/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

>>31829

think about a game you played, then think about how to make it better

>>31830

I can come up with very broad ideas like "I wanna make a Metal Gear Solid style game with feudal ninjas and shit" but then when push comes to shove and I have to come up with actual assets or environments my mind blanks on me and I can't think of what to make. Like "how does the game start? Should there be a house or something I spawn next to? What is infront of the player?" etc I just start blanking.

>>31831

use placeholder assets and work on basic game mechanics

>>31832

sure but how do I come up with an actual environment to build? That's a mental gap I can't really cross.

>>31833

Anon, unless you're an artfag, environment is pointless. Have you made a game before?

>>31831

Have you ever made a game? If not, then you shouldn't be thinking of [insert AAA game made by thousands of people at the budget of millions of dollars]. You're thinking of something bigger than you're capable of.

You shouldn't be looking at anything bigger than Cave Story AT MOST as inspiration until you have more experience.

>>31829

Always consume more media, as doing so directly gains you ideas to use, combine, and refine. Limiting your media consumption by the feasibility for you to create it is retarded, as the ideas gained are fragments of the consumed media, and always singularly achievable.

Think in text; in a single file, saved permanently, timestamp each thinking session, and never edit old sessions. After all, if people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, they cannot make (good) game.

Level design is the process of creating challenges solvable using the mechanics and tools at the player's disposal, attempting to create levels without having already given the player these mechanics or tools is not only impossible, but completely missing the point of the levels.

>consume more media, goyim

It can help but that approach is honestly really overrated. Instead, cultivate a bunch of interests and be curious about the world you live in.

>>31880

>Stupid jew, you're wrong.

>Do this thing instead even though I provided no reasoning as to why you should.

Weak.

>>31926

This is a fun topic.

I did not state what type of media one should consume, and if I were to try to, the type would be "Media which communicates useful information."

You state that the vast majority of existing media is "trash", and I am inclined to agree completely. However I do not see this as a relevant or useful statistic.

Rather, it is much more useful to focus on the raw quantity and quality of "good media".

The reasoning for this can essentially be boiled down into a quote from Aristotle: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

In this usage of the phrase, the reasoning behind its truth is the simple concept of deductive reasoning. That the combination of different bits of information and logical processes creates new information. (Thus the whole of your information becoming greater than the sum that you have consumed)

This deficit between consumed information and your total knowledge is where original ideas reside.

>Media today is built off of the same sources: D&D/LotR, Starwars/Startrek, Dawn of the Dead, The Bible, Akira, Silent Hill, etc. But those things had a wealth of sources that inspired them. This means that any media in the last 20-40 years is going to be a regurgitation of shit that's already been done 100x and consuming it traps you in the same scope everyone else is trapped in.

This entire line of logic is nonsense, media is not built off of the same sources. Good possible sources of inspiration are constantly being made, with new ideas along with them.

I still don't understand how "the world" is supposed to be a good source, considering that you didn't give any reasoning as to why it would be.

Try DMing. Check out /tg/. You can get a good feeling for map and area design with a low margin for error just by trying to host some roleplaying games.

>>31928

>This entire line of logic is nonsense, media is not built off of the same sources. Good possible sources of inspiration are constantly being made, with new ideas along with them.

I probably have a different standard for what's a new idea. For example: I know a dude who thinks Minecraft and Rimworld are new things, even though they blatantly ripped off Dwarf fortress, which plays like 3d dungeon keeper, which is a lot of laying out a dungeon for D&D but with a resource cap. It's like I said earlier. Every ones just reusing old ideas and adding a twist to it. Maybe you don't consider this reusing old ideas. That's not something we're going to agree on.

>I still don't understand how "the world" is supposed to be a good source, considering that you didn't give any reasoning as to why it would be.

All mythology can be traced to the real world somehow. Werewolves/Vampires are said to be inspired by rabbies, Frankenstein was inspired by scientists electrocuting dead bodies around that time period and watching them jump around like crazy, the Last of Us clearly was inspired by the fungus that creates zombie ants, etc...

>>31930

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

>>31929

More accurately, most game devs have traditionally been DMs or part of the /tg/ experience before getting into technology. nodevs should fail there and realize they never had any hope of single player game design in the first place. Outsourcing crushing disappointment would be efficient.

>>31949

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divergent_thinking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing

Since everything you say is entirely new to me, I don't actually have solidified views to respond with. Rather I'm spending a very long time researching and thinking about it, and then forming a sort of conclusion to give you.

This form of thinking is essentially the cause of the inconsistencies in what I say. I'll specifically adress the "new ideas" part later.

>there is an entire world of media that has essentially been forgotten by mainstream media. Whats more, there are also interesting things in the world we live in that don't make it into games, or if they do they aren't done well.

>What I'm talking about is it would be wise to expand ones references to include these things that have been forgotten by mainstream media, and something I agree with the other anon with, the real world we live in has interesting and weird things that can also increase ones references. Pic related on this bit.

I agree entirely. I can't even begin to relay the massive scope of ideas present in the real world.

>Modern media has a scope that is always traced back to the same sources. You saw how I traced Minecraft back to D&D (and you can do this for any game).

This however, is too broad a statement. The subject is far more nuanced than you make it seem, and this nuance has been the focus of most of my thought in this thread:

>Always consume more media, as doing so directly gains you ideas to use, combine, and refine.

Ideas to use, combine, and refine.

>Limiting your media consumption by the feasibility for you to create it is retarded, as the ideas gained are fragments of the consumed media, and always singularly achievable.

