quote:Original post by JohnBolton That's a pretty silly question. How can it be anything other than personal opinion?
In order to create a successful game one should understand the successes and failures of previous examples where possible such as like looking at the previous system. This is known as requirement gathering or part of it.
so how do you research previous systems or platform games in this matter then. If it was a banking system a client wanted I would look at their previous system and maybe ask them what needs improving.
What should I be analyzing if I'm making a platform game?
Am I just wasting my time trying to obtain background information first? Thanks
[edited by - EvilKind on April 23, 2004 1:34:43 PM]
I got 2 books, one on game programming and another on miracles so I can understand.
Evil Kind: i never liked super mario brothers or any of those, it is ALL opinion...
When General Patton died after World War 2 he went to the gates of Heaven to talk to St. Peter. The first thing he asked is if there were any Marines in heaven. St. Peter told him no, Marines are too rowdy for heaven. He then asked why Patton wanted to know. Patton told him he was sick of the Marines overshadowing the Army because they did more with less and were all hard-core sons of bitches. St. Peter reassured him there were no Marines so Patton went into Heaven. As he was checking out his new home he rounded a corner and saw someone in Marine Dress Blues. He ran back to St. Peter and yelled "You lied to me! There are Marines in heaven!" St. Peter said "Who him? That's just God. He wishes he were a Marine."
quote:Original post by EvilKind Is there any written bible or article anywhere on what makes a good game and what does not?
Take Super Mario Brothers on the NES for example; what made that a successful game. I''m not looking for personal opinion, I''m looking for facts if they exist. I''m also more interested in platform games than games in general.
Thanks for your help, this forum always comes up with something useful.
[edited by - EvilKind on April 23, 2004 8:32:25 AM]
unfortunately, there are no facts when it comes to good games. all people can do is give opinion. but what most do is get a game that''s been overwhelmingly popular and get opinions, positive and negative, and learn from that. incorporating those qualities or lack thereof into their own game. notice i said quality and not content.
SMB 1 and 3 were good, if not great, IMHO, because the game had you doing something different throughout the whole game and there were different challenge at each world. Also after you beat the game then there were the secrets! such as hopping through the wall (1st world) to go to the infinite swimming world; hopping on the turtle to get 50 to 100 lives (but also finding out that if you got more than a 100, you''d still as if you never got them); finding those warp pipes that allow you to go to world 4 to world 8; and (i don''t think too many people know about this) being able to shoot fireball as small Mario.
The game just gave you more reason to play and had plenty of challenges to make it fun and, most importantly, rewarding.
SMB 3 was everything above X 10 and all the multi-levels, costumes, and other stuff i can''t remember was just ridiculously sweet!!!
The only thing I can say without any opinions, is that it''s as bugfree as possible. I could say technically advanced, but some of the games I consider very good are not the most technically advanced, so I have to leave that out.
No matter how bad or good a game is, you'll like it if it's in your niche. I like Turn-Based strategic rpgs, so I liked Jagged Alliance and FFT. Even though SAW was considered a poor game (or at least inferior to JA2), I still loved it.
EDIT: SAW = soldiers at war
[edited by - Drakkcon on April 23, 2004 7:54:28 PM]
Create a world, that can be simple if you want it to be, and complex if you need it to be. Super Mario Bros. was a new game back then, it had that new feel, the new world where the music, graphics, and storyline all fit. Create a world where everything "fits".
Also, look on amazon.com and search for 'game programming', there are some there. But really..your gonna waste your money -Vigo
I think that good game design shouldn''t be noticed. It should be so intuitive, that the end users just looks at it and goes "That''s obvious". So, a good game, is a game where you don''t have to think about playing it. Where nothing is counter-intuitine.
The most important thing of all... games must be ENTERTAINING! It's all about having your user to ask for more and more. Your game could be the most colorful, original, simple, graphically perfect game ever, if the user doesn't have fun, it won't last long... look at Homeworld and Black&White.
To know what fun actually is, you must read books and psychology stuff or simpler yet, ask to yourself what makes something fun? Basically, we have fun with activities that we would do for :
________________ Survival (of yourself and your kind) - Animal fun For men : run, kill, hunt, protect yourself, be greedy, do skillful moves, show that you are the best/strongest/alpha male and sex of course.
For women : politics, social, family, show that you are the best mother, sex (which are all VERY difficult to emulate on a computer, hence the total lack of incredibly interesting games for women on computers/consoles))
For cats : Hunt, hunt, hunt... dig. They are very happy with a moving ball on the screen (until they realize they can't really catch it -- no reward).
________________ Escape reality - Human fun Adventure, puzzles, role playing, solitaires. Those are liked by women because we both (men and women) like to escape our fatal reality. While you play Tetris, you don't think about your work, your mortgage and what you will look like in 150 years. If a game becomes too complicated or realistic, you can't escape reality and lose interest. ________________ Rewards We need a reason to play. If you don't have a feeling of accomplishment, you will have the impression of losing your time and quit playing.
The secret is in never denying that we are animals, we gonna die... and we hate it.
________________
[edited by - Coincoin on April 23, 2004 12:34:48 AM]
