Tutorials never, learning always

Hi,

Today I will write about learning.

Games should teach us how to play. Good designed game doesn't need any tutorial.

Good and clear interface makes easy to understand where are functions that we need. When you play strategy game you won't look in building menu for changing taxes. You should have another bar or icon for that. Everything with clear and understable signs. If you know where find most of things you need, we can call this interface good and clear.

Many platformer games teach by the chalanges. The game starts with small hole to jump over. Next level has bigger, the next one shows us how to jump on walls and etc. We see the progress and we have fun when we 'win' the level. This design is very intresting, because we don't see any words. Everything we can learn by tries and fails.

What when we get this two designs make in one. Good interface and learning not by words and instructions, but by chalanges and tries are natural way how people learn. We see readable signs and icons, so it's easy to understand what it can be. We also love chalanges so we want to try and try while we win.

I love this way to learn and I hope more games will use that. Imagine learning programming in this way, will be a little funny :)

Bye,
Patys

Missed awesome - what happened?

Hi,

A few weeks ago I programmed beautiful game. I made graphics, story, only some music left to do (I don't have music skills :c ).

But what when the story is awful? What when you missed something important. This what added "awesome" to game. What when you lost it when you code everything?

So I concede to that. My game is not what I want. I missed something and this game probably never will be released.

I realized I miss source of the awesome when I end programming most stuff and when I played I saw that. This is not my game, not what I want. In my mind it looks much better.

So how to avoid this? Maybe we should write 'source of awesome' on paper and when we start coding look at that. Every time remind what the game will be, how to include all awesomeness to game. We should check the 'awesomeness' is still in the game.

I understood the game is not only mechanic and nice graphic, music, sounds. I missed why I create, why I want people to play my game. Idea, content is not everything, creator should leave some part of self. His feeling of awesome should be part of game and maybe it's reason why some games are better then others, even if game is worse we choose the game with this 'something'.

I hope this help you to don't create empty games, just for money, glory or something. Create games how will artists should do, for feelings.

This video will help you understand, maybe don't tell exactly what I wrote here, but is really similar and complement this article.

Bye and see you soon.

Quality and Idea

Hey,
Today I want to talk about ideas and quality.

I saw many games where ideas were awesome. Unfortunately often the games are pretty ugly. I don't know what make that, but games are not only code. Programmers think: "I'm coder. I don't need awesome graphic. It's just prototype." 

When game is ugly with awesome idea, the game is still ugly.
When game is nice with awesome idea, the game is AWESOME!
When game is nice with poor idea, the game is just boring.

Boring is still better then ugly. The first view is important. When you see nice start screen, you feel the game can be pretty nice. You don't need mega graphics with profesional elements. You can do it minimalistic. One simple shape with contrast color always looks good.

If you take a moment for creating some good looking stuff, it's better then code new level or something. Player will see graphics all time, it's important to create quite nice. 

When you can't draw, just find somebody who create graphic for you. Show him your ugly game. If you don't have money for that, many peoples can do it to portfolio, for free. They look on your game, not like ugly game, but like the game can look when they create new awesome graphic.

So If you think have awesome idea, just create prototype. Share it and ask for feedback, tell them you create new graphic or need somebody to do that.

Ok, now we have awesome graphic and idea. But what if idea is not good?
What when we don't know how to make it cool? I don't want to waste your time, just watch this and you understand:

And don't forgot about sounds and music. Music add many live to game. Add new layer of feelings. It add quality to games. When I started I always miss that simple thing: sounds. When I add later some sounds I was amazed. The game was better, much better. Sounds make that you can feel what you do: ohh, I touch this, ohh, it bounce; and you see and hear that. More senses are used and it make game better. You don't need to create awesome sounds, just basic, even from the internet. Simple sounds are easier to remember. Look this:

Remember: Quality is important like idea. Sometimes bad idea may become good. Just add some quality.