How one man made 22 games in 22 years, mostly from his basement(venturebeat.com)
venturebeat.com
How one man made 22 games in 22 years, mostly from his basement
http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/17/the-original-indie-dev-how-one-man-made-22-games-in-22-years-mostly-from-his-basement/
20 comments
In terms of action games, I feel the classics did it really well by having hub-type (some would say maze-type) levels and hiding a ton of secrets within them. You were actively encouraged to try to break the bounds of the map, and when you did, you'd often find little surprises, powerups, or even entire secret levels left there by the developers.
I recently played Duke Nukem 3D for the first time in years and loved every minute of it. Cracking open a hidden wall and pulling out a weapon that shouldn't even be in that part of the game is so much fun. The last non-trivial secrets I remember in an action game* were in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, where you could stumble onto random phone booths or warp into strange miniature worlds with a little exploration. Games these days are all about structured, linear experiences — a shame for a medium whose primary strength is, I think, learning and discovery.
(As with all things, though, I expect we'll get a resurgence of "retro" FPS at some point or other. Really looking forward to the classic formula with modern tech!)
* Actually, I just remembered that the Rise of the Triad remake had a lot of good secrets, including secret levels with RotT-classic looks. So there's another 21st century example for you!
I recently played Duke Nukem 3D for the first time in years and loved every minute of it. Cracking open a hidden wall and pulling out a weapon that shouldn't even be in that part of the game is so much fun. The last non-trivial secrets I remember in an action game* were in Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, where you could stumble onto random phone booths or warp into strange miniature worlds with a little exploration. Games these days are all about structured, linear experiences — a shame for a medium whose primary strength is, I think, learning and discovery.
(As with all things, though, I expect we'll get a resurgence of "retro" FPS at some point or other. Really looking forward to the classic formula with modern tech!)
* Actually, I just remembered that the Rise of the Triad remake had a lot of good secrets, including secret levels with RotT-classic looks. So there's another 21st century example for you!
Sounds like you may really enjoy Fiasco (http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/fiasco/), a GM-less storytelling game. There's a phase called "The Tilt" where things expressly go wrong in a random way. I've always enjoyed seeing how everyone's characters (mine included) handle the chaos.
I do really enjoy Fiasco! Lots of fun, and pretty easy to get "non-roleplayers" into as well.
I also enjoy running just about any game though. With practice and the right preparation, a GM can riff off what the players are doing in any game.
I also enjoy running just about any game though. With practice and the right preparation, a GM can riff off what the players are doing in any game.
We've seen a lot of video games that integrate both of your solutions. They have a storyline you play through (railroad) but they adjust the difficulty and/or gameplay based on how the user plays.
I'm not a big fan of this because they tend to be too forgiving or not challenging enough. Older games were hard which made beating them rewarding. Games tend to be much easier now. Even if they adjust their difficulty it usually errs on the side of avoiding frustration for more casual gamer enjoyment.
I'm not a big fan of this because they tend to be too forgiving or not challenging enough. Older games were hard which made beating them rewarding. Games tend to be much easier now. Even if they adjust their difficulty it usually errs on the side of avoiding frustration for more casual gamer enjoyment.
I didn't mean to imply that there was a hard line between railroading and complete freedom. The best games are probably a blend of both, offering some controlled story experiences and some freedom to explore and discover. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my favorite video games include The Elder Scrolls series and Vogel's work.
It is tricky to balance difficulty. To again draw parallels between tabletop and video games: if the players get a powerful weapon at too low a level, it can wreck the fun of the adventure because there's no more challenge. The unfun solution (in my opinion) is to take away the weapon or in some way punish the players. Instead, a good GM offers new challenges that keep the weapon relevant.
Dark Souls has a good example of this. You can get a powerful sword fairly early which makes the first third or so of the game a bit easier. But it doesn't ruin the game or anything, because the challenge is still there and the later parts of the game scale beyond that weapon.
Dark Souls in general is an interesting example of a game that has several linear structures in it's gameplay, but still feels open and rewarding to explore. In many ways, what you explore most is your own ability to best the game and better master the environment, rather than exploring the environment itself.
It is tricky to balance difficulty. To again draw parallels between tabletop and video games: if the players get a powerful weapon at too low a level, it can wreck the fun of the adventure because there's no more challenge. The unfun solution (in my opinion) is to take away the weapon or in some way punish the players. Instead, a good GM offers new challenges that keep the weapon relevant.
Dark Souls has a good example of this. You can get a powerful sword fairly early which makes the first third or so of the game a bit easier. But it doesn't ruin the game or anything, because the challenge is still there and the later parts of the game scale beyond that weapon.
Dark Souls in general is an interesting example of a game that has several linear structures in it's gameplay, but still feels open and rewarding to explore. In many ways, what you explore most is your own ability to best the game and better master the environment, rather than exploring the environment itself.
Which is why nobody plays single-player FPS games anymore and everyone loves GTA even in single-player mode.
Being hand-held from one cutscene to the next is not playing a video game.
Being hand-held from one cutscene to the next is not playing a video game.
> Being hand-held from one cutscene to the next is not playing a video game.
Of course it is, and it's tremendously arrogant to claim otherwise. This attempt at reduction via definitionalism is the same disease that infects people who get frothy at Twine. (Which isn't my thing, I don't generally enough visual novels either, but I'm not so arrogant as to project my preferences onto the entire classification of "video game.")
Of course it is, and it's tremendously arrogant to claim otherwise. This attempt at reduction via definitionalism is the same disease that infects people who get frothy at Twine. (Which isn't my thing, I don't generally enough visual novels either, but I'm not so arrogant as to project my preferences onto the entire classification of "video game.")
At some point, you are watching a movie, not playing a game. A game should me more interactive than what you can do with just a casette tape and a TV remote.
Why? Why should it? If it's fun--or, equally importantly, if it creates meaning--why are you getting hung up on a creator calling a thing a "game"?
Prescriptivism is death. Don't be That Guy.
Prescriptivism is death. Don't be That Guy.
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Ok let me try to elaborate. That is why I personally have given up on the single-player FPS genre.
