Your first game idea - What happened to it? - Game Design and Theory

7,435

May 31, 2012 08:47 PM

Lesson: Back up your bloody code, people. Again and again to multiple places. You never know when you'll want something you did from way back when.

Always a good lesson, and applies just as much to art and writing. Two of the most interesting pieces of digital art I've ever done no longer exist because that class was held in a mac lab with zip discs, and I didn't make the effort to figure out how to convert the files to a windows format on normal discs before I lost access to the lab and none of the other labs had zip disc drives. Similarly a friend wrote some chapters of novel using a word-processing program that died out shortly after that, and on top of that he encrypted it, ending up with a file that couldn't be read by anything, and while hacking weird or corrupted word processing documents will often get some words out, due to the encryption we couldn't get anything but nonsense.

I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.

Ashaman73

13,718

June 01, 2012 06:01 AM

What was the idea.

I wanted to make a maze game where you can walk through.

How far did you get with it.

I made the sceen on the computer (C64, ASCII, line for line, not programming, just using the console to enter the map), my brother told me that this will not work (yeah... and he was right).

How did that game idea evolve as it transitioned into reality or fell short of being completed.

Fell short of being completed, once I pressed repeatly the enter key, my little maze, my first game dream vanished from the screen...

What lessons did you learn on the way.

My brother was right, but only once !!

What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge.

... more than thirty years later my game consists of mazes you can walk through.

As execuse: I was still in the the elementary school and this was my first contact with game programming (coding through telepathy

).

Ashaman

Gnoblins: Website - Facebook - Twitter - Youtube - Steam Greenlit - IndieDB - Gamedev Log

SiddharthBhat

358

June 01, 2012 07:40 AM

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What was the idea:[/background]
[/font]
The Idea was to create a RPG / hack n slash game with a fully customisable weapon system as well as "tons of enemies and combos"

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]How far did you get with it:[/background]
[/font]
Created a bunch of enemies, created ~10 different weapons, and wrote an extensible XML based language to edit and create levels ,weapons, and even create new varieties of enemies. It was a kludgy mess since I'd just begun game programming at that time. Still, the (programmer) art was cute and the game was definitely playable.

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]How did that game idea evolve as it transitioned into reality or fell short of being completed.[/background]
[/font]
the original ideas were still there, but I scaled down the system since I didn't have the programming skill to actually create a complete weapon modification system. Rather, It was changed to facilitate dual weapons and weapon upgrades.

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What lessons did you learn on the way.[/background]
[/font]
1)Making a game is hard 2) A physics engine does not magically solve all your problems 3) SDL is slow, so go with openGL aaaaand 4) C++ is slightly overrated as to "reducing complexity"

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge.:[/background]
[/font]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]The game would probably be the same. except with smoother animation and [/background]
[/font] a fully customisable weapon system. The XML thing would probably have been toned down, since the system I'd built was overkill.

a WIP 2d game engine: https://code.google.com/p/modulusengine/

English is not my first language, so do feel free to correct me :)

szecs

2,990

June 01, 2012 07:45 AM

My first game idea was quite an idiot one.
A realistic car driving game. You drive a car, you can take a cigarette, playing with the radio, pfffff I can't think f how many "realistic" features it would have had. Probably it would have needed a 1000 key keyboard with 5 mice and 8 joysticks. There was no race, no goal, you just would have had to drive like a regular person driving to shop and do all the regular stuff, like scratching head or blowing nose.

The only excuse for this totally utterly idiot idea is that I was 10 when I thought of it.

Anyway, since I've played with C&C I have been always dreaming of a survival sci-fi RTS game with a very strong atmosphere, where the main goal is to survive and grow undetected from some world destroying invasion (probably alien). A game that has a very long campaign with huge levels with tons of choices, where being almost totally destroyed and need to be very creative to rebuild your community/base in a hidden/distant part of the map, is usual in a mission.
I sometimes actually dream of this game.

I can see some fundamental flaws in this idea, maybe if I put this to some non-technological, fantasy world it would work.
Anyway, I did absolutely no steps in the direction of making this game, as I was always aware of the limitations I had and the scope of such a project.

(shit, I should really learn some English)

[size=2]Portfolio [size=2]| Youtube channel | Paper modeller development blog | Journal

aattss3

387

June 01, 2012 12:43 PM

Ideas are cheap. I came up with a better one, and then another one, ect. ect.

Stormynature

5,198

Author

June 01, 2012 01:50 PM

Ideas are cheap. I came up with a better one, and then another one, ect. ect.

I think sir you miss the entire point of my opening post. Please don't sidetrack the thread into another focus i.e. the validity of ideas.

Unless of course that was your actual answer to the original post. In which case I would at the least ask you to use the intial format as above simply to show what your initial idea was, what happened etc.

sunandshadow

7,435

June 01, 2012 03:14 PM

Oh, I forgot the part about "What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge." I guess because the problem then wasn't really ability or knowledge, the second version of the DWD design could have been produced and sold, the problem it was lack of funding or sufficient popularity among developers to overcome that lack of funding. What did I learn over the intervening 10 years? That it's non-functional to try to gather up a team to develop a game when no budget is available, and I have no interest in attempting to fund-raise on my own, and moreover I am not a good project lead because I'm an absent-minded introvert who sucks at maintaining team communication and a schedule. On the other hand, I've at least gotten much better at working out the details of a design and getting them all into a design document since then.

I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.

lmbarns

460

June 01, 2012 04:48 PM

I bit off more than I could chew for my first project.

