Feeling despaired - please comment

#21 Alexander , yeah i would be interested in getting help from you. I read in your profile "I may join your project only if you have full design document and strong will to finish the game." i doubt you wrote that just for me to read haha so it must be true.

The strong point of the game is really gameplay. A couple of weeks ago a made a gameplay prototype with someone. It was only a ball rolling on a very curvy race track , similar to a bobsley track. The ball could send a hook that had like a rubber band effect, anyway it was very simple and took about 12 hours to code but i played with it for so long :) there was no goals implemented yet it was fun. So "basic " striped down gameplay is really the way to go for this type of game.

For the design document , since we worked for about 3 or 4 months on the game, lots of issues are resolved and i pretty much know what needs to be done. I played it A LOT too , so i kinda know what works and what should be changed. I want it to be portal friendly, if thats possible. Ill ask experienced indie devs what i should change in the design to do just that.

"Let's make this project open to public" good idea.

what instant messenging software do you use ? im an msn user.

stevebisson ( At@) hotmail (dot.) com

#22 Steve,

That's right, that line in my profile is a result of my bitter experience :)

I'm glad you like the idea to make it public (I didnt mean open-sourced), GG community lacks good "lessons" like this (though, there are plenty of success stories like Minions Of Mirth).

I'm a bit confused, I thought you were talking about the tetris-like clone (I'm a bit tired now)... Or it's just an example?

"For the design document , since we worked for about 3 or 4 months on the game, lots of issues are resolved and i pretty much know what needs to be done" - But I don't... ;), so putting them on paper would help me to understand it. Dont forget to read the list of T2D features, so you know its limits ;)

What we need is:
+) Flow chart of a game UI (screens, menus, etc...)
+) Flow chart of a game logic (win/lose conditions, keyboard commands, game items behaviour, etc...)
+) Screen mockups (UI, in game, etc...)
+) Full list of game items with their full description and iteractions
+) Full list of features and WHY they should be in the game (their purpose)

OpenOffice has a great tool to draw flow charts, and it's free. You can find it here : www.openoffice.org

"I want it to be portal friendly" - What do you mean? Web game portals? Real Arcade? Xbox 360 Live Arcade? ;)

I'm a msn user as well, but I prefer to use email, so I can keep track of a conversation, msn just keeps the log file on a local computer, but msn is good for an urgent meeting.

I'll get with you shortly by email.

#23 @Randy - Your comment ...

"Your best programmers are degreed and have loads of experiance. And are not just going to answer a poorly written ad. When they have been disciplined in school for a certain looking presentation."

... is completely false. I've been a developer for over 10 years and in that time I have met VERY few degreed (is that even a word?) programmers who could outperform my high school education. I left a college and a technical school in my past due to teachers who were unable to answer my advanced questions without taking several days to research it. In fact, there is only ONE developer I can even think of who has a college degree and can out-code me.

Most of the best developers in the world are not college graduates, just like most of the best hackers in the world aren't. Just because you sat in some classes for 4+ years doesn't make you any better at performing than someone who spent every day from 16 to 28 hacking up code.

dishmal

#24 Http://www.popcap.com/launchpage.php?theGame=zuma

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=9165


http://www.popcap.com/launchpage.php?theGame=dynomite

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=&game_id=9169


HUH !? ! :D

#25 @Alexander "taualex" Gaevoy

I admit that my stupid story also happened cause I shot my mouth off about how excited I was to be making my game... if I hadn't said anything I wouldn't have been criticized when I put the game on hold.

But I was just telling the story because I think it's good for other people to hear that things can look really bad and you can still pull thru.

The first reason I had for starting the weekly plan highlights was for people to read about each other so they could find people to partner with. It's easier to contact people you know about or it's easier to get responses to a help wanted ad when people know about you.

#26 "webgame portal that can take your game and wrap it in an active x thingy so it can be played in a browser"

It will take a lot of affort to make T2D compatible with ActiveX. portals usually offer a simple executable, sometimes with an embedded SDK to support portal security.

