Game Design

[FluffyFreak]

I want to start this thread off with this article which I think could apply to Pioneer in a lot of ways:

Videogames are boring : http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2 ... are-boring#

The point being that a lot of people aren't interested in videogames, not because there's something wrong with them, but because there's something wrong with videogames.

[FluffyFreak]

Next: http://howtomakeanrpg.com/a/not-your-problem.html

You're an aspiring game developer. You want to make and release an awesome game to share with the world. This is hard. Far harder than say, writing a book. It's an alchemic mix of art, personal taste, cold hard math, logistics and engineering. Few can make a game alone and it's easy to get distracted, very easy. Or even worse ... work on stuff that doesn't matter, it feels so good, you're learning so much, stuff is getting done but your game isn't getting any more finished and that's the goal. Don't forget the goal...

The point being that you can spend too much time trying out cool stuff and doing all of the hard bits, when you could just get on with making the fucking game... this is something I am so guilty of that I should probably just be shot without a trial.

Back on Gamedev.net many years ago the motto was a more succinct: Make games, not engines.
If you make a game then you've got a game and it's engine, if you make an engine then you've only got an engine and it probably won't be the right one for a game.

[impaktor]

I read the first article in its entirety.

In summary: how do you make games to people (/women?) who don't like games. Make characters that you can relate to and games that instead of action, are focused on relationships, and exploration of these. This sounds like The Sims to me.

I think in any game (where you play as a character), you need to be able to relate to the character. Or imagine yourself as that character. Or at least care for it. In some way. Or is this false?

Can I relate to William "B.J." Blazkowicz, the main character in Wolfenstein 3D? Nope. However, I could relate (at some level) to Commander Keen. Loved both games to death.

In relation to Pioneer, this is why I always hated "being the ship" in Frontier. I wanted to get out and walk about!

I think this game designer has taken on quite a challenge, in writing games for people who hate games, although, if she succeeds, she's tapped into a whole new market.

Few can make a game alone and it's easy to get distracted, very easy. Or even worse ... work on stuff that doesn't matter, it feels so good, you're learning so much, stuff is getting done but your game isn't getting any more finished and that's the goal.

You should keep in mind that many of us work on Pioneer for other reasons than to "get a finished game" out the door. It could just be to learn new things, experiment, contribute to a community, to put new skills to practical use, to gain experience with collaborating on a project, and int the process, to help make that perfect space game we always wished we had. As such, I think it is perfectly fine to spend long hours writing code that is beautiful rather than "good enough/just works", if that is what you want to do. Compare that to solving a crossword puzzle, or Sudoku.

[clausimu]

I think in any game (where you play as a character), you need to be able to relate to the character. Or imagine yourself as that character. Or at least care for it. In some way. Or is this false?

YES!

In relation to Pioneer, this is why I always hated "being the ship" in Frontier. I wanted to get out and walk about!

No (at least not for me).

I agree that we need to improve on creating that special bond for/interest in the main character in pioneer. But I always considered the player/pilot and the ship a unity. Being able to walk out of the ship would have to be done extremely well to not loose immersion. I know you are working on something there, impaktor. And I'm really interested in how it will blend with current gameplay. It will be necessary though (I think) to expand what your ship means to you: different technologies to upgrade with that have REAL impact on the game and are visible somehow (and if just in a "design" screen), personalizing your ship (offer paint jobs), managing your crew, managing ship interior (assign crew quarters for people who don't get along, etc.), show where damage to the ship is real (that is something my kids just asked me about when I showed them my 90% destroyed ship without any sign of destruction...).

You should keep in mind that many of us work on Pioneer for other reasons than to "get a finished game" out the door.

You are right (and that is what I'm doing too). But I think it would increase player base and contributers if our development was slightly more goal oriented :).

[impaktor]

Being able to walk out of the ship would have to be done extremely well to not loose immersion.

Well, I have no illusions of pulling this one off "extremely well", but in my mind it will work.

You are right (and that is what I'm doing too). But I think it would increase player base and contributers if our development was slightly more goal oriented :).

Ah, yes, this makes me think of the "worse is better"-approach, which argues that with easy functionality (and fast implementation and sloppy written code) you attract a user base and with it developers that will help iron out the imperfections later, and that way you get the ball rolling. The article that coined the term uses Lisp/Scheme (perfectionist academic community) vs. C ("ugly-hack-but-works"-community) specifically.