I think (actually, I hope) the best business advice from the article is that Vogel just basically built games he wanted to play. I guess it's fortunate that his desires aligned with enough people that there was a market, but I do love the idea that you have a vision for something you would use and build it. Of course, I'm sure there are many cases where this isn't true, but I sure like the concept.
I like to believe that if you have discerning, evolving taste, and you seek to fulfill it, over a long enough time with enough iteration you will make things that other people want, too.
Maybe the timeframe for some things is far too long for an individual to be successful at (especially large, complex, technical problems).
But for simpler things like games and books and such– I think if you dedicate yourself to it, there should be some people who appreciate it. Especially considering that there are billions of people in the world, and more of them are getting connected everyday. If YOU really, REALLY like something, it's practically a guarantee that somebody else does, too.
I'm kinda naively optimistic, though.
Maybe the timeframe for some things is far too long for an individual to be successful at (especially large, complex, technical problems).
But for simpler things like games and books and such– I think if you dedicate yourself to it, there should be some people who appreciate it. Especially considering that there are billions of people in the world, and more of them are getting connected everyday. If YOU really, REALLY like something, it's practically a guarantee that somebody else does, too.
I'm kinda naively optimistic, though.
I've tried to play Vogel's games lately (I own them all on steam) but I just don't have the time and focus like I used to for enjoying them. It makes me sad. I played the Exile series over a few years in high school, long hours of my summer spent in his amazing world. I think maybe I can't recapture that magical feeling of the first time I played them, so the newer ones just don't seem the same to me.
I wish Blades of Avernum had done better. Blades of Exile was one of my favorite games. There were some community scenarios that were just so amazingly good. I think if I'd had some way to port them over as well it would have worked out a lot better.
I wish Blades of Avernum had done better. Blades of Exile was one of my favorite games. There were some community scenarios that were just so amazingly good. I think if I'd had some way to port them over as well it would have worked out a lot better.
I have the same problem. The Exile series were some of my favorite games growing up (especially Exile III). But I haven't been able to really focus on Avernum. I keep telling myself to play through it, but it just doesn't feel the same. I have to assume it's because I personally have changed, and if I were introduced to Exile today I'd probably have some choice words about the UI. But the nostalgia factor is really high.
I played the original on my 486-DX2 and loved it. Countless hours I played that. I just picked up the demo of the remake (Avernum: Escape from the Pit) on my Windows tablet, and it works perfectly. It's not made for touch in any way, but the touch mostly just works. There are only a handful of situations where I wish the controls were improved, but the UI, while not modern, works just fine.
Try the remake. The demo is free.
Try the remake. The demo is free.
I actually bought Avernum: Escape from the Pit on both my iPad and on Steam. And I still haven't put more than an hour into it (on either platform).
Really, I think the biggest difference is just that I don't have as much time to play games as I did growing up, and there are exponentially more games now that demand my attention than there were back then.
Really, I think the biggest difference is just that I don't have as much time to play games as I did growing up, and there are exponentially more games now that demand my attention than there were back then.
This, I can't seem to swallow them anymore as I used to.
I grew up and learned english thanks to the Avernum series, but now it seems I can't get through it because I lose interest.Tho, it might be because I played it so many times I can remember a lot of stuff.
But in the end, the story and the world is so damn fascinating, and how it changes in real time is really damn awesome.
But in the end, the story and the world is so damn fascinating, and how it changes in real time is really damn awesome.
The Avernum games play pretty well on my iPad. If you're having focus troubles, I'd try them there.
I have a guarded respect for Jeff Vogel's games, but having played the Avernum series quite a bit, I'd say part of the trick here is being closer to "making the same game 22 times" (or the same 4 games 5.5 times each). Certainly Avernum feels like a rogue-like with a better story, better UI and a more solid gameplay mechanic. However, it never really rose much beyond that for me.
I'm glad he's doing what he's doing and doing well at it, but this is a very conservative approach to making games and IMO rather redundant with commercial game development. If I just want to trek around a big, semi-open world and do the same damn thing over and over building a character, there's a half-dozen Bethesda games that let me do it in 3D or approximately 3000 Roguelikes.
Generally the effort of playing an indie game to me is only rewarded when they show me something I haven't seen before - and there's real possibility in these kind of lo-fi games for emergent behaviors and cool gameplay that isn't being strangled by the huge content pipeline of a commercial game (where anything that happens has to be brilliantly animated and at least reasonably voiced by someone, making it unlikely that too many emergent 'surprises' can happen).
I'm glad he's doing what he's doing and doing well at it, but this is a very conservative approach to making games and IMO rather redundant with commercial game development. If I just want to trek around a big, semi-open world and do the same damn thing over and over building a character, there's a half-dozen Bethesda games that let me do it in 3D or approximately 3000 Roguelikes.
Generally the effort of playing an indie game to me is only rewarded when they show me something I haven't seen before - and there's real possibility in these kind of lo-fi games for emergent behaviors and cool gameplay that isn't being strangled by the huge content pipeline of a commercial game (where anything that happens has to be brilliantly animated and at least reasonably voiced by someone, making it unlikely that too many emergent 'surprises' can happen).
> It’s terrifying. I counted more than 100 indie games on show there. The video game industry does not need 100 games a year total. Let alone your roguelike 2D platformer puzzle-stealth game.
I don't know if this is true. It seems like it is though. It's what keeps game development a hobby for me. I'm decades too late to the scene now with hundreds of games being released every couple of months. That's a lot of pressure if you're going to try and make a living off of it with a mortgage, retirement savings, kids, and the whole nine yards.
I don't know if this is true. It seems like it is though. It's what keeps game development a hobby for me. I'm decades too late to the scene now with hundreds of games being released every couple of months. That's a lot of pressure if you're going to try and make a living off of it with a mortgage, retirement savings, kids, and the whole nine yards.
Yeah, if you want to make a modest living, let's say $40k+, it seems like you have to make accessible games and pray that one of them is a decent hit with the general population. If you make deeper games with a slow-growing fan base, it probably needs to start as a hobby for the first ten or more years.
