Joys of small game development(abagames.github.io)
abagames.github.io
Joys of small game development
https://abagames.github.io/joys-of-small-game-development-en/
5 comments
A common term in board games (and at least roguelike games) is “coffee break” games, which usually take ~5-15 minutes.
I remember going back as far as the 00s, RPG games that didn’t have at least 40 hours of gameplay were criticized as being too short.
Is there enough room between Flappy Bird, “coffee break” games, and epic (J)RPGs for a lot of terms about how long a game takes? And what do you mean, like a session? A run-through? There are games where you don’t have access to a save point all the time, and others where you can just turn it off and walk away and later it’s exactly as you left it. There’s that game Desert Bus that takes ~8h but you can’t even really stop to use the bathroom.
There’s games that have more or less replayability, or dozens of hours of depth that you can explore but only if you like.
There’s so much more to the medium than there is to books. I don’t see how it’s necessary or useful to use a length metric to describe games. It feels like asking “how many pages long is this game?”.
I remember going back as far as the 00s, RPG games that didn’t have at least 40 hours of gameplay were criticized as being too short.
Is there enough room between Flappy Bird, “coffee break” games, and epic (J)RPGs for a lot of terms about how long a game takes? And what do you mean, like a session? A run-through? There are games where you don’t have access to a save point all the time, and others where you can just turn it off and walk away and later it’s exactly as you left it. There’s that game Desert Bus that takes ~8h but you can’t even really stop to use the bathroom.
There’s games that have more or less replayability, or dozens of hours of depth that you can explore but only if you like.
There’s so much more to the medium than there is to books. I don’t see how it’s necessary or useful to use a length metric to describe games. It feels like asking “how many pages long is this game?”.
Those are all good points but I'd say but I feel like it's important because game developers can better signal to their audience the type of game they made and what the audience should expect from it. Especially in terms for how much time the player will need to invest to get the proper experience.
Games have a “replayability” factor, so I’m not sure the analogy with content length matters. Someone can play a multiple hour RPG just once, while another can devote a life to mastering Tetris or Street Fighter.
I believe games fall into some spectrum between movie and sport, the experiences are very different.
I believe games fall into some spectrum between movie and sport, the experiences are very different.
That occurred to me too, but I wonder if there's a way to caveat that the length descriptors refer to some threshold of player investment that expresses "You've experienced the basic gist of the game and a large majority of what the developer wanted to convey. You can move on to another game or continue to improve in this one, your pick."
As a player, I'd love such a classification. Increasingly I just don't have the time to slog through an entire Elden Ring or Starfield. Give me a way to easily find more Rocket Leagues and Cocoons.
As a player, I'd love such a classification. Increasingly I just don't have the time to slog through an entire Elden Ring or Starfield. Give me a way to easily find more Rocket Leagues and Cocoons.
IIRC, RDR2 does exactly this.
The issue is that you know exactly what percentage of the game you haven't experienced and exactly how good the game is and it makes it next to impossible to stop playing.
The issue is that you know exactly what percentage of the game you haven't experienced and exactly how good the game is and it makes it next to impossible to stop playing.
But you have to start playing the game before you get that information. I want that information before purchasing it.
best you'll find is howlongtobeat.com
You put it into words better then me.
The formula is something like the longer a game is the less linear it needs to be to have a high replay value.
'The Last of Us' is incredibly long and among the best linear non open-world games ever made. That said, it's entirely linear and the thought of sinking such a massive amount of time into a game that's effectively a very long movie give it a very low replayability factor.
Likewise, Skyrim is a massive open world game that's incredibly linear and repetitive, giving it a low replayability factor.
Rockstar has several very long open world games that have massive replay value and don't get stale with repeat playthroughs. On the flip side, if you haven't played through 2 or 3 times you've generally missed a decent amount of content. GTA San Andreas, RDR2 and GTA V all fall into this rare category of long games that are highly replayable.
With open world games the key to high replayability seems to be NPC AI quality and providing different outcomes for different actions and the order in which you do things in-game. Allowing you to do lots of missions in whatever order you choose goes a long way to breaking up any feeling that you're watching a movie.
'The Last of Us' is incredibly long and among the best linear non open-world games ever made. That said, it's entirely linear and the thought of sinking such a massive amount of time into a game that's effectively a very long movie give it a very low replayability factor.
