Out with the Old, In with the New in Tutorials & Snippets

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Jan 15 2011, 1:30 pm
For anyone who doesn't know, I've been doing less work programming and more work writing ever since around October last year. Making games was supposed to be something I'd give a try and have some fun with, but it eventually took over my writing hobby, something which has always been more important to me.

Recently I joined a writing community online, and was surprised by the rate at which some of the members of that community can put out novels. Their outlook is simple and pretty brutal considering the type of person you'd think would be in an online writing community: If you're going to write, then write something and get it done; if you've been working on "your novel" for years, then you're not a writer. I respect that. I want to be a part of a community that pushes its members to get stuff done.

I'm bringing this up because it is relevant to BYOND developers. If you're going to make a game, do it. Plan to have a 1.0 (a finished, playable from start to finish, game) done in 2 months. Don't sit on a game for years, making blog posts, releasing demos, letting your friends play testing rounds, and then expect people to actually be excited and want to play it when it comes out. If the game takes more than 6 months, and the end isn't (be serious now) in sight, you need to seriously reexamine your development process and set realistic goals.

Your project should be something concrete, that you can realistically expect yourself to achieve, and be able to be finished in a reasonable time frame.

I'm pretty sure of myself as a developer, even though I have more than my share of failures, abandoned projects, and a project that spent over two years in development hell. Even though it goes against the BYOND Warning of the Day, I'm going to announce a new project. A pre-release version will be finished by February 1st and submitted to LummoxJR's Cartridge Classic II. The game will be an RPG set in a standard fantasy setting, with Rogue-like elements, and will feature limited multiplayer support. A 1.0 release will follow the release of judging results.

Many of my hub entries point to unfinished games, or games that have stopped working with newer version of the BYOND suite. I have hidden (essentially: removed) these hubs. That means there's no more hub for Plunder Gnome, B17: Fortress over Germany, or Castle Masters. This leaves me with only Regressia and Casual Quest, two completely finished and polished games that I am proud of.

BYOND has recently made some changes in recognition of the way the internet has changed in the last decade. BYOND is no longer the only game in town, and Tom has recognized the need to upgrade our image and compete from a stronger position. Go visit the front page of any other game site out there, and what will you find? Games that are exceedingly fun, completely finished, and playable instantly! In honesty, I can't say the same about BYOND. We have a handful of finished games that a user could join and have fun in, and a sea of hubs for dreams and old bargain basement games. Some of these were good in their time, but who's going to actually play Dragon Snot or Bird Land? Are those really the games that are going to attract and retain a new user base? How much red do you want in your hair?

I've touched on a lot of points in this post, and I hope my reasons for mentioning each are starting to become clear. BYOND doesn't need your vapor ware - it needs you to make a finished game. It needs you to make a multiplayer game that can be played by a single player. It needs something that can be put on a front page, something which will not disappoint a new user who gives BYOND a try and logs in for the first time. I know you can do this, but it's going to take a change in attitude, a change in expectations, and a change in ambition. I'm not going to write The Great American Novel the first time I put pen to paper, and you're not going to make an MORPG that attracts 200 players daily on your first try. Make something small, something fun that can sit on the front page and get new players addicted. Make it fun! Make it in two weeks.

Above all else, finish it!
#1 Jan 15 2011, 1:45 pm
It's brutal, pragmatic, and it works. It also takes some balls as a developer to just come straight out and lay a plan bare like that in detail, which makes you commit.

Consider the industry approach, where you do all your deciding on project feel, direction etc. Then the customer looks at you and goes "Great, when will I first see something?". They are staring at you, expecting a date, and they will expect something on that date or so help you god.

It makes you get on and do it, and importantly: release it. What's a game that's not been released yet? Just space on a hard-disk.

The bit I never understood with the old BYOND motto is from a developer's point of view, you end up with no iteration, you just apparently sit down and slog out a game over 6 months start to finish with no further input or milestone.
#2 Jan 15 2011, 1:52 pm
I'm hoping that this will motivate me to finish the update to Freeze Tag HideAway. I think with all the changes to the game that it will be a fan game worth being on the front page(or at least the first page of "listed" lol). The state it was in when it was last hosted is not something that I would want on the front page at all. Good luck with your RPG, and get it done!
#3 Jan 15 2011, 1:57 pm
Stephen001 wrote:
The bit I never understood with the old BYOND motto is from a developer's point of view, you end up with no iteration, you just apparently sit down and slog out a game over 6 months start to finish with no further input or milestone.