Xbox licencing is a bit expensive, but affordable for a proved game that could reach millions of players on Live Arcade, at that point 10,000 will be just a small fraction ;).

Regarding Clones... Every game on PC is a close/distant clone of an arcade machine game clone, and even those are clones of human party games (ping pong, etc...) So, I think it's fine: we dont have a big name in the industry to be worried about it ;)

A hint to test your gameplay: cut game items from paper, color them and "play" with them, trying to imitate the "real" game situations. Dont get lazy here ;) : you will be amazed how many new and interesting concepts you can find that way... Then, if you have a digital camera, make some shots and send them to me.

Please, dont make the gameplay twist very exotic :P

#27 @Anton Bursch

I totaly agree, Anton. Actually, such stories help us to understand the situation.
I think, negative exp is a positive one. ;)

And you found an answer to your problem, you learned how to code!
I'm learning how to make a 3D model now ;)

#28 "Please, dont make the gameplay twist very exotic "

no i know , i worked 3 months already on this ( not counting the 7 week break ) so after were are done with this rebuild it might be 7 or 8 months of dev time for a puzzle game. Thats a lot of life time dedicated to a puzzle game :)

so even tho i want it to be the best it can be , this wont be overly complicated. Like i said i dont believe overly compicated would make a great game anyway.

Since you are not concerned with clones , we wont make the gameplay a lot different, we then already have a working formula .

How will this weekly update work ? do garage games offer a webpspace with templates and stuff ?

#29 Steve if it works dont fix it. You could end up making a mess.

#30 Ok i started working on the flow charts. Do you want to make that public ?

#31 "Most of the best developers in the world are not college graduates, just like most of the best hackers in the world aren't. Just because you sat in some classes for 4+ years doesn't make you any better at performing than someone who spent every day from 16 to 28 hacking up code."

I believe its all about passion too. Spending all your free time learning by yourself can be a lot more valuable than a handfull of classes.

I know someone who studied programming for a whole year in a technical institute and once i asked him. " is that in real time ? " to wich he replied " Real time ? what does that mean ? "

#32 "Most of the best developers in the world are not college graduates, just like most of the best hackers in the world aren't. Just because you sat in some classes for 4+ years doesn't make you any better at performing than someone who spent every day from 16 to 28 hacking up code."

I believe its all about passion too. Spending all your free time learning by yourself can be a lot more valuable than a handfull of classes.

I know someone who studied programming for a whole year in a technical institute and once i asked him. " is that in real time ? " to wich he replied " Real time ? what does that mean ? "

#33 The screenshots look great, Steve!

I think GG dosnot have a journal system yet (hint, hint ;)) , but we can use .plan section and interlink our posts.
We could make a blog "outside", in my opinion, it's nice "to stay" on GG. But, if you really want a blog, we can do that (start a blog, and give links to it in our .plans).

And yes, let's make the flow charts and design docs open as well, so people can comment them (motivation as a part of it ;)).

#34 Wow. I don't think I've ever felt so beat up.

Steve; Spouting all the issues you have with me in a public forum really is shitty. We haven't even discussed half the points you're whinging about in here.

This game needs the game play redesigning. And that really is no small task.. I have sketched out ideas and given it constant thought over the last month or two and nothing I can think of comes close to the fun of what we have at the moment. I figured the best thing we could do was to ride the success of the free game to bring people to the website where we could have other games to sell in the future. Oddly, at the moment, I don't really feel that's a future I'll be having any part of :/

#35 This iz going to turn into a flamefest so *unchecks the notify me box*

#36 Hmm... If you, guys (Steve & Matthew), need to straight things up, I can step aside, I'll be fine ;)

#37 No this is not going to turn into a flame war ;) ill remove all of what Matt would think was un-respectfull and then take a plane for the U.K and go get drunk with him ;)

Please remove any bad comments from your posts guys. google is evil .