I spent so much time during high school playing Exile 3. I had forgotten about it and this article made me really excited to learn that the game designer/developer is still going strong. I have got to look into all his released games and see what I've missed
I don't get how he can be that productive. Just the non-programming things like creating artwork and deciding on game mechanics and plotlines sound like they could occupy someone for years. Now throw in the game engine programming.
From some of his comments it sounds like he hires contractors.
He also does a lot of rewrites ... takes older hits and revises them for modern systems.
Exile was great. Good to see Vogel is still out there making games.
I've made more than that and spread over a longer period of time, and probably at a higher average frequency as well. It definitely helps if its a passion and hobby, not just for money. Though a few of my own were commercial/public and did sell.
Looks like a one game made 22 times :)
You're joking but there's no shame in having a lot of similarity between games when that's what your audience wants.
Vogel's games are based on a few different iterations of his in-house RPG game engines and he has remade/updated his most popular Exile/Avernum series in each generation of the game engine so some of them are very nearly the same game.
And they're fantastic. Dated looking and punishing but expansive and detailed and intricate.
Vogel's games are based on a few different iterations of his in-house RPG game engines and he has remade/updated his most popular Exile/Avernum series in each generation of the game engine so some of them are very nearly the same game.
And they're fantastic. Dated looking and punishing but expansive and detailed and intricate.
He has defended in the past his strategy of iterating over the same idea and keep his fan base happy with a solid product.
I remember reading a post by Jeff were he mentions that instead of redoing all graphics and art in each new chapter of his series, he prefers adding content in other areas like gameplay and story, and his customers love that.
I remember reading a post by Jeff were he mentions that instead of redoing all graphics and art in each new chapter of his series, he prefers adding content in other areas like gameplay and story, and his customers love that.
A popular strategy, as used by big franchises like Madden or Call of Duty.
You could say the same thing about a lot of big name games. To me, all WW2 shooters are the same game. All grimdark shooters with sticky cover systems are the same game.
A genre is not a game.
You have to admit they look really similar though. Just google some of the games mentioned: Nethergate, Geneforge and Avernum.
All the articles on HN look the same, identical ASCII character set, English prose...
I like his games and have spent some money on them over the last 20 years, never regretted it.
They are not focused to appeal superficially visually. Someone who solely ranks games by polygon count would be horribly disappointed. Thats just not his market.
I like his games and have spent some money on them over the last 20 years, never regretted it.
They are not focused to appeal superficially visually. Someone who solely ranks games by polygon count would be horribly disappointed. Thats just not his market.
> All the articles on HN look the same, identical ASCII character set, English prose...
Not a very good comparison since most games do not look like this, while most written texts do. I'm not saying the games are bad anyway. I'm actually hyped to try them out.
Not a very good comparison since most games do not look like this, while most written texts do. I'm not saying the games are bad anyway. I'm actually hyped to try them out.
They're all good games. And computer game sequels are nothing like movie sequels. Games get the chance to do the same thing better, more conveniently, with better graphics.
Sean O' Connor is another great indie games developer, with a bit of a more varied repertoire (1). Some of his stuff is now available for iOS - Slay is my favourite. I'm fascinated by these guys. They're great holdouts from the early days of computer games when any kid could develop a game in their bedroom and make a living out of it - and they're still doing it!
(1) http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/
(1) http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/
Yup. His Critical Mass is possibly my favourite game of all time; more than any other, it really captures the "a minute to learn, a lifetime to master" ideal.
I recently purchased a copy of Escape from the Pit out of curiosity and one thing that struck me was that most of the sound effects seem like they were ripped directly from Infinity Engine games. The Icewind Dale series, to be more precise. I don't think there is any relation between the creator of this franchise and the IE games, does anyone know why this is the case?
If you're talking about Exile: Escape from the Pit, it predates Icewind Dale by 5 years.
I doubt either side would intentionally rip the sounds from another game when there are relatively cheap and safer alternatives available. If you're right, it's probably a case of the same sound pack being bought and used - this type of thing happens all the time with anything related to audio.
I doubt either side would intentionally rip the sounds from another game when there are relatively cheap and safer alternatives available. If you're right, it's probably a case of the same sound pack being bought and used - this type of thing happens all the time with anything related to audio.
The version I had was the re-released version (2012) which I acquired from Steam so I cannot comment on the original game released in 1995. Regardless you are probably right about this, although it would be great if someone could find more information about the original creator of these sound files.
I don't think they changed any of the assets in the Steam versions, so you're still probably hearing the original sounds.
There are lots of very cheap high quality stock sounds that are used in a lot of games. Once you've bought a couple of these sound packs you'll hear the sounds everywhere.
Yup. In his reddit AMA a year or so ago, he said he hasn't hired a sound designer, so he buys sounds from stock packs.
Not sure about the history behind the sounds in the remake, but I don’t think there was anything nefarious about the coincidence. Using stock audio was and still is very common. There are many sound effects from the original StarCraft – such as Terran buildings lifting off or Terran Academy active sound – that I hear in other games and movies, for example.
Props to Jeff Vogel for surviving (and succeeding) for two decades. I remember enjoying the Exile sharewares back in the 1990s. I'm glad his company's art style hasn't improved that much. :-) Gameplay is king, after all.
Jeff Vogel's blog is great. He writes copious amounts about the indie game market and the "war" against free-to-play games.
ZUN (太田順也)[1] may only be on the 14th game in his "Touhou Project" series of danmaku[2] games, he that does include drawing all the art, composting the music (apx a CD worth per-game?), etc. When you add in the fighting game variants, experimental puzzle games, etc, that he released in the spare time between the main-series games, you end up with one of the most project histories that I've ever seen.
The scale of the impact his games have had is shocking. Fans of ZUN's work are so widespread, you've probably seen some of the art, covers[3], or some of the fan works that it inspired. If you were near any amount of Anime fandom in the last decade, then you've seen a lot of stuff based on ZUN's work.
That said, a lot of people haven't actually played his original games, which are very impressive. They may seem impossible[4] at first, but they have a certain meditative quality once you get past the initial shock, and can be (in my opinion) surprisingly effective at tricking the player into a "flow"-style mental state.