I understand it, and I agree with certain aspects. I think that a project should not be released to the public until it is reasonably finished, what I'd call a "1.0 release". Games have a very short shelf life, which is why people are (were) playing Mario Cart Wii, not Mario Cart 64. If you release a game when it is unfinished, you're sabotaging yourself; most of the players who exhaust the content of the unfinished version will never come back to play the finished version. Take Casual Quest as an example: Had I released a demo of CQ with really poor gameplay (like what it had when I submitted it to the Casual Contest), I would have got a flurry of players, and then nothing. After I updated it, I would have gotten another small flurry, but nothing big. Ever. By waiting until it was finished and presentable, CQ has achieved a certain critical mass of players which is self sustaining and slowly growing.

Eventually it'll fall by the wayside and receive very few players. I will not try to revive it. Nintendo makes new Mario Cart games, it doesn't try to coax players into playing old titles. This idea that a game is something epic and timeless, something to be made over years and then enjoyed by the community forever, is an idea I feel is keeping us down. Make a game. Make it in 2 months. See it played for 6 months. Make another.


Consider the industry approach, where you do all your deciding on project feel, direction etc.

I probably should have said this in the post in order to have the full impact, but... I haven't done any work on the game yet. I had the idea to make it today. So I still have all that "feel" and "direction" stuff to determine.
#4 Jan 15 2011, 2:00 pm
Your Mario-cart example is interesting and very relevant to BYOND developers I feel. I do wonder if for more than a few, it's become a veil of obscurity to help them avoid actually getting on and completing their works?
#5 Jan 15 2011, 3:22 pm
IainPeregrine wrote:
Games have a very short shelf life, which is why people are (were) playing Mario Cart Wii, not Mario Cart 64.
Eventually [CQ will] fall by the wayside and receive very few players. I will not try to revive it. Nintendo makes new Mario Cart games, it doesn't try to coax players into playing old titles. This idea that a game is something epic and timeless, something to be made over years and then enjoyed by the community forever, is an idea I feel is keeping us down. Make a game. Make it in 2 months. See it played for 6 months. Make another.

i agree with everything you've said in the post and comments, but i have something to add in response to the quoted parts:

games can easily be, in a sense, "timeless" regardless of whether or not it's a perfect masterpiece that took 12 years to make and got a perfect 10 on all review sites. an old game that's never been played by a newer generation is still a fresh, fun game as long as its playability has not massively deprecated due to very specific issues (such as "old byond" games being very difficult to learn, having no existing playerbase to help/encourage others, and being graphically repulsive because it was acceptable at that time). stick world 2 and raegon are terrible, old games, yet every once in a while someone comes along, sees the game, plays it, has a lot of fun with it, and then moves on.

that kind of game development and playstyle is extremely common with flash games- the developer spends a modest amount of time creating a shallow, short game but that is pretty packed with "non-aging" fun for the 30 minutes - 3 hours it holds you in for. one of the "ultimate goals" for hobbyist developers is to yield maximum possible entertainment for the players. i'd say that a game which provides 1 hour of entertainment for 30,000 people--and decreasing at a steady rate (or not at all) as time goes on--is quite superior in playtime to one which provides 300 hours of entertainment for 100 people--and very sharply declines in interest once the initial playerbase dies out.

the reason the latter idea is so prevalent in BYOND is because we're focused so much more on multiplayer, and an active community which enhances the game and extends its life artificially for as long as that little community holds interest. if people would rather create a timeless but shallow (sounds a bit oxymoronic) single player game, they'd use flash or anything else out there which does it better, instead of frail old byond which hasn't grown with the times but still does a good job with multiplayer. the solution, as you pointed out, is to create games that have a single player experience and a multi player experience; get the best of both worlds. i can't remember if i had some conclusion i wanted to make that was more profound than "yeah, what you already said", but i've rambled pointlessly for too long now anyways
#6 Jan 15 2011, 3:44 pm
I agreed with everything you said until:

IainPeregrine wrote:
Games have a very short shelf life, which is why people are (were) playing Mario Cart Wii, not Mario Cart 64.


Mario Cart Wii is shit compared to 64, and I'd definitely prefer to play the latter. :)
#7 Jan 15 2011, 3:51 pm
Murrawhip wrote:
Mario Cart Wii is shit compared to 64, and I'd definitely prefer to play the latter. :)

Agreed. Mario Cart 64 is the best of the series, in my opinion.

