NAM's How To: [YOUR PROJECT HERE!]

Hello, greetings, konichiwa, bonjour, hola, blah blah blah.
it is I, NAMKCOR, once again, teaching you how to be AWESOME!

now that we have the introductions out of the way, we can get to the subject at hand.
[YOUR PROJECT HERE!]

This will be a guide on the creation and planning of a game project, including but not limited to: Features, Story, Background, THE WORKS!

Without further ado, let us begin!

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  NUMBER 1: BLUE SKY YES YES YES! 

Spoiler for:

beautiful isn't it?  Blue, open, free, limitless...Blue...
EVERYTHING about Blue Sky is YES.
The sky is the limit, as they say.

Just write down ideas, anything good, anything that comes to mind.  there is not a single stupid idea, unless it's the one you DON'T write down!  This is the best way to get ideas for a story, or game, that otherwise you would have never thought of before.  By the time that some ideas start to work together, you'll have a story forming.

YES!

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  NUMBER 2: The Creative Leash 

Sounds kinky, doesn't it?
The Creative Leash is simple.  Give yourself boundaries, limits, walls to your endless sandbox!

Most artists and designers hate limits, fight against them with all of their might, try their hardest to destroy walls and boundaries.  This, unto itself, is counterproductive.  As then all you focus on is HOW to break them.  This gets you NOWHERE with ANYTHING.

ANIME REFERENCE TIEM!**

look at this image:

Spoiler for:

now look at this image:

Spoiler for:

when you looked at the first one, your eyes did this (whether you realize it or not):

Spoiler for:

when you looked at the second one, your eyes did this:

Spoiler for:

It's self-explanitory.  it's called FOCUS!

Give your world limits.  A time, geography, laws, etc...  Then think within the world.  Come up with events or people that would actually exist there.  Locations that would actually exist there.  A plot that could actually happen there.  Your world will make much more sense, and the limits will actually ENCOURAGE CREATIVITY, rather than limit it! 

Funny how that paradox works, eh?

**Name the Anime, win a cookie!

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  NUMBER 3: The rule of EPIC 
(AKA: Biting off more than you can chew.)

With all this yes yes yes yes and creativity, you need to keep in mind what you ACTUALLY CAN PULL OFF!
If a game is too big/long, or far too 'epic', either you'll never finish it, or it will be terrible.

This tip is very simple.  Keep your project small enough story or length-wise, that you ACTUALLY can DO SOMETHING WITH IT!

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  NUMBER 4: OC means Original Content! 

Well I like Naruto and DBZ and Bleach and Death Note I SHOULD MAKE A CROSSOVER FANGAME KYUUUU~!!!
NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! and last but not least NOOOOO!

Fan-games and Fan-fics are one thing, but massive crossover ripoff storyline jumbled fuckfests are another!

There are also less obvious versions of this terrible transgression:
"Hmm...well...it worked in Resident Evil...so if I put it in my game it should work too!"

Your game needs at least SOME shred of originality to it. This tip is subject to interpretation,
and doesn't have any measurable qualities.  Just plain and simple, keep the game YOURS, not Viz Comics'.

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  NUMBER 5: C-C-C-CLICHE BREAKERRR!!!

Cliches are going to happen, it is UNAVOIDABLE!
However, it is possible to break a cliche like a fragile child. 
And cliche alone is simply a BASE from which you can expand!

Ok, so the main character has an old grandmother..she's white haired, quiet, wrinkly, and walks with a cane.  She wears black...
STOP RIGHT THERE!

This is how cliches happen.

Let's make this more interesting.  Maybe his grandmother isn't so quiet; in fact, she's an ex-Drill Sergant!
She wears knee-length combat boots under her frilly dresses and carries her horse-whip at all times! 
Maybe she likes to tell old war stories all the time, like about her battles in the trenches, or about popping
her cherry with an artillery shell.

Now -that's- interesting.

Spice things up, don't just do the standard recycled