[1] http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Team_Shanghai_Alice
[2] http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Danmaku
[3] For example, the youtube suggestions for this well-known cover of Bad Apple ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzEUeWnV73U ) is full of people being creative with jsut that one song. Some of are surprisingly talented ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7uwOp0Yck )
[4] Just don't play it on "lunatic" difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eJ...
The scale of the impact his games have had is shocking. Fans of ZUN's work are so widespread, you've probably seen some of the art, covers[3], or some of the fan works that it inspired. If you were near any amount of Anime fandom in the last decade, then you've seen a lot of stuff based on ZUN's work.
That said, a lot of people haven't actually played his original games, which are very impressive. They may seem impossible[4] at first, but they have a certain meditative quality once you get past the initial shock, and can be (in my opinion) surprisingly effective at tricking the player into a "flow"-style mental state.
[1] http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Team_Shanghai_Alice
[2] http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Danmaku
[3] For example, the youtube suggestions for this well-known cover of Bad Apple ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzEUeWnV73U ) is full of people being creative with jsut that one song. Some of are surprisingly talented ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7uwOp0Yck )
[4] Just don't play it on "lunatic" difficulty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=eJ...
Touhou is amazing. I don't really care for the games, but the community around it is huge and creative. ZUN's music is great, but the community also creates their own versions, in so many different genres.
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I'm one of those people that don't care much for the fandom, but love the games. Perfect Cherry Blossom is probably my #2 shmup of all time, just after Ikaruga.
> Just don't play it on "lunatic" difficulty
Lunatic? I can't even beat a game on normal...
Lunatic? I can't even beat a game on normal...
"I think a lot of game designers are so tight-assed and want everything to be so balanced and so super under control — I think that’s a bad instinct. We’re making games. We should allow them to go crazy sometimes."
This goes to blizzard
This goes to blizzard
Definitely. And it has to do with the MMOfication of everything.
I'm playing Baldur's Gate 2, and the things you can do as a player in that game are just absurd. You can stop time. You can be permanently invisible and kill bosses without ever being detected. You can summon extremely overpowered monsters.
It's honestly so refreshing to have unique abilities. World of Warcraft ruined a generation of RPG design because devs believed that everything had to be "balanced", whatever that means. So we have a bunch of uninspired game mechanics in a pretty shell.
I'm glad to see there's people still acknowledging that games do not have to be fair or sane or balanced. Their beauty is in their madness.
And yes, a wizard who can cast Project Image, Spell Immunity: Abjuration, Spell Immunity: Divination, Improved Invisibility, Time Stop, Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, Power Word: Stun and Power Word: Kill is not comparable to a Fighter with a big sword, and he shouldn't be. Attempts to make the two "balanced" just become absurd, as World of Warcraft has shown.
I'm playing Baldur's Gate 2, and the things you can do as a player in that game are just absurd. You can stop time. You can be permanently invisible and kill bosses without ever being detected. You can summon extremely overpowered monsters.
It's honestly so refreshing to have unique abilities. World of Warcraft ruined a generation of RPG design because devs believed that everything had to be "balanced", whatever that means. So we have a bunch of uninspired game mechanics in a pretty shell.
I'm glad to see there's people still acknowledging that games do not have to be fair or sane or balanced. Their beauty is in their madness.
And yes, a wizard who can cast Project Image, Spell Immunity: Abjuration, Spell Immunity: Divination, Improved Invisibility, Time Stop, Abi Dalzim's Horrid Wilting, Power Word: Stun and Power Word: Kill is not comparable to a Fighter with a big sword, and he shouldn't be. Attempts to make the two "balanced" just become absurd, as World of Warcraft has shown.
A player shouldn't have to play your game just to learn in the end game that their fighter isnt going to cut it and they'll have to reroll as a wizard. That sucks (and is bad game design). Things shouldn't be perfectly balanced, but all play styles should be equally viable.
I wouldn't said it's inherently bad game design, different people have different preferences. Here's a good blog post discussing such decisions.
http://nethack4.org/blog/strategy-headroom.html
http://nethack4.org/blog/strategy-headroom.html
I mean but one has to expect this. In what sane world is a wizard and a fighter going to be equivalent?
I think the main thing as pointed out is that in seeking balance a lot of 'fun' or 'interesting' elements have to be thrown out.
I think the main thing as pointed out is that in seeking balance a lot of 'fun' or 'interesting' elements have to be thrown out.
It's fine if your world is designed this way, but in that case you shouldn't be allowed to play as a fighter. Do it like Magicka, say, and offer your players their choice of wizards.
On the other hand, there are things warriors can do that mages cannot. For example, in many fantasy texts, wizards are social outcasts and warriors are anywhere between accepted (but maybe not highly regarded) members of society all the way through respected members of the court. A warrior and a wizard might not make sense going head to head in combat, but they occupy different places in the social structure.
In a tabletop RPG, you can represent this easily. I'm sad more games don't play with this social/physical power dynamic.
Low level wizards are incredibly weak, and are basically free kills for anything, fighter or otherwise. It's only if they survive into high levels that they become demigods. Most of the spells I mentioned aren't available till the very end of the game.
This makes sense, as mastery of the Weave grants powers that are physically impossible to perform within the world's natural laws.
Magic by definition is bending/breaking the rules of the universe, and as such it should feel like it if you spend the countless hours needed to master it and persevere to the end. It took me dozens of hours of reading the spell descriptions from scrolls to just understand how spells interacted and worked together. It would have been far easier to say "screw it" and go with a fighter or paladin that focuses on disrupting enemy magic users. But I stuck with it, and am glad I did because using the magic system in BG2 is immensely satisfying. It requires an absurd amount of knowledge and expertise. It rewards future time orientation, patience and planning over impulsive "give me whats best right now".
Fighter and wizard wouldn't be very different if they were equally as effective from level 1 to level cap. They'd just be the same class with different variations of the same skills...which is exactly what happened in WoW.
Furthermore, unless you're soloing BG2, you have a party of six consisting of a variety of classes. Therefore, you'd never have to re-roll as a mage, because there would be a mage in your party ready to make up for any magical shortcomings you may have as a fighter. Your role then becomes keeping him safe and taking care of the less magically inclined enemies.
