Quick question, Arch@on -- do you have a demo of your game?

The reason I ask is that you seem so quick to judge other people''s projects. Most of the people are here to learn to make games or to see other peoples'' ideas, not to be told by someone who has no proof of their game-making prowess that they are sub-standard to him (or her -- don''t want to get the whole sexism debate started up again).

Basically, in the bluntest of terms, I''m saying "put up or shut up". Otherwise, until you have a demo of your wonderful game, you shouldn''t tell people their games are bad.

-Chris

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Chris Rouillard
Software Engineer
crouilla@hotmail.com

Roderik, an excellent post.

I think it''s important to create a game that looks and is finished. Because many of us are working as a one man team we also have to do different jobs like becoming artists, game designers, story writers, musicians, quality assurance, etc. I believe that one man teams are very creative because of these multiple skills we have to develop. Catching a flu by walking in the rain and then go to a healer is realistic to me and makes sense to write this into the game.

I encourage people to start making simple 2d games and after finishing one ask yourself if you like to do this everyday in a company. Many will quit because coding becomes difficult when the game becomes bigger others will sweat it out and continue towards finishing their game. What I''m trying to say is that it''s hard to compare yourself (if you''re a novice coder) to commercial game companies. Instead let your competitors be other single coders. After you write few games you will begin to see yourself as a competent/confident coder that can take on more challenging tasks and at that point I think you''re ready to work for a game company or work with others like yourself.

Right now, motivation is the issue for me and I''m willing to bet it''s the same for many would be game coders out there. I''m staying motivated by finishing simple tasks that can be done in a day. For me at the end of the day it''s gratifying to see a new animation being played out or see new npc''s doing their thing. I''ve been studying c/c++ for 2 years now and I learn new things every day. I am also having tremendous fun playing my own game while adding to it new things I think of every once in a while. Coding is hard, takes too long, I get tired now and then, killing bugs sometimes makes me insane and angry, but there is nothing not even money that come close to the satisfaction of looking at the screen and telling myself that I''ve created that out of nothing only fueled by my own ideas and imagination, it''s great

Cheers

I think the reason why RPGs are so popular is that none are the same except for game play but most have different stories, characters, personality and systems. As far as game play and battles yes they are cloned.

Roderik:

Hear, hear!! Well said, that man. I think many of us feel the same way. We played a game we really liked, were inspired by it, and thought "If I am going to learn to program games, then thats the sort of thing I want to do!".

I think that some people here forget that most of us are not proffesional games developers. Most of us are either just learning our new trade/hobby or are just doing it for our own amusement. Once we have a few projects under our belt, and we have developed our technical skills, then we can turn our minds to creating the next Tetris/Civilisation/Baldurs Gate/Doom/or *Insert title of cool/original game of choice here*.


Chris F:

And I stand by the point I made in my previous post. Coming up with an original idea isnt that easy. One cant just sit down one day and decide to have an original idea. They choose -YOU-. Ya either got it, or ya dont got it! If you you are lucky enough to come up with one, then you can concentrate on making that genre defining game and, in all likelyhood, become rich by it. If, like me and so many others, you are still waiting for that bolt from the blue, then all you can do is refine the old tried and tested formulas, find new ways of implimenting things, fill niche''s and polish everything up til it glows. Wolfenstien may well be the point from where all other FPS''s were spawned from, but how much better is Unreal or Quake? Just cos its been done, doesnt mean it''s been done, doesnt mean its been done as well it could have been done.




--== Rapier ==--
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Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs!

I am making an RPG also, but it will be more like a console style RPG. I will admit that it will have many elements of Final Fantasy and ChronoTrigger in it. I will have some original concepts in it, but it will borrow heavily from other games. Just because a game is more original, doesn''t necessarily mean that it is good. FF8 had many original gameplay features that were original to console-style RPGs, but I still think that FF5 and FF6, which are NOT original RPGs, will kill FF8 and day of the week.

One reason (probably the main one at that) everyone is developing an RPG is because they have a storyline idea. They think they can make one that''s better or as good as Final Fantasy, or Ultima. Many of us want to express our ideas for a storyline, and how characters should be built. Remembering that an RPG is based upon the storyline and on character development, then even though there are thousands of RPGs, it is still a virtually untapped market. If you want to make a truly original game, you have to invent a genre, and the chances of that happening are once in a blue moon. Of the tens of thousands of game developers, the number of people that have developed a genre can be counted on your fingers and toes. Some of these are Shigeru Miyamoto, who developed the side-scrolling action game, and the action/RPG, and the person who first made Street Fighter, and the person who made Wolfenstein 3D. In a strict sense, nearly everyone else is a copier. Is that a bad thing? NO! A few truly innovative people create original games, but the others will build on them. I play the most unoriginal games ever. I am a heavy Quaker, playing Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament for hours at times. Wolfenstein might have originally created the genre, but Unreal Tournament have given it the most perfection, even though it was essentially like all of the other games before it.

I am developing a console-style RPG for several reasons. I want to create a game with my name on it, I love RPGs, I think that the glory of the SNES RPGs have been lost, and think I can restore it, I have ideas for an original storyline, I can improve on the battles, I am making this RPG as a tribute to the Final Fantasy games. These are the reasons why I am developing an RPG.

Just my 0.02.

Shinryuu64
Solenoid Software Interactive
http://solenoid.50megs.com
shinryu64@kiss-my.as

What''s wrong with some of you people you seem to twist my words and only read certain parts of my messages, can anyone please tell me where I said that creating a game that has been done before is bad? You can''t because I didn''t, what I said was clear and was answered about a month ago and I''m not going to repeat myself again. Now if you have something to add to this thread please stop reguritating things that people have said (over a month ago and others have repeated about 100 times) and that I have excepted.