Plan for Thijs Sloesen

Holiday, is that for rest? Prototyping without a computer and content packs.

Howdy!

Holiday!

First off, I hope everybody had a great Christmas. And before I forget: Happy New Year everybody! May 2005 be even more exciting than 2004 has been for us indies!

I just got back from a week in Belgium. It's been great being amongst nature and just being able to relax a bit. Weird as I am though, I just could not get my brain to be at complete rest. I had a great time with my family, and sure I did not think about work related matters. But that gave me plenty of time to think about other things. Games, for instance. I got some great ideas for games down there in the South (I live in Holland) and now my hands are itching to make these games a reality.

I just wonder, is this normal? I go away on vacation to get some rest, and all of a sudden I get all of these ideas.. It's like being in different surroundings from every day life and not having to work is very inspiring. Is this just me?

Prototyping

Anyway, while I was "resting", I decided to prototype one of the games out on paper. The game itself is supposed to be played real-time, but I could easily draw up a turn-based prototype which would have about the same gameplay experience as the realtime version. So I thought I'd spend a few hours on the prototype and see if the game is any fun. Well that taught me. Drawing and cutting paper can be tiring :P I'm still not completely done with the prototype, but I'm back home now and I can run to the supermarket and make some photocopies, so it shouldn't take too long to finish. But even though I haven't finished the prototype yet (and thus have not played it yet), it did show me some nice perspectives of the game that I hadn't thought of yet. Usually, when I get a game idea in my head, I dive into the tech immediately, and usually decide it takes too much time to finish the prototype before I even have something up and running. Doing it this way kept me far away from the technology, and let me focus completely on the gameplay. So that's definately something I've learned during my holiday. When prototyping, focus on gameplay, and leave tech out as much as possible, if not completely. I guess it's a "doh!" lesson, but still I thought I'd write it up here in case anyone is struggling with the same problem.

Content Packs

I also bought Tim Aste Content Packs Combo, and i must say: it's SWEEEEEEET! The art is really great and it gave me quite a scare that my game could look so well. A nice side-effect of content packs is that you can learn from them. Disect them and learn how to make them yourself next time. Now I'm not an artist and I can't reproduce art of this standard, but the precipation scripts were nice to read, and I'm guessing I will be able to to work more easily with artists when I have some knowledge of professional artwork. I am no newbie to all this, but it remains fun to view other people's work and to find things to learn from them.

Well, that's it for now. Time to do some prototyping, or maybe just chill for a bit... :)