Chuckles to himself,
Why do people insist on seeing everything in black and white?
Me and my artist friend were talking last night about the different "strengths" we each brought to Dreamstars.
First there is my strength as a game designer and programmer. The basics of any game seems to be a logical system that the user can interact with that brings enjoyment. That said there seems to be heaps of scope for this process to be artistic (original). However when designing a game that is aimed to be commercially viable there are many real world factors that come into play and I think this is what Steve is getting at.
Firstly you need to know that you can actually create such a game with the existing resources available to you. If you are a one man team with no story writing ability then creating a story based game is obviously ludicrous no matter how well you can envisage it working
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Next you need to think about demand. I think this is what Steve is talking about, and demand is a funny thing. Again there are many elements to demand that range from how saturated the market is in that area of game mechanics, to if a totally new type of game mechanic will even appeal to anybody.
I like Steve''s point about puzzle games being of higher demand because they essentially have a shorter play life but this brings up a whole new issue of replayability. Replayability is a pretty important factor to any game. It adds value to your game if it is more repayable than the competition. And this includes puzzle games! If your puzzle game has 10 levels and your competition has 100 levels then people are going to buy the competitions game because it is better value for their money!
Thirdly there is the art of the game, the look and feel, the ability the game has to immerse you in another world. Some game mechanics, like RPGs rely heavily on this artistic factor making a good storyline a vital part of the game itself. Others like chess rely very little as the mechanics of the game are what is most important.
Fourthly there seems to be a quality aspect to any commercial quality game. People just won''t buy a 4bit colour 64 pixel res game anymore no matter how original and interesting the game play is. Nor will they buy a game with 0 artistic integrity or 0 game mechanics.
Me and my friend agreed that I was able to bring a certain type of art to the game, the mathematical art that relies on the balance of mechanics ect. While he was able to bring the immersion quality. The look and feel that sucks a player into the mechanics and keeps them there.
A game isn''t just artistic or market based, it''s a blend of those two factors and many others, like technical competence and system limitations.
Ideally you want a beautiful artistic and original game design that is easy to implement with your given resources and is in high demand by the consumers and it should also be filled with artistic integrity that draws users in and captivates them, ehancing your mecanics and making the whole much more that it''s parts.
Simple right?
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Jai Shaw
Dreamstars 3: A space combat game with depth?!
Coming in August
http://icarusindie.com/Dreamstars
--------------------------Dreamstars 3: A space combat game with depth?!http://dreamstars.jaishaw.com