Likewise, Skyrim is a massive open world game that's incredibly linear and repetitive, giving it a low replayability factor.
Rockstar has several very long open world games that have massive replay value and don't get stale with repeat playthroughs. On the flip side, if you haven't played through 2 or 3 times you've generally missed a decent amount of content. GTA San Andreas, RDR2 and GTA V all fall into this rare category of long games that are highly replayable.
With open world games the key to high replayability seems to be NPC AI quality and providing different outcomes for different actions and the order in which you do things in-game. Allowing you to do lots of missions in whatever order you choose goes a long way to breaking up any feeling that you're watching a movie.
Replayability isn’t the only metric for open world games though, a bigger part is “Is the open world interesting enough to invest time in outside of the main plot?”
You might spend 20 hours playing through a main story, and another 200 running around doing other stuff without ever actually starting over in a new game.
You might spend 20 hours playing through a main story, and another 200 running around doing other stuff without ever actually starting over in a new game.
> Likewise, Skyrim is a massive open world game that's incredibly linear and repetitive, giving it a low replayability factor.
I may not be the biggest Skyrim fan in the world but this is just patently false from my experience. I know tons of people who've played through Skyrim multiple different times with different playstyles and allegiances.
> GTA San Andreas, RDR2 and GTA V all fall into this rare category of long games that are highly replayable.
I can't say I've ever felt the need to reply any Rockstar games so much as continue playing them. The story missions are tedious compared to just messing around exploring the open world.
I may not be the biggest Skyrim fan in the world but this is just patently false from my experience. I know tons of people who've played through Skyrim multiple different times with different playstyles and allegiances.
> GTA San Andreas, RDR2 and GTA V all fall into this rare category of long games that are highly replayable.
I can't say I've ever felt the need to reply any Rockstar games so much as continue playing them. The story missions are tedious compared to just messing around exploring the open world.
Interesting examples you have there. The Last of Us is 10-15 hours long: Short by full-price standards. There's 100 hour games out there, many made in Japan. The issue with replayability is that the story is better than the gameplay, and few want to go through said gameplay twice.
Skyrim is a game that, shockingly, people still play today. There's players with 1500 hours. It's not my cup of tea either, but putting it as an example of a non-replayable game is more than a little dubious. Especially when GTA V and RDR2 have basically the same practical problem, yet you find them highly replayable somehow.
What a game needs to be replayable is a fun gameplay loop that is enjoyable when the novelty of story has worn out. Even simple gameplay loops like the one of Hades can make the gave very replayable. If you like, say, the gameplay of Spiderman for the PS4(another game longer than Last Of Us), playing it again will still be fun anyway. If you are going in it for the story only, it will not. Very few games spend the effort on making all the little decisions have relevant story consequences: Basically all you ever get is illusion of choice. It's the fighting, driving, shooting, or strategizing that has to be so fun that doing it for 100+ hours can be rewarding to some people.
Skyrim is a game that, shockingly, people still play today. There's players with 1500 hours. It's not my cup of tea either, but putting it as an example of a non-replayable game is more than a little dubious. Especially when GTA V and RDR2 have basically the same practical problem, yet you find them highly replayable somehow.
What a game needs to be replayable is a fun gameplay loop that is enjoyable when the novelty of story has worn out. Even simple gameplay loops like the one of Hades can make the gave very replayable. If you like, say, the gameplay of Spiderman for the PS4(another game longer than Last Of Us), playing it again will still be fun anyway. If you are going in it for the story only, it will not. Very few games spend the effort on making all the little decisions have relevant story consequences: Basically all you ever get is illusion of choice. It's the fighting, driving, shooting, or strategizing that has to be so fun that doing it for 100+ hours can be rewarding to some people.
There are the length of playing the "whole" game, the length of a minimum/typical/maximum session, and the length of a supported unit of play, and each can be long, short or irrelevant.
For example, an online PvP game has discrete games (e.g. a worst case of 2n minutes to play chess with a time limit of n minutes), one often plays a few games in a row depending on fatigue and available time, and replayability is infinite.
For example, an online PvP game has discrete games (e.g. a worst case of 2n minutes to play chess with a time limit of n minutes), one often plays a few games in a row depending on fatigue and available time, and replayability is infinite.
Flappy Bird never ends (practically ... I think?), how could you call it short? Pong is a two player sports simulation game, is that relevant? Is snooker an epic or a novel game/sport?
