Plan for Judah Himango

Make a game that's like....

Ah my first .plan, and a long one at that. First let me introduce myself.

I'm a college student and have been programming for about 6 years now, some professionally. I've been following GG since...since way back when there was a request on the main GG page for the community to create GG website icons. :) I've always loved writing games, as I'm sure you all do too, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. :)

Now, why am I writing this .plan? For 2 reasons: to address my issues with the indie game development community, and to announce my intentions for developing a game this year.

It wasn't until recently did I truely realize that making a successful game is NOT about making the game that *I* want to make. That sounds like it should be common sense, but in reality I think too many of us are writing game that *we* want to make, not what the public is willing to buy. Additionally, making a successful game is not about making a game with DX9 graphics. What makes a successful game? For indies, we cannot rely on a massive online universe, because there may not always be enough players. Neither can we rely on shockingly great graphics, because much of our target audience may have below-par hardware; heck, even my GeForce2 is showing its age.

All of this is an issue to me because most of what I am seeing in various game dev forums, including some on GG, are posts about how engine X is better than engine Y because it supports graphicalCapabilityZ, or how Joe Developer wants to make a game like his favorite game. Even now I'm looking over at a post to the right entitled, "making a C&C like game." I run when I see, "I've always wanted to make a game like GameX, except mine will have TwistX and TwistY to make it better than the rest." In fact, I'm even beginning to second guess ideas that start with, "It's going to be a [insert genre here] game..." because right away that is greatly limiting one's creativity to pre-defined, already-done games. But I won't go any further, as I know there've been many heated discussions about this on GG.

To say the least, I've found a truth, and that truth is that making a game modeled after your favorite game/cartoon/movie, or even modeling it solely upon a particular genre, isn't going to get you anywhere as an indie. I really believe that. If you're a newbie game developer, pay attention: don't write a game modeled after your favorite game/cartoon/movie. It will waste your time & money, you'll never finish it, and a few years down the road it won't even be your favorite game/cartoon/movie anymore and you'll wonder why you spent so much energy on it.

I would say that to make a successful indie game, one has to throw away many pre-concieved ideas about what a game should look, feel, and act like - publishing a successful indie game is not the same as publishing a traditional, commercial game. One also must realize that it's not about implementing the latest graphical eye candy, because in the end, a game with great graphics alone isn't fun at all; great graphics wear off all too quickly. Lastly, I believe one's focus must be on writing the game for the public, rather than for him/herself.

With that said, I am planning on writing a game this year with crazy & bizarre concept. A concept, I believe, that hasn't been done before. It won't look like my favorite game. It won't have spectacular graphics. Instead, its sole focus will be ~fun~ gameplay. Fun for as large & diverse audience as possible. Not just what I believe is fun, but what I believe would be fun for the 37 year old fps-playing guy as much as the 13 year old Sims-playing girl. Fun for casual gamers first and foremost. That, I believe, is what it will take for a truely successful indie title, and that is what I'm aiming at. Wish me luck. :)