What was it? [/quote]
3d aim-to-hit, multiplayer RPG combining Ultima online progression, Darkfall online character controller/gameplay, and League of Legends style multiplayer matching system. Both FPS and 3rd person camera angles. This would be 9 or 12 player co-op where 3-4 teams of 3 spawn at a different holdings, kill surrounding monsters nearby to acquire gear and skill up. At any point they could try to rush another team, or skill up and spend more time preparing ahead of time. I really wanted to add chariots with a driver and teammates could ride along and shoot bows/spells.

At the char creation screen the player gets 200 points they can put into skills/stats, then in game based on what they use it raises the relevant skill, and monsters drop items related to their type, but the player is free to do whatever mix of skills they want. If you want to train magic, hunt magic monsters as they drop reagents and mage staffs/armor. Similar if you want to raise archery, fight rangers who will drop arrows and good bows/armor for rangers. I made stats affect armor as well, so mage armor was magnified by intelligence, ranger armor was modified by dexterity, and heavy warrior armor was utilized better by high strength values.

I roughed out mechanics for mounts, even could ride a pig:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=pXkrPGyN21E[/media]
hahaha sorry it's a really short clipping plane on the camera I should have changed it before making that video. Also gave the pig a huge jump modifier so he can fly. The mounting is buggy, you have to run into the pig and it just childs the player to it, needed build a seat and mount the player to the seat.

How did that game idea evolve as it transitioned into reality or fell short of being completed.[/quote]
I eventually realized the networking was over my head, especially at that time, and stopped developing.

What lessons did you learn on the way.[/quote]
I learned a ton along the way, state machines, singletons, coroutines, as well as performance/optimization related concepts for both design and assets. Also to start smaller with a game I'm more likely to finish.

What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge.[/quote]

Well, the networking options have become better documented, easier to use, etc for the engine I'm using. If I were to do it again, I would start with a fully networked example as a base, and work from there. Also I learned to use triggers instead of spawning every NPC/monster in the world on start, so as you move around it spawns/despawns models at spawn points.

As I had it, you could login multiple players, but I was stuck synchronizing animations, projectiles, and just moving my working code to a server instead of being processed on the client. I assume I use RPC calls to communicate input but never was able to build a framework between the client/server other than instantiating the players in the world and updating transform positions. I made the mistake of building the game, then trying to network all the components from scratch and it killed morale big time.

This was an early example of some basics:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GtJkTO1fuEI[/media]

This is another example in the browser:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZtYc1I83L2s[/media]

Luckily I've been able to use the code in other games/prototypes after the first one Now I'm making a mobile, hack n slash, single player, RPG as my first mobile game, it's full of learning experiences.

GameCreator

997

June 01, 2012 07:24 PM

What was the idea
I don't remember my first few but the one I do remember was called Dagger. The idea was simply to run around in an top-down RPG world throwing daggers at monsters, killing them.

How far did you get with it
The game had the main character sliding around (because he wasn't animated) and throwing daggers at purple blobs, which simply disappeared when killed. I think I had a version where the blobs popped in a very satisfying 3-frame animation. I forget if it had health or death for the main player. Pretty sure it didn't though.

How did that game idea evolve as it transitioned into reality or fell short of being completed
The goal was to have multiple levels with varying amounts and types of monsters but I kept the idea suprisingly modest, for what little that helped. There was going to be a few powerups and I think dagger pickups, as the throwing daggers were going to be limited, I think.

What lessons did you learn on the way
Keep things simple because even "simple" games are harder than they seem. And that my skills were far below the needed skills to implement my dreams.

What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge
I actually restarted this game in 3D (with Leadwerks). It's much easier now than so many years ago, when one of my greatest headaches was how to display 2D trees, enemies and monsters in the right order so they display correctly.

aattss3

387

June 01, 2012 08:59 PM

[quote name='aattss' timestamp='1338554595' post='4945283']
Ideas are cheap. I came up with a better one, and then another one, ect. ect.

I think sir you miss the entire point of my opening post. Please don't sidetrack the thread into another focus i.e. the validity of ideas.

Unless of course that was your actual answer to the original post. In which case I would at the least ask you to use the intial format as above simply to show what your initial idea was, what happened etc.
[/quote]

Actually, that was the answer. As you see, I forgot about what the idea was. As I was, like, 8 at the time, and made 0 progress because I didn't know how to program or anything. Anyway, one thing I suspect is that, as I had little grasp on games back then (I was 8), my idea was not innovative. In retrospect, a possible lesson would be that an idea is nothing if you don't work to make it a reality.

Your first game idea - What happened to it?

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What was the idea:[/background]
[/font]
The Idea was to create a RPG / hack n slash game with a fully customisable weapon system as well as "tons of enemies and combos"

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge.:[/background]
[/font]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]The game would probably be the same. except with smoother animation and [/background]
[/font] a fully customisable weapon system. The XML thing would probably have been toned down, since the system I'd built was overkill.

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Your first game idea - What happened to it?

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What was the idea:[/background][/font] The Idea was to create a RPG / hack n slash game with a fully customisable weapon system as well as "tons of enemies and combos" [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge.:[/background][/font] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]The game would probably be the same. except with smoother animation and [/background][/font] a fully customisable weapon system. The XML thing would probably have been toned down, since the system I'd built was overkill.

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[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What was the idea:[/background]
[/font]
The Idea was to create a RPG / hack n slash game with a fully customisable weapon system as well as "tons of enemies and combos"

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]What would the game be, if you revisited the original idea now and built the game with your current ability/knowledge.:[/background]
[/font]
[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]

[background=rgb(247, 247, 247)]The game would probably be the same. except with smoother animation and [/background]
[/font] a fully customisable weapon system. The XML thing would probably have been toned down, since the system I'd built was overkill.