The MMOification I mentioned also has this issue of only allowing you the control of one character. This means all characters must be jack-of-all-trades, because otherwise someone will have to be stuck doing the less sexy roles such as tanking, healing or buffing/debuffing. Or in the case of the BG2 wizard, being completely useless for half the game.
Multiplayer game design has a long way to go before it reaches the wonders achieved in the past decade in single player games.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that enemy wizards also turn all of your strengths against you, because the player does not have any particularly special powers that enemies are denied. In fact, the player is at a far lower level for most of the game than enemies encountered and must rely on wits alone to survive most fights. There's a mod (Sword Coast Stratagems) that enhances enemy AI, and it is universally acclaimed as making BG2 into one of the most difficult games in existence. Every fight becomes a high stakes chess match...one small mistake leads to instant death. Aside from Dark/Demon Souls, I don't know of any games that come close to this level of tactical difficulty. I find these experiences to be immensely rewarding, and have a hard time playing mainstream games because they seriously lack this element.
This makes sense, as mastery of the Weave grants powers that are physically impossible to perform within the world's natural laws.
Magic by definition is bending/breaking the rules of the universe, and as such it should feel like it if you spend the countless hours needed to master it and persevere to the end. It took me dozens of hours of reading the spell descriptions from scrolls to just understand how spells interacted and worked together. It would have been far easier to say "screw it" and go with a fighter or paladin that focuses on disrupting enemy magic users. But I stuck with it, and am glad I did because using the magic system in BG2 is immensely satisfying. It requires an absurd amount of knowledge and expertise. It rewards future time orientation, patience and planning over impulsive "give me whats best right now".
Fighter and wizard wouldn't be very different if they were equally as effective from level 1 to level cap. They'd just be the same class with different variations of the same skills...which is exactly what happened in WoW.
Furthermore, unless you're soloing BG2, you have a party of six consisting of a variety of classes. Therefore, you'd never have to re-roll as a mage, because there would be a mage in your party ready to make up for any magical shortcomings you may have as a fighter. Your role then becomes keeping him safe and taking care of the less magically inclined enemies.
The MMOification I mentioned also has this issue of only allowing you the control of one character. This means all characters must be jack-of-all-trades, because otherwise someone will have to be stuck doing the less sexy roles such as tanking, healing or buffing/debuffing. Or in the case of the BG2 wizard, being completely useless for half the game.
Multiplayer game design has a long way to go before it reaches the wonders achieved in the past decade in single player games.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that enemy wizards also turn all of your strengths against you, because the player does not have any particularly special powers that enemies are denied. In fact, the player is at a far lower level for most of the game than enemies encountered and must rely on wits alone to survive most fights. There's a mod (Sword Coast Stratagems) that enhances enemy AI, and it is universally acclaimed as making BG2 into one of the most difficult games in existence. Every fight becomes a high stakes chess match...one small mistake leads to instant death. Aside from Dark/Demon Souls, I don't know of any games that come close to this level of tactical difficulty. I find these experiences to be immensely rewarding, and have a hard time playing mainstream games because they seriously lack this element.
One of the things I liked about BG was that it faithfully implemented all kinds of loopholes in the AD&D rules (which have since been "balanced" more-or-less out of existence). E.g. the optimal way to create magic users was as two-classed (indeed the female character you pick up is designed to be turned into a two-classed mage). So you go to level 5, say, as a warrior, then switch to mage (starting at level 1 all over again, but with warrior hit points).
Indeed, I didn't comment on multi or dual classing because that just changes everything. I haven't played any of the 3rd/4th/5th edition games, so I am unfamiliar with those rule sets. But I wouldn't be surprised if multi and dual classing were heavily nerfed. They really are just too much...unless your character is actually a demigod.
But again, the fact that they allow you so much freedom in creating your character is incredible. You can even triple class! I sincerely miss this kind of freedom combined with the incredible depth of the AD&D 2nd ed rules.
I'm looking forward to Pillars of Eternity, but I'm quite sure that mechanically it won't be nearly as fun as BG2. Those developers just know better than to implement such insane mechanics again. Which is why it won't be nearly as entertaining.
But again, the fact that they allow you so much freedom in creating your character is incredible. You can even triple class! I sincerely miss this kind of freedom combined with the incredible depth of the AD&D 2nd ed rules.
I'm looking forward to Pillars of Eternity, but I'm quite sure that mechanically it won't be nearly as fun as BG2. Those developers just know better than to implement such insane mechanics again. Which is why it won't be nearly as entertaining.
Starting with 3rd edition, two-classing is completely nerfed. Multi-classing is the norm (each time you go up a level you pick a class to level in) but unless you pick highly compatible classes you just create a basket case.
Yes, I love how unbalanced Baldur's Gate 2 sometimes is. I think this makes it actually a great game.
The problem with emergence in MMOs is that once an emergent trick is found, it becomes an exploit, and then the emergent behavior has to be eliminated somehow, for the good of the game.
For example, in the MMO I am creating, you can catch bats, hold them for a while, and then they become your pets (if you don't hold them long enough, they remain wild). Some people gathered up hundreds of bats, then released them in a small room. When other players came into that room, they were swarmed and die. After letting the trap sit for a while, they would return, cast a fear spell to disperse the bats, and then collect the loot.
It was a cool trick, and probably super fun for the players involved. But, if I left the exploit in, it would be happening all the time, and would wreck the game for everyone else. In single player games, the worst a player can do is beat the game using an exploit, which is not necessarily bad.
For example, in the MMO I am creating, you can catch bats, hold them for a while, and then they become your pets (if you don't hold them long enough, they remain wild). Some people gathered up hundreds of bats, then released them in a small room. When other players came into that room, they were swarmed and die. After letting the trap sit for a while, they would return, cast a fear spell to disperse the bats, and then collect the loot.
It was a cool trick, and probably super fun for the players involved. But, if I left the exploit in, it would be happening all the time, and would wreck the game for everyone else. In single player games, the worst a player can do is beat the game using an exploit, which is not necessarily bad.
I know I'll sound like a broken record, but honestly that's why WoW got worse and worse over time. As balance improved fun went down.