The ideas gained are fragments, singularly achievable

>I did not state what type of media one should consume, and if I were to try to, the type would be "Media which communicates useful information."

consume useful information

>Rather, it is much more useful to focus on the raw quantity and quality of "good media".

the quality of media

>The reasoning for this can essentially be boiled down into a quote from Aristotle: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts".

the sum of its parts

>That the combination of different bits of information and logical processes creates new information.

different bits of information

>“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

old ideas

colored glass

Everything that I picked out of the quotes here references the exact same thing, which I called new ideas.

>"new ideas"

New ideas is kind of a misleading term initially, but after unpacking it, I find that it does very well in containing what I want it to.

A new idea could be some old ideas, distilled into something greater.

Or maybe A "bigger idea" is some "smaller ideas" distilled into something bigger

Or maybe even a "more complex idea" is some "less complex ideas" distilled into something more complex

Basically, ideas have some sense of scale, breadth, complexity, and nuance. Unpacking them reveals that they are made of smaller, simpler ideas, and you could measure the scale of an idea on how much there is to unpack.

The creative process is similar to the logical progression that some water is technically an arrangement of molecules, that technically those molecules are arrangments of atoms, that technically atoms are arrangements of elementary and composite particles (and so on?).

But in reverse:

Instead of becoming more and more specific, the creative process takes small things and makes bigger things, and assuming these bigger things didn't already exist, what else could I call them but "new"?

This process of taking small ideas and combining them into bigger ones happens many many times until it becomes something: a game? a film? a sport?

A post on agdg perhaps

Well, coming up with and writing this theory(?) has left my mind rather exhausted, so I'll leave this here for today.

>>31875

Bad advice. You will never create anything good if all you do is copy other people's shit. You need real experiences to make something unique. Just "mario with megaman enemies" is a waste of everyones time.

>>31963

Read the thread retard

>play videogame

>it's shit in more ways than I can describe

>countless ideas for how to do a better game with a similar concept start flooding into my head

>???

>JLMG

>>31991

>JLMG

What?

>>31928

>>31926

lel look at this faggots.

>>32016

*these, lol I'm a fag now too

>>32016

>What?

just like make game

Work iteratively.

I want to make an MMO FPS RPG game with strategic elements and persistent AI.

Do I set out to build that exact project? Nope. It's a tall order for a AAA studio with a large team of experienced devs.

- First I build a basic FPS game.

- Next I learn to do basic networking.

- Then I figure out a persistent world.

- Then I figure out MMO/styled netcode.

- Then I figure out persistent AI

- Then I add in RPG elements such as leveling.

Implementing the features of each item separately lets me make design mistakes to learn from and tweak my future plans without creating a giant entangled mess of half-implemented spaghetti code.

Come up with your dream idea and work towards it in stages. If you complete one or two of the stages, you'll have a deliverable you can make minor tweaks to and polish up should you not go any further towards your larger plans.

It's hard to describe Anon. I guess it all has to do with the scale of your project. I'm making a semi tacticool first person shooter with spooky undertones. That's not very complicated, so i grabbed an engine and started making maps and textures. Programming an FPS game is piss easy if you use something predisposed to making one (any BSP based Quake/HalfLife type thing.)

weed and a notebook

>>31829

Fake it until you make it and then improve it.

How many games did you make?(that you like and would play yourself)

Do you know your limits of what technical is possible for you?

To answer these questions find a game you like and make a copy of it. Change its story fluff and skin at the end, but keep it technical the same.

Once you have finished that, make a new game in which you improve everything you didn't like in your copy.

Sounds simple, but in reality it is a bleak and boring slog, you have to grind through that.

However this way will guarantee that you will see your progress and have a proof of your abilities.

Also this >>31832 is good advise, have a love for the technology and mechanics you implement.

The visual stuff comes at the end and has to bow to the demands of the mechanics you implement.

Its pointless to spent the time learning how to create amazing looking environments, only to find out that they are in the way of the players movement.

For me its the opposite, I have so many ideas but don't know to approach them. I can code and I am fully capable of planning I just stop once I start it.

>>31829

Just to add my input to the pile.... Whenever I play a videogame, there's some voice in my head which says things like "this game would be better if they did X". Over time you start building up a mental image of your perfect game, and slowly start to fill in the details of exactly how it would work. Then you start to make it happen. And whenever I sit down to play some vidya, and I get frustrated by some mechanic, it reminds me I'm supposed to be working on my own stuff.

As for these more specific details, it's part of building up that mental image. Imagine sitting down and playing your finished game. Let your mind create whatever details it would like. Then write that shit down in a design document or wiki. It's important to write this stuff down so you can remember it all. Let the ideas build up and then go over them and think of a way to make all these separate ideas come together.

i dont think its even worth making a game, I've spent 10 years of my neet life playing vidya all day, and 90% of the games I want to play have been done 20 years ago. I'll often find myself thinking up of an idea for a game, and then find out its already been done on the SNES and it's 100times better than something I could ever do.

You should just make assets and templates for a preexisting engine since idiots are asset flipping and pushing shit onto steam and other platforms.

Between old games being clunky and new games being made for the lowest common denominator, there's not many games worth playing. That's the niche to fill.

>>31930

>I know a dude who thinks Minecraft and Rimworld are new things, even though they blatantly ripped off Dwarf fortress

Are Minecraft and Rimworld not good games? If they are good games, I don't understand the argument you're trying to make. OP is asking for help coming up with ideas, not making the next Doom.

>Every ones just reusing old ideas and adding a twist to it.

Aka the history of mankind.