- But that's not what this is about. Replace "Mario Cart" with some other series that got better over time.
#8 Jan 15 2011, 6:58 pm
You struck gold with that post, this is exactly the problem I was discussing with Tekken a few days ago. I've been working on 2 projects for close to 3 years now and I keep spending time tweaking little interface things and changing how everything works underneath. Both games are already playable but I keep fixing on little things that take time. I'm now in the mode where I'm tying things up so where I can just get it out and see what people think.

You were completely dead on and I hope more developers read this.
#9 Jan 15 2011, 7:43 pm
Your post really speaks the truth.
#10 Jan 16 2011, 3:14 am (Edited on Jan 16 2011, 3:23 am)
MK64 is nearly unplayable compared to Wii now.
Wii is the best Mario Kart has seen.

Mostly a correct post though, I can't seem to finish anything.
#11 Jan 16 2011, 1:23 pm
I disagree, both with the writers motto and with the BYOND motto.

For the writers motto: My father is a professional journalist and writer, and has written about 14 books over the past 30 years. Some were very quick to get released (6 months of hard work), some took years and years of research and thought. He's writing a book on Rumi at the moment, which is a culmination of over 10 years of research.

I think the writers motto is just an excuse to be nicer about saying, 'Stop *talking* about doing stuff and do it!', which in no way is mutually exclusive to taking more than some weeks to shell something out.

About the BYOND motto: I could say 'See MineCraft' and be done with it; MineCraft is currently in beta and has just passed 1 million purchased. Many other online games have had family-and-friends alpha, and then gone public with beta to great success.

This is about the same thing the writers motto is. Yes, if you're just screwing around and not making any progress, then releasing information is stupid. It makes you think you're doing something, and makes it clear to others that you aren't.

However: If you're actively working on something, then an open 'See what I'm doing' style may work just fine for you.

Many indie developers have a hard time finishing anything but very small projects without community feedback and cheering on, which is part of the reason it happens. There are good reasons for commercial companies not to release too much information, but almost all of those reasons have very little to do with whats good for finishing the game, and a lot to do with money, politics, competition and lots of other stuff that indie developers don't have to care about.

In the end, the lesson tends to be: Yes, creating stuff that others find interesting or fun is hard work. It requires (usually) a plan, skills, dedication and the ability to stick with it even when it has dull periods. There is usually no easy shortcut (I'm adding an exception for you here, guy who made a fart application for iPhone and made $500,000 or so).
#12 Jan 16 2011, 2:04 pm
About the BYOND motto: I could say 'See MineCraft' and be done with it; MineCraft is currently in beta and has just passed 1 million purchased.

...and its development has slowed to an extreme crawl over the past several months. however, that seems more related to the indie developer making millions of dollars in a short period of time and no longer feeling the need to develop the game he wasn't very passionate about to begin with, rather than just losing steam just because he announced it too early. but i wanted to say that anyways.
#13 Jan 16 2011, 3:10 pm
Iain's motto is flawed in the aspect that what was announced will never get finished, and if it isn't finished or near it by two months, it's junk... but for the most part it's true.

I had plans to make a really good Dragon Warrior game in August. 2 months later? Nothing. After the first week I just... lost interest. I don't know why considering I love to play games and the thought of playing something I created seems exciting enough.
#14 Jan 16 2011, 4:53 pm
Thanks for the input, Alathon. A lot of what I'm saying is meant for BYOND in its current state. We're an insular community with distinct habits; we have a specific malady, you could say. The treatment of this malady may not be good for unafflicted persons. The problem with "family and friends" alpha and/or beta stages is that our community is so small that "family and friends" constitutes a large portion of the final player base, perhaps 90% or more. Add to this the extreme length of these stages (as in LummoxJR's Crayon Massacre), and what you have is a game that is old news before it's ever released. Why would those beta testers ever come back and play the game again?

I think the writers motto is just an excuse to be nicer about saying, 'Stop *talking* about doing stuff and do it!', which in no way is mutually exclusive to taking more than some weeks to shell something out.

We're in agreement that the important thing is to make real progress in a way which will lead to a finished product. I concede that a large scale book of substance can take ten years of good hard work to write. I say that Regressia spent two years in development hell, but it took four years in total to create. Those other two years were good solid work, with a schedule, a specification, and reasonable milestones.