It seemed like in classic there were all kinds of hidden tricks, and bugs to exploit. Most of which were pretty harmless.
However the best players knew all the tricks and used them to their advantage. If you wanted to do some of the top tier content you essentially were required to know tons of little tricks to min/max the game.
Now everything is super streamline, no tricks, everything is documented. But the game is a little less fun. Instead of finding fun, we now have to be handed it. Plus the game is orders of magnitude easier... When was the last time you died in a 5 man?
It seemed like in classic there were all kinds of hidden tricks, and bugs to exploit. Most of which were pretty harmless.
However the best players knew all the tricks and used them to their advantage. If you wanted to do some of the top tier content you essentially were required to know tons of little tricks to min/max the game.
Now everything is super streamline, no tricks, everything is documented. But the game is a little less fun. Instead of finding fun, we now have to be handed it. Plus the game is orders of magnitude easier... When was the last time you died in a 5 man?
>As balance improved fun went down.
I don't think balance ruined WoW, I think it was that Blizzard just kept dumbing it down.
Once they decided that every single player gets to do every single thing in the game it was ruined because you have to make everything so accessible. I remember killing C'Thun... we had a diagram on where to stand, responsibilities for which stalks to kill and in which order, hell, even running into the room wrong could wipe the raid. We were the only guild on the server who could clear AQ40. It was challenging and it was fun. Now 25 strangers can queue up in raid finder and just mow down every boss, usually without even knowing a strat. Just move out of the fire and cycle your 3 buttons.
All of the complexity has been relentlessly striped out of Wow. What's left is a game where you can logon, join a raid, kill the biggest boss in the game, and logoff all within an hour or so.
They took chess and turned it into tic-tac-toe.
I don't think balance ruined WoW, I think it was that Blizzard just kept dumbing it down.
Once they decided that every single player gets to do every single thing in the game it was ruined because you have to make everything so accessible. I remember killing C'Thun... we had a diagram on where to stand, responsibilities for which stalks to kill and in which order, hell, even running into the room wrong could wipe the raid. We were the only guild on the server who could clear AQ40. It was challenging and it was fun. Now 25 strangers can queue up in raid finder and just mow down every boss, usually without even knowing a strat. Just move out of the fire and cycle your 3 buttons.
All of the complexity has been relentlessly striped out of Wow. What's left is a game where you can logon, join a raid, kill the biggest boss in the game, and logoff all within an hour or so.
They took chess and turned it into tic-tac-toe.
Actually the high end fights now are, in general, far more technical than they were in vanilla WoW (BWL, AQ40, Nax). They just offer dumbed down versions ("LFR") for the masses -- which is fair enough. Everyone pays for the content, why shouldn't they get to see it? It's no different from "please don't hurt me" difficulty levels in FPSs.
My big problem with WoW is the reduction of classes to three roles (tank, healer, DPS) where class is really just a skin on the role, and the reliance on repetition. (We must have cleared some 40-man raid zones over fifty times.) Scripted technical boss fights are, in my opinion, the equivalent of shooters where you need to memorize where every enemy will appear -- it's "challenging" but it's not interesting.
My big problem with WoW is the reduction of classes to three roles (tank, healer, DPS) where class is really just a skin on the role, and the reliance on repetition. (We must have cleared some 40-man raid zones over fifty times.) Scripted technical boss fights are, in my opinion, the equivalent of shooters where you need to memorize where every enemy will appear -- it's "challenging" but it's not interesting.
What's wrong with their changes? You sound like a nutcase if you think that having to coordinate diagrams on where to stand, and discussing the required method for "running into the room", are fun whatsoever. Video games are not chess... except maybe video game versions of chess. Excluding 90% of the population from enjoying these areas of the game would be a horrible plan. When the amount of time and effort needed to play a game requires one to be unemployed and without any worldly responsibilities... that's just going too far. A game like WoW should not encourage people to drop out of school or lose their job because they need to spend 3 months of 18 hours a day trying to figure out how to defeat C'Thun.
>Excluding 90% of the population from enjoying these areas of the game would be a horrible plan.
Welcome to the golden age of Entitlement where everyone thinks they deserve a trophy no matter how badly they perform.
This is the attitude of a generation of kids raised on participation trophies who expect rewards just for showing up rather than for accomplishments.
Welcome to the golden age of Entitlement where everyone thinks they deserve a trophy no matter how badly they perform.
This is the attitude of a generation of kids raised on participation trophies who expect rewards just for showing up rather than for accomplishments.
Funny you should mention that. I wrote this story, and Jeff spoke about Blizzard specifically (in a clip that didn't make the cut - lord that story was long already). Paraphrasing heavily, he said that they're one of the companies currently exerting the tightest control -- but that they're also one of the best companies in the world for taking an incredibly complex game experience and making it available and accessible to, as commenters above point out, 25 random people on a moment's notice. He saw it as one thing following from the other.
StarCraft isn't just a game. It's a sport. When you're creating a sport, you have to eliminate factors outside of player skill that could affect the outcome. That's why the characters in vs. fighters, and the races/factions in RTSes, have to be balanced w.r.t. each other.
Your definition of a sport would exclude Magic: the Gathering, and I guess also poker. I don't think I agree with a definition that claims StartCraft is a sport but excludes those.
May I ask why you didn't say Hearthstone as your card game example? Seems very fitting: also from Blizzard and has one of the biggest e-sport scenes at the moment.
I love finding little tricks like this. I recall playing a D&D gold box game and realizing you could prevent trolls from respawning by standing on their corpse.
Of course, things go quickly sideways when your fighters that are spawn camping the trolls get knocked out...
Of course, things go quickly sideways when your fighters that are spawn camping the trolls get knocked out...
…and most of the industry I think. It’s very hard to find a game these days where emergent gameplay exists because developers have been getting paranoid about players not experiencing their game they want them to experience it.
very hard to find a game these days where emergent gameplay exists
Minecraft?
The internet has a role to play in this, for good or ill. One person's emergent gameplay is another person's exploit. Especially in multiplayer games this makes it a huge risk. In MMOs any unusual gameplay is quickly swept away by a horde of minmaxers - everyone insists on following the optimal path, whatever it might be.
