go about making it possible to cancel the world-map without having to restart at the marker(or wherever you marked as the warp-in point) for the map you are on.

 

[whitesphere]

After pondering the matter, I think I'd personally go for a system where you'd have to explore all areas first and then can unlock a new area on a world map by touching a flagpole or something, which means you can fast travel on the world map, which you reach by using some item. It means you get to explore and travel everything once, but won't have to backtrack through many many maps. Now I just have to learn how to code such stuff.

You might like what Dragon Quest IX did here.  Fairly early into the game, the main character learns a spell, which costs no MP, called Zoom.  This can instantly teleport the party to any location they've already been.

I'm sure there is some script which supports this.  Basically, you would have a special Common Event, which could teleport the party to a list of locations, based on a single variable.  Then, when teleporting, show the player only the list of places s/he's already been.  To do this, you could use a switch for each location.

As for world maps, I agree they are somewhat abstract representations of the party's position.  The only time it would really matter to the player is if the RPG has an internal game clock.  Then, it might be reasonable to say that travel between 2 towns takes much longer than travel within a town.  

For comparison, I would guess a group of people and their equipment can probably move a maximum of, say, 50 miles in a day at a fast march.  Horses can go much faster for bursts, but they really can't sustain, say, 40 MPH all day.  Their biggest benefit to the party is they can carry many more supplies at their speed, and of course they are useful in combat (cavalry).

All of this is not assuming the availability of motor vehicles, or in a fantasy realm, magic or magical creatures which can transport large masses quickly.