Indie Games Development
Game Development
At the very beginning, there was an idea. And a naive dreamer said:
"Shall we transform the idea to a computer game."
And it was so. And it was good a nightmare.
Design
Game Design
Game Design is the act of deciding what a game should be. That's it. On the surface, it sounds too simple. The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Jesse Schell
Most gamers don't know what they want until it is shown to them.
Scott Rogers
Game development professions
Programmer
- designs and implements the SW
- runtime programmers (work on the engine)
- tool programmers (offline tools)
- GFX developers, AI specialists, gameplay coders,...
Artist
- concept artist - sketches, paintings
- 3D modelers, texture artists, lightning artists, animators, composers,...
Designer
- gameplay designers
- level designers (static geometry, supplies, puzzle elements, window aspects)
Other Staff
- Testing department
- Marketing department
- publisher, creative manager, art director, technical director,...
Game Design Document
Gamasutra (1999)
A design document should be just long enough to accurately describe what is going on in the game.
Scott Rogers (2010)
Game Developer Blog (2016)
Game Design Document
- there are no official formats nor rules how to write the GDD
- in recent years, wiki is used more frequently than printed GDD
- game design is a highly iterative process
- it is nearly impossible to predict the behavior of a game before implementation
- common agile processes: Scrum and SAFe
- GDD content:
- working title
- gameplay and intended mechanics
- target audience
- story, campaigns, modes (DM, CTF, TDM,...)
- characters
- ESRB/PEGI ratings
- unique selling points
- competitive products
Design structures
- Story and script
- Level structure
- Tables (skills, abilities, upgrades,...)
- Window elements, surprise elements, puzzles,...
- Game map
Story
Doom
F.E.A.R.
- a story is a background aspect of a gameplay and gameplay is a medium used to tell a story
- good gameplay can overshadow a terrible story
- good story can't really overshadow a terrible gameplay
Hero
- very important and often unjustly neglected element of games
- Main attributes: name, appearance, facial proportions, movement, humanity
- Archetypes: humorous character, heroic character, villain character
Indie Games
Indie games
Indie game is a video game that is often created without a financial support of a publisher.
Indie games are developed by individuals, small teams or small independent companies, having little to no budget available.
Indie games are games that are smaller in size, less taxing on hardware and focusing mostly on art design.
Categories of games
Game costs
Milestones
Indie Games Evolution
AAA vs Indie
Cutting-edge graphics
Large studios
Massive campaigns
AAA vs Indie
Indie game developer
- must span a huge number of various subject areas
- the less resources you have, the more creative you need to be
- animation, textures, cinematography, music, sound effects, creative writing, visual arts,...
AAA game developer
- is usually specialized in one or a few areas
- skeletal animation, sprite animation, particle systems, physics, scripting, dialogue trees, backend (matchmaking, updates, in-game transactions)
- making AAA is about delegating tasks to huge teams
- there isn't a lot of space for own expression
- many AAA devs eventually go indie
- Jade Raymond - left Ubisoft in 2014
- Cliff Bleszinski - left Epic Games in 2012, started his own studio
- Brian Reynolds - SM Civilization designer, started his own studio
Game Industry today
Global revenues
Games released on Steam
Game developer in 2010
Game Developer in 2019
Game industry crisis
- we have 2.3 billions gamers across the globe
- game industry earn more money than ever before
- it is easier than ever to develop a game
- it is harder than ever to develop a successful game
- Issues:
- low median ownership (number of players per each game)
- disruptive technology (game developers just glue components together)
- low barrier of entry (everyone can create a game, reading a tutorial)
- lack of differentiation (do we need next 100 pixel-art platformers?)
Marketing
- marketing may cover up to 50% of all expenses
- there is nothing like a self-selling game
Is it worth it?
- to make a game, it can take several years of a very hard work and suffering
- it is a world with many heroes, a few stars and very few superstars
Leaving a footprint of your work in the mind of players and the passionate involvement from the development itself is the most valuable reward every game developer should aspire to.
Goodbye sheet
