Development Q
Author
Just cuious what order of steps most of you take when building your own games. Do you do all of your art at once? In multi level games, do you finish each level first (I assume) or do you add pieces to all levels at once. Add music last, etc? Just wondering.
Still Learning...
Ok just to start off I feel I should state that this is not so much a reply to your topic as a question of my own. But anyways...
I (and some friends) are attempting to make our first side scroller. We have made a few simple games before but nothing this advanced. Anyways the way we came up to go about creating this game was this:
First we would come up with a VERY general idea (hero fighting aliens... how original) - this was basically used to get an idea for what kind of art needed to be drawn for the game
Next the artist came up with a few "one-frame" conceptual sprites We than got together and we picked 8-10 to fully animate (they are now hard at work doing just that) The artists also created a very simple "demo" level (which is proving very difficult to load by the way)
Well the idea is this: We would get a very simple "demo" version of the game going. We would put the character in a simple level... make him movable, toss in a few enemy sprites and some weapons and such - nothing organized. The whole purpose of this level is to try out our "technology" and make sure that we know our limitations so that we don''t try to include things in our game that we are unable to program.
Once we have this up and running we plan on taking a week or so and just concentrating on Design. Meeting several times we plan on "fleashing out the story" coming up with a full list and concept art of weapons, enemies, levels and the like.
Once we know where we are going and what we need to get there the artists and level editors should go to work creating that - and since the gameplay has already been coded in the "demo" level we figure that it should be easy (well at least easier than starting with a full level) to just apply that to the finished levels creating a game.
Music will be added last. After we have played thorugh the game and have a feel for what music will work best.
Well that is our plan. I don''t know how everyone else does it or what the "correct" way is.
Comments, suggestions and yes, even flames, are most welcome
I (and some friends) are attempting to make our first side scroller. We have made a few simple games before but nothing this advanced. Anyways the way we came up to go about creating this game was this:
First we would come up with a VERY general idea (hero fighting aliens... how original) - this was basically used to get an idea for what kind of art needed to be drawn for the game
Next the artist came up with a few "one-frame" conceptual sprites We than got together and we picked 8-10 to fully animate (they are now hard at work doing just that) The artists also created a very simple "demo" level (which is proving very difficult to load by the way)
Well the idea is this: We would get a very simple "demo" version of the game going. We would put the character in a simple level... make him movable, toss in a few enemy sprites and some weapons and such - nothing organized. The whole purpose of this level is to try out our "technology" and make sure that we know our limitations so that we don''t try to include things in our game that we are unable to program.
Once we have this up and running we plan on taking a week or so and just concentrating on Design. Meeting several times we plan on "fleashing out the story" coming up with a full list and concept art of weapons, enemies, levels and the like.
Once we know where we are going and what we need to get there the artists and level editors should go to work creating that - and since the gameplay has already been coded in the "demo" level we figure that it should be easy (well at least easier than starting with a full level) to just apply that to the finished levels creating a game.
Music will be added last. After we have played thorugh the game and have a feel for what music will work best.
Well that is our plan. I don''t know how everyone else does it or what the "correct" way is.
Comments, suggestions and yes, even flames, are most welcome
Yes, Brad brought up some good points, mainly do your technology first and art/sound last. I for example have been consumed with code work, and had not much time to do any art. The trick to successfull game is a teamwork. You let others do whatever they're best at doing, and you concentrate on coding if that is your strong side. I am alone, so I handle the coding first and use very low poly characters/objects as place holders in my game, then I polish them up once the code is running reliably. You would not believe how much time the coding consumes. Even coders have to specialize in certain tasks. Most companies have one/two/three engine coders, then couple tool/gui coders, sound coders, ai coders, etc. When you're a lone wolf this takes too much time, and by the time you end with sound you will forget about the rendering code you wrote half-year ago. Just my take on things. Have fun
I had to edit this after reading this and realizing that I sound too negative. I think that success of a game doesn't rely on the sheer size of the game, and small games are also very fun too. So go for it and make a small and fun demo/game and you will learn a lot in the process.
Jerry
Edited by - JD on 1/7/00 12:45:20 AM
I had to edit this after reading this and realizing that I sound too negative. I think that success of a game doesn't rely on the sheer size of the game, and small games are also very fun too. So go for it and make a small and fun demo/game and you will learn a lot in the process.
Jerry
Edited by - JD on 1/7/00 12:45:20 AM
I agree too, doing the technical stuff first is usually the way to go. I''m a crappy artist too, and an even worse 3D modeller so my game looks horrible. But that''s okay as long as the lighting looks cool and I''m proud of myself 8)
Author
Cool. Sounds like thats whatI''ve done so far really. I''m using Poser4 to render out bitmap animations. If I need a new animation for something, I make it in Poser, then set up the bitmap with the tiles and then plug it in after the coding is done. Sort of just making sure I can do certain things.
Still Learning...
Still Learning...
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