It seems that emergent and scripted mix very badly. If you want emergent gameplay the game has to be built entirely around that, like Minecraft or KSP.
Minecraft?
The internet has a role to play in this, for good or ill. One person's emergent gameplay is another person's exploit. Especially in multiplayer games this makes it a huge risk. In MMOs any unusual gameplay is quickly swept away by a horde of minmaxers - everyone insists on following the optimal path, whatever it might be.
It seems that emergent and scripted mix very badly. If you want emergent gameplay the game has to be built entirely around that, like Minecraft or KSP.
Emergence is a weird concept. I've played a lot of Minecraft and I wouldn't consider it to have a whole lot of emergence. It's certainly open-ended, but once you learn all the gameplay mechanics, the game gets a bit flat. You have to keep yourself interested in it somehow via community or huge building projects or whatever.
It's been awhile since I played Dwarf Fortress, maybe it's changed a lot since then, but I didn't find a lot of emergence there either. Once you get survival down, you have to make your own challenges. That to me is the exact opposite of emergent gameplay. Dwarf Fortress is the ultimate fantasy simulator, but as a game it's quite flat. A game should be able to hold your interest using nothing more than its mechanics if you want to say it has emergence.
The classic example of emergent behavior is Conway's game of life. The mechanics you see when you start playing the game, are exactly the same mechanics that keeps you playing the game years later. There's a depth to the flatness. But it's not a game. It doesn't present you with hurdles to overcome and a path to winning. It's emergent, but it's not emergent gameplay.
The other example is Nethack. There emergence seems to arise from the sheer combinatorial magnitude of the interactions that are possible. Kill a cockatrice and swing it's body around as a weapon, stoning all in one hit. Make sure you're wearing gloves. Don't descend stairs while you're holding a cockatrice and are burdened, or you'll fall down and the corpse will land on you.
There's also Angband. Here strategy and tactics plays the largest role. You spend a lot of time dying learning different ways of handling the games many, many, many ways of killing you. You learn the finer points of when it's okay to use a teleportation staff or when that's too dangerous and you have to use a scroll of teleport level. The actual difference between the two escape devices is very fine, but having one or the other, and the knowledge and experience to know which to use, provides a hurdle any budding player will have to jump before they can become a good player. There are dozens of these hurdles to learn, all evolved over decades of development.
Roguelikes have been the traditional bastion of emergent gameplay, with simulators and world-building games providing a different kind of combinatorial experience, another sort of emergent gameplay arises in fighting games. Huge depth of gameplay dynamics arise from little invisible boxes moving across the screen. Changing the amount of time an attack lasts by a single frame can make a huge difference in how that character fares against certain opponents.
It appears to me that each form of game, be it the top-down roguelike, RTS, fighting, FPS, has to find its own way to be interesting. MMOs come in many shapes and sizes, people play them for different reasons. I think the ultimate reason why you don't find emergence in MMOs is because combinatorial effects don't work as well when you're compounding human intelligence rather than algorithms. You can strike a careful, delicate balance game design-wise when all you have is one source of intelligence to contend with as opposed to thousands.
It's been awhile since I played Dwarf Fortress, maybe it's changed a lot since then, but I didn't find a lot of emergence there either. Once you get survival down, you have to make your own challenges. That to me is the exact opposite of emergent gameplay. Dwarf Fortress is the ultimate fantasy simulator, but as a game it's quite flat. A game should be able to hold your interest using nothing more than its mechanics if you want to say it has emergence.
The classic example of emergent behavior is Conway's game of life. The mechanics you see when you start playing the game, are exactly the same mechanics that keeps you playing the game years later. There's a depth to the flatness. But it's not a game. It doesn't present you with hurdles to overcome and a path to winning. It's emergent, but it's not emergent gameplay.
The other example is Nethack. There emergence seems to arise from the sheer combinatorial magnitude of the interactions that are possible. Kill a cockatrice and swing it's body around as a weapon, stoning all in one hit. Make sure you're wearing gloves. Don't descend stairs while you're holding a cockatrice and are burdened, or you'll fall down and the corpse will land on you.
There's also Angband. Here strategy and tactics plays the largest role. You spend a lot of time dying learning different ways of handling the games many, many, many ways of killing you. You learn the finer points of when it's okay to use a teleportation staff or when that's too dangerous and you have to use a scroll of teleport level. The actual difference between the two escape devices is very fine, but having one or the other, and the knowledge and experience to know which to use, provides a hurdle any budding player will have to jump before they can become a good player. There are dozens of these hurdles to learn, all evolved over decades of development.
Roguelikes have been the traditional bastion of emergent gameplay, with simulators and world-building games providing a different kind of combinatorial experience, another sort of emergent gameplay arises in fighting games. Huge depth of gameplay dynamics arise from little invisible boxes moving across the screen. Changing the amount of time an attack lasts by a single frame can make a huge difference in how that character fares against certain opponents.
It appears to me that each form of game, be it the top-down roguelike, RTS, fighting, FPS, has to find its own way to be interesting. MMOs come in many shapes and sizes, people play them for different reasons. I think the ultimate reason why you don't find emergence in MMOs is because combinatorial effects don't work as well when you're compounding human intelligence rather than algorithms. You can strike a careful, delicate balance game design-wise when all you have is one source of intelligence to contend with as opposed to thousands.
"At the same time, when I was young and just getting started and didn’t know what I was doing, I had a freeness and a looseness and an energy that I don’t really have anymore. I didn’t know how anything I was doing would turn out, so I just threw everything in there, and through some weird alchemy, it worked.
A lot of it was just, by modern game design standards, broken."
This totally resonates with me (replacing "game" with some other domain). I feel like I'm 100 times better at programming than in my early days but unfortunately also 100 times slower. I'm probably too much aware of what can possibly go wrong with every line of code I write (or maybe it is just getting older and/or losing interest).
A lot of it was just, by modern game design standards, broken."
This totally resonates with me (replacing "game" with some other domain). I feel like I'm 100 times better at programming than in my early days but unfortunately also 100 times slower. I'm probably too much aware of what can possibly go wrong with every line of code I write (or maybe it is just getting older and/or losing interest).