Yet before I ever started Regressia, I had already finished Plunder Gnome (and the 4.0 update to PG), B17:FoG, and that game I've suddenly forgotten the name of. All of these were projects of much smaller scope. I don't think I would have ever finished Regressia without first having experience with those smaller projects, and I wouldn't suggest that anyone try a 6 month project without first completing a 2 month project. To use your example, I doubt your dad would suggest that 10 year project to me, an aspiring writer. He'd probably give me the same advice I've been getting from the writers' community: write a throw away novel, something you don't care about, something where you can write anything so long as you get it done. Then you'll have the skills to write a better novel.

Speaking of that writing community, I'm not sure how the word "motto" got into this discussion. That isn't their motto, or even a quote. It is a tone which I, subjectively, picked up from the posts of some of their members. I only bring this up because I don't want to give a community a bad name when I'm such a new member.

I respect what you bring to the table in discussions like this, especially how you expose a subject in what is essentially an "outside" context (again, we are very insular here, and it will not serve us well moving forward), but I still believe my advice is good advice for almost anyone reading: "Your project should be something concrete, that you can realistically expect yourself to achieve, and be able to be finished in a reasonable time frame." I also think that a game in 2 months is a good goal for any BYOND developer who hasn't put out a complete, polished, game.
#15 Jan 16 2011, 5:06 pm
Zaole wrote:
About the BYOND motto: I could say 'See MineCraft' and be done with it; MineCraft is currently in beta and has just passed 1 million purchased.

...and its development has slowed to an extreme crawl over the past several months. however, that seems more related to the indie developer making millions of dollars in a short period of time and no longer feeling the need to develop the game he wasn't very passionate about to begin with, rather than just losing steam just because he announced it too early. but i wanted to say that anyways.

However, it was released in the first place. We wouldn't be talking about it otherwise.
#16 Jan 18 2011, 6:48 am
I think this is good advice, but not necessarily for the reasons mentioned. Game development is more complex than people expect. You need to fail enough times before you have things figured out. Smaller projects will teach you more because you'll fail faster - you'll get further into the development process in less time.

Suppose you spend 18 months working on a game. It finally gets to a playable state so you host it, people try it out, and they find a lot of bugs. Now you try to fix the bugs and find that your code is hard to maintain because you've never had to maintain code before so you didn't know the best ways to write maintainable code. If you had been working on a smaller project you could have learned the same lesson in much less time.

The shorter version is: most projects are failures. Do you want to spend 1 month or 18 months to learn the same lesson?
#17 Jan 18 2011, 10:56 am (Edited on Jan 18 2011, 11:09 am)
I appreciate your concern. A heartfelt entreaty for me to stop dicking around and release something. You know I can do it. I know I can do it. So what the hell, right?

Well, if I were to nitpick on any fundamental of what you're saying here, it would be along the lines of there being a, "finished," game. Development is circular, you can work on a game forever, and it's really more of a question of what iteration you feel is ready for release.

I'm currently working on trying to shape my idea of design in such a way that I can bring a cycle to completion insofar as having a "playable" state. If I can reach that fully playable state, the infinite refinement can come afterward.

My problem is I tend to start refinement before that circle is complete. If you have a good idea, you have a tendency to want to do something with it before it fades. Before you know it, you've burned up all your steam adding something that fundamentally undermined the rest of the game. This is a bad habit of mine in need of shaking, and I'm working on it.

Another bad habit I need to shake is getting easily distracted. I need to persist rather than give up feeling discouraged. I'm getting better at that, too, with practice.
#18 Jan 18 2011, 11:19 am
If you're over-running for a cycle or need more polish time, drop a feature, Goldonyetich. Don't push back a release date.
#19 Jan 18 2011, 11:49 am (Edited on Jan 19 2011, 1:52 pm)
I don't think the problem is that potential player will lose interest if the game is in development for a long time. If the final product is a good game people will play it.

Part of the problem is that BYOND games arent good, it's not quality of a BYOND game that attracts people. If your game might turn out badly then you should release it while you have everyone's attention.

The rest of the problem is that we're hobby game developers. The odds are good that your first projects will not be wildly successful, the best you can hope for is that they'll be good learning experiences. A long development time means you've spent a lot of time on a single learning experience.

Edit: Since the problem is really with learning game development, this idea supports the creation of game frameworks (which I discussed in this blog post). Having a framework as a starting point lets the developer get more done in less time. When you start from scratch it can be difficult to create something playable in two months (even if you know what you're doing).
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