So, yeah, more devs wouldn't hurt. But also, to maintain the ones we have, devs shouldn't spend time doing what they don't want to do.

Hey, if Pioneer can count its devs on one hand, then surely that must mean... we're on the perfectionist branch!, with clean beautiful code, and no bugs? ;-)

[FluffyFreak]

Few can make a game alone and it's easy to get distracted, very easy. Or even worse ... work on stuff that doesn't matter, it feels so good, you're learning so much, stuff is getting done but your game isn't getting any more finished and that's the goal.

You should keep in mind that many of us work on Pioneer for other reasons than to "get a finished game" out the door. It could just be to learn new things, experiment, contribute to a community, to put new skills to practical use, to gain experience with collaborating on a project, and int the process, to help make that perfect space game we always wished we had. As such, I think it is perfectly fine to spend long hours writing code that is beautiful rather than "good enough/just works", if that is what you want to do. Compare that to solving a crossword puzzle, or Sudoku.

Yes, there's a bit of separation at times from that article and what we're here, individually, to do. These articles were just about general game design and motivations rather than being 100% applicable to us :)

Still I think that it's worth considering that it's not about appealing to women and non-gamers but worth asking what it is that we're missing or are a weakness in games, and Pioneer, that could be stronger and benefit everyone.

Take for example the oft-repeated desire to just explore, peacefully, and find new things. It's worth asking: why do we do that?
The simple answer is that it's fun but I think that's missing things like the screenshots threads on SSC where people post their favourite and most dramatic posts. The bright red giants and glowing atmospheres, they want to share it and to get feedback from other players.
It would be interesting to integrate that sort of thing so that people could share them directly from the game perhaps and get feedback, embed other info and communicate more without ever really being multiplayer for example.

[FluffyFreak]

When it comes to the "character" you have to at least understand them. I also can't stand being made to play characters that I dislike or hate.

For ships and things though it does sometimes help to get rid of an actual character entirely because they can feel very false and in many ways the ship really is the character of the piece.
As clausimu says showing damage and accruing marks, scratches, dents and gathering some history to the ship could also distinguish it and endear it to the player.

[impaktor]

Take for example the oft-repeated desire to just explore, peacefully, and find new things. It's worth asking: why do we do that?
The simple answer is that it's fun but I think that's missing things like the screenshots threads on SSC where people post their favourite and most dramatic posts.

Hmm, actually, that could be a useful way to "multiplayer" pioneer! You're playing along, and you see some general announcement in your ship-computer:
"*Beeep, beep*: this just in, pilot Tichy took this photograph in system X"
and "pilot Tichy" probably wants to see if pilots actually open his picture, so show number of views. Hmm, I see this idea is quickly converging to just becoming the SSC forum, since you'd like to get feedback as well.

[clausimu]

Take for example the oft-repeated desire to just explore, peacefully, and find new things.

That, I believe, is one of the most unnecessary weaknesses of Pioneer. We (well, "we", excluding me... :)) spent the effort to create a seemingly endless universe full of systems that appear to operate under actual physical laws. But there is really no incentive to discover new systems/planets/asteroids/... There is no reward if you discover them in-game, other than pleasing your own eyes. The only "outlet" is the screenshot forum post.

If you stripped Pioneer of all trade, pirates, etc. (which I don't want!!!!!) - and just made it a game that focused on exploration, you'd still have a very solid and fun game that builds on Pioneer's strengths. That is why I wish I had some leverage to make impaktor finish his exploration module :). Once exploration becomes an official mechanism it can then be extended to make it competitive, fun, risky, etc. And your idea of adding the screenshot-sharing into the game is something worth following up on.

[impaktor]

That is why I wish I had some leverage to make impaktor finish his exploration module

I don't have an exploration module, just the scout mission which is a more "professional" version of what is in Scout+. I'll get to that when imgui cpanel is in place.

For exploration, it's mainly fluffy who had ideas of implementing probes.

In scripts you can already mark (unexplored, > 700 ly distant) systems as "explored", but it's not used by any script yet.

Different players enjoy different things I think. Some love the orbital mechanics part, some exploring "strange new worlds", others like to make money to "get that awesome ship", other want to try missions, etc. Also, players adapt to what works in the game: players don't trade or bounty hunt that much, since combat is (in my experience) much more difficult than it was in Frontier, and trade isn't profitable for small ships compared to doing missions. Thus you're left with what works for you in pioneer.