So envious of this dude, even though I never want to be an indie developer (I can't even program). He gets to work the way he choses, on something he cares about. I commute to a shitty open office where I write bullshit that my boss approves. I'm sure his life isn't all glamorous, and his success didn't come easily. But still.
He was one of my original inspirations to become an indie developer. Still working on the successful indie developer part.
The grass is always greener -- the nice thing about going in to a shitty office is getting paid. I love the freedom I have right now, but the struggle to make it sustainable is incredibly stressful.
I don't know anything, any more. I don't know whether what I'm making is any good. There's a million ways that it's not as good as what's in my head. I don't know if I should've devoted more time to a different project, etc. etc.
The grass is always greener -- the nice thing about going in to a shitty office is getting paid. I love the freedom I have right now, but the struggle to make it sustainable is incredibly stressful.
I don't know anything, any more. I don't know whether what I'm making is any good. There's a million ways that it's not as good as what's in my head. I don't know if I should've devoted more time to a different project, etc. etc.
Unfortunately this is the darkside of chasing one's passion.
Take some consulting work? Limit that to a couple of days a week to preserve your time for your own projects?
Thanks for this article, I really needed this! Jeff Vogel was a great inspiration to me, but somehow I'd forgotten about him.
I turned 39 today. I have two kids, a mortgage, and luckily a tolerant wife with a good job. I started working on my own indie games in May 2014. Before that I was making 6 figures. This year I'm going to struggle to make 40k. If you count business expenses, that's closer to 20k. I'm in the trough right now.
I turned 39 today. I have two kids, a mortgage, and luckily a tolerant wife with a good job. I started working on my own indie games in May 2014. Before that I was making 6 figures. This year I'm going to struggle to make 40k. If you count business expenses, that's closer to 20k. I'm in the trough right now.
Good luck!
I released an indie game in 1994. Three of us worked on it and two of us had high pressure jobs by the time it shipped (we'd worked on the bulk of the game in easier times). For its time, the game was pretty successful but it didn't make us very much money and so we went on to more lucrative pastures.
It's very tough just to get noticed -- and it's far harder now. We were in Australia at the time, the web pretty much didn't exist (we released initially as shareware, later as "commercial", although the shareware release made us more money).
I released an indie game in 1994. Three of us worked on it and two of us had high pressure jobs by the time it shipped (we'd worked on the bulk of the game in easier times). For its time, the game was pretty successful but it didn't make us very much money and so we went on to more lucrative pastures.
It's very tough just to get noticed -- and it's far harder now. We were in Australia at the time, the web pretty much didn't exist (we released initially as shareware, later as "commercial", although the shareware release made us more money).
Hi there Javabu, I'm starting a similar path, I have not released anything but I know a lot of Unity and Unreal programming by now. I'm interested in working together with people with greater programming experience than me and you sure are one of them, so if you can get in touch that would be great (ivanca => gmail)
One of things I can offer is access to great 3d/2d artists cheaper than those in the US, I could even cover the 100% of their costs if we agree something out that benefits us all.
One of things I can offer is access to great 3d/2d artists cheaper than those in the US, I could even cover the 100% of their costs if we agree something out that benefits us all.
I noodle around with indie game development on the side, and one thing that's remarkably hard to find are good, reliable artists. I've had them drop off the face of the earth before even getting paid!
(Which is to say, if anybody happens to be or know art folks looking for a little bit of work, get in touch? Email's in my profile.)
(Which is to say, if anybody happens to be or know art folks looking for a little bit of work, get in touch? Email's in my profile.)
I really feel that this is a good time to advertise the website I am creating. Basically, it's an indie appstore for indie developers who feel that they are not getting enough exposure on other platforms and wish to go one step further. Contact me at <myusername> at outlook.com if you are interested. I will probably do a show HN soon. Links in my profile!
It sounds like you're well on your way--good luck!
(It must be harder to go from 0-40k than from 40-100k+.)
(It must be harder to go from 0-40k than from 40-100k+.)
Post a link. I'm looking for a new indie game right now...
I'll be demo'ing a new version of Neon Jack at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in a week and a half. Currently, the best place for new info is the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NeonJackGame
You can get an old build of the game off my website (http://www.shinyfish.com/neonjack/), but frankly it's a bit crap. I'd wait for the GDC build.
You can get an old build of the game off my website (http://www.shinyfish.com/neonjack/), but frankly it's a bit crap. I'd wait for the GDC build.
Jabavu, put me on your contact list. I wrote this story on Jeff; VentureBeat cares about indie games, and I'd be glad to take a look at yours. I can never make any promises - everything has to compete for limited bandwidth - but I'm always glad to look over something new (and preferably good). Contact info here: http://venturebeat.com/author/heather-newman
Thanks! I followed you on Twitter, but the email address (domain) linked to from your VB profile page seems to be to a place holder site. Is it valid?
Yep, because all I use it for is email (I have a day job, so I'm lazy about updating the brochureware.) Thanks!
For anyone looking for an indie game to play, but doesn't know where to look: Here's a place to look
https://itch.io/
https://itch.io/
I am also creating something similar, probably going to do a show HN soon!
This is something I notice as a GM in tabletop games as well, and I think it's the same phenomenon. There is a tension between creators and consumers in that the former wants to provide a specific experience but the latter cannot help but to experience things their own way.
Every experienced GM knows that players lay to waste the best plans. They miss clues and items that they needed to progress, while finding unexpected workarounds to problems that should have been more challenging. They have too little power sometimes, but then find a few good treasures or spells and suddenly have far too much power.
Dealing with this tension usually drives towards one of two solutions: either control the experience so tightly that deviation is impossible (railroading) or try desperately to roll with the changes and keep things interesting. Video games seem to largely take the former solution, probably because it's the easiest way.
But talk to gamers, and while they'll fondly remember a good story or a good game they played, it is the moments of accident where the whole thing derailed that really gets people excited and talking. Gamers like being a little too powerful, going places they weren't supposed to be. Sadly, game designers have gotten very good at conducting their railroads, but have done very little to master the improvisational artform of letting players do what they want, of feeling free and powerful but still keeping a gentle hand on the steering wheel.