'A Short Hike' may be a short game but it's not a small game/experience. The mechanical complexity alone far outweighs that of the "small games" by this article's author. Consider telling your friend that 'A Short Hike' is a short game and they should/shouldn't play it. It's a perfectly reasonable and intelligible thing to say (probably -- you wouldn't say it to your friend unqualified if you expect they would get a seriously different meaning from it).
... I don't think this is a problem that needs to be solved.
Also, "time to beat" is just not something you can reasonably measure. But even if you think it is, it's not analogous to word count. A novel's "time to beat" would be "time to read", surely.
'A Short Hike' may be a short game but it's not a small game/experience. The mechanical complexity alone far outweighs that of the "small games" by this article's author. Consider telling your friend that 'A Short Hike' is a short game and they should/shouldn't play it. It's a perfectly reasonable and intelligible thing to say (probably -- you wouldn't say it to your friend unqualified if you expect they would get a seriously different meaning from it).
... I don't think this is a problem that needs to be solved.
Also, "time to beat" is just not something you can reasonably measure. But even if you think it is, it's not analogous to word count. A novel's "time to beat" would be "time to read", surely.
games are a new medium
you're right that software engineer and programmer types (of persons) would do well to learn form other older media formats that precede games.
but let's not pretend that games are anything like what came before.
interactivity is a new element to put into the storytelling toolkit. but the point is how games can do a much more than tell stories; it's like puzzles are part of the story somehow... but answering how exactly goes quite deep.
you're right that software engineer and programmer types (of persons) would do well to learn form other older media formats that precede games.
but let's not pretend that games are anything like what came before.
interactivity is a new element to put into the storytelling toolkit. but the point is how games can do a much more than tell stories; it's like puzzles are part of the story somehow... but answering how exactly goes quite deep.
Video games are about half as old as film as a medium. I wouldn't call that new.
New is relative, of course. Movies are a perfect example of that. Think about how far movies came in 50 years and think about how much gaming will progress in that same time.
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Read it. I cannot say whether the concept of a manifesto for small games is a worthwhile endeavour. It sounds like an ideology, a stricture on creative thought, and then you start the endless debates as to what qualifies, and audiences bifurcate into "but what does it _mean_?"
That said, I like to make what I have often referred to as "$10K games." If I was being paid a realistic hourly rate to implement an idea, what could I do for $10,000 USD? $10K is one month of household burn rate (for me), and so I can aptly weigh the decision of "outsource this or do it myself?" It gives a very clear budgetary limitation.
And sure, you could "work for free" or "get a friend to help out for a pizza" or "well if someone in a LCOL country could do it, that's like two years worth of income."
But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point.
The question is "could _I_ implement this idea for $10K, if I were being paid the $10K? Would _I_ be willing to set aside all other possible endeavours to work on this, if _I_ were being paid $10K for it?"
And so we get in to how to make a game that has a definite end, that somewhat fulfills the ideal of the small games manifesto, but still gives you enough creative freedom to achieve your goals whilst still shooting yourself in the foot by spending too many hours tweaking the individual pixels in a piece of artwork.
A $10K game, for me, could be a day's worth of work writing code and $9000 worth of outsourced artwork to make it beautiful. Or it could be two or three weeks of intense labour, flying solo, creating the art, music and code because you simply need that itch scratched. The game then becomes secondary to the importance of the creative endeavour itself.
That said, I like to make what I have often referred to as "$10K games." If I was being paid a realistic hourly rate to implement an idea, what could I do for $10,000 USD? $10K is one month of household burn rate (for me), and so I can aptly weigh the decision of "outsource this or do it myself?" It gives a very clear budgetary limitation.
And sure, you could "work for free" or "get a friend to help out for a pizza" or "well if someone in a LCOL country could do it, that's like two years worth of income."
But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point.
The question is "could _I_ implement this idea for $10K, if I were being paid the $10K? Would _I_ be willing to set aside all other possible endeavours to work on this, if _I_ were being paid $10K for it?"
And so we get in to how to make a game that has a definite end, that somewhat fulfills the ideal of the small games manifesto, but still gives you enough creative freedom to achieve your goals whilst still shooting yourself in the foot by spending too many hours tweaking the individual pixels in a piece of artwork.
A $10K game, for me, could be a day's worth of work writing code and $9000 worth of outsourced artwork to make it beautiful. Or it could be two or three weeks of intense labour, flying solo, creating the art, music and code because you simply need that itch scratched. The game then becomes secondary to the importance of the creative endeavour itself.
TBH this sounds like exactly the same thing it’s just you’ve put an economic lens on it. Has all the associated problems with bike shedding and ‘what does it mean’.
_I_ think you skimmed over the part where _I_ emphasized _I_. As in, this budget applies to me. Not anyone else. Not what does it. Not whether this nuance qualifies. Merely, can I do it for $N? I think what many people seem to do is taken a quite subjective statement such as _I_ made about an arbitrary budget and apply it universally to other people, and then try to argue the merit of meaning. Meanwhile, the creators are getting on creating. I do think manifesto of small games is good for one thing: it separates the makers from the bikeshedders.
Yet here you are bikeshedding and being grumpy. All the creative people I know are great at both being able to create and pontificate so I don’t think the dichotomy you propose is real.
There is no bike shedding. Personal attack. There is no dichotomy. Try again.
>But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point.
If you're going to categorize in explicit budgets it's very important to understand what that money means to each individual. Especially if considering individual skill. It'd be best to normalize it or simply use time span instead of budget as a metric.
So, What I could do in, say, 1000 hours (so, ~6 months of full time work) and is that worth the opportunity cost? Be it giving up my job and pouring 80 hours a week for 3 months (in your case, giving up 30k in wages), or working 10 hours on the weekend for 2.5 years (which has zero loss financially)? If you have a team or commissions you can split that time up further (so, in this case maybe 10 hours of code and 300 hours of labor from art (including finding an artists and giving feedback). It's a similar angle to your argument but 1000 hours is an universal measurement, one that is improved by one's own skills, and less influenced by cost of living.
If you're going to categorize in explicit budgets it's very important to understand what that money means to each individual. Especially if considering individual skill. It'd be best to normalize it or simply use time span instead of budget as a metric.
So, What I could do in, say, 1000 hours (so, ~6 months of full time work) and is that worth the opportunity cost? Be it giving up my job and pouring 80 hours a week for 3 months (in your case, giving up 30k in wages), or working 10 hours on the weekend for 2.5 years (which has zero loss financially)? If you have a team or commissions you can split that time up further (so, in this case maybe 10 hours of code and 300 hours of labor from art (including finding an artists and giving feedback). It's a similar angle to your argument but 1000 hours is an universal measurement, one that is improved by one's own skills, and less influenced by cost of living.
$10k budget is no less arbitrary than anyone else's definition.
This is completely irrelevant. Your post is not immune to criticism.
I love how you quantify your burn rate. I’ve been living off savings in much the same scenario. Mine is $6k.
Do you want to compare notes? I’m really curious to ask for details on where your burn rate adds up. Mine is half mortgage at around $2700/mo, but I’ve been surprised and a bit dismayed that an additional $3k per month seems inevitable. I’ve been trying to trim it as much as possible while still living life, but a lot of it is just… life things.
It’s ok if you don’t want to go into details.
Do you want to compare notes? I’m really curious to ask for details on where your burn rate adds up. Mine is half mortgage at around $2700/mo, but I’ve been surprised and a bit dismayed that an additional $3k per month seems inevitable. I’ve been trying to trim it as much as possible while still living life, but a lot of it is just… life things.
It’s ok if you don’t want to go into details.
I would state it in person, but not on an indelible public forum.
In descending order of expense: Insurances > food > mortage > utilities > rent > hobbies > travel > cleaning > maintenance > takeout.
In descending order of expense: Insurances > food > mortage > utilities > rent > hobbies > travel > cleaning > maintenance > takeout.
The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao.
Reddit begins with the letter R, not the letter H.
Only read the first page but is this a manifesto? I read it like a guide on how to start programming (what the author considers/calls) small games for fun. It’s just guide, you can do whatever you want. If something isn’t working for you just deviate from it.
This appears to be by Kenta Cho, a.k.a. ABA games, who has a long history of writing wonderful small games in D. His work is well worth checking out. https://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/
I feel like HN is on a kick right now with this concept of “small games”.
But folks are tripping over the definition of small. There’s the small as defined in the link you have, small as in low mechanic and low content like “Gone Home”, small as in asset flips, small as in just not AAA, small as in really intricate but not large, small as in procedurally huge but limited visuals and simple mechanics, small as in just a dating sim or porn, and then small as in old school “small games” like Doom Guy’s Commander Keen which is cute and good at the time but laughably unpolished for todays standards.
But folks are tripping over the definition of small. There’s the small as defined in the link you have, small as in low mechanic and low content like “Gone Home”, small as in asset flips, small as in just not AAA, small as in really intricate but not large, small as in procedurally huge but limited visuals and simple mechanics, small as in just a dating sim or porn, and then small as in old school “small games” like Doom Guy’s Commander Keen which is cute and good at the time but laughably unpolished for todays standards.
Since the beginning of the industrial era, people have been looking for side artisan-gigs to distract from how droll their day job is. This isn’t particularly different than woodworking, gardening, knitting and the legion of other hobbies used for this purpose.
I do not think at the early industrial revolution people looked for artisan-gigs, considering the hours, child labour, and general lack of safety.
Happy to be proved wrong, I find that period very interesting.
Happy to be proved wrong, I find that period very interesting.
I suppose it’s more of a Victorian thing but it’s also primarily the domain of the white collar class.
Someone who does carpentry as their day job is probably not going to do woodshop in the garage at home even today, but they just pick other things, like grilling.
Someone who does carpentry as their day job is probably not going to do woodshop in the garage at home even today, but they just pick other things, like grilling.
It'll depend on who you ask and what lens you look in. "small" for a dev is very different from a consumer
And when you split into disciplines it gets even more murky. VN's are "small" for a programmer (you may not even need to program for many of them) but can be hundreds of art assets for an artist to work on. Likewise, something like Dwarf Fortress didn't even have a GUI at first but is filled to the brim with simulation state for a programmer to manage.
And if course that definition is relative. Final Fantasy VII was top of the line in 1997 and took 5+years, but it'd be at best a beefy 2-3 man project over a few years today.
And when you split into disciplines it gets even more murky. VN's are "small" for a programmer (you may not even need to program for many of them) but can be hundreds of art assets for an artist to work on. Likewise, something like Dwarf Fortress didn't even have a GUI at first but is filled to the brim with simulation state for a programmer to manage.
And if course that definition is relative. Final Fantasy VII was top of the line in 1997 and took 5+years, but it'd be at best a beefy 2-3 man project over a few years today.
I assumed small was referring to how much time/effort it takes to make them.
That’s surely part of it. But people’s senses are warped. They’ll often point to games that are small in content but clearly non trivial dev tasks.
Yes! I know this guy's work.
I haven't visited this site in years though. I wonder if mobile games are the reason why. I stopped playing a lot of web/flash/html5 games a long time ago when gaming (for me) moved to the app store.
But I recognized the name and remember playing a lot of these games back in the day.
I always thought they were delightful. Building off a single game mechanic or two and then moving on to the next concept. The dev has a good system in place for shipping :)
I haven't visited this site in years though. I wonder if mobile games are the reason why. I stopped playing a lot of web/flash/html5 games a long time ago when gaming (for me) moved to the app store.
But I recognized the name and remember playing a lot of these games back in the day.
I always thought they were delightful. Building off a single game mechanic or two and then moving on to the next concept. The dev has a good system in place for shipping :)
Does anyone know a way to subscribe to find when he adds a new game? I checked out his blog and Twitter and they don’t seem to be a great way to follow just the games. Can’t find an RSS feed either.
I made a small game this week!
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/cap-sized
Nowadays, the competition and the cost to make a stood-out game is too high.
But still hoping one day I'll make another Flappy Birds.
But still hoping one day I'll make another Flappy Birds.
Writers usually divide their works based on word count into flash fiction, short stories, novelettes, novellas, novels, and epics. Now these aren't one to ones when it comes to game developement but it's a much better tool to describe games then what we're using now.
For an example many of author's games are better described as flash games (not that Flash just flash as in very short), while something like A Short Hike and many would be a novellet (gamellet?). Many arcade 8 bit, and 16 but games would fall somewhere in between flash and short. Many AAA games and many RPGs would be Epics. Etc.
Of course this isn't a perfect way to categorize games but it's certainly better then the term small/short being used for anything that's less then a 100+ hour AAA game and it could help developers too. You can ask yourself "Do I really want to make a Epic? Or maybe this would be better as a short or a Gamellet?" or if you just want to make something very small you can just say "I'm going to make a flash game."
Different names are needed but I still think the point stands. We need a different to talk about game length then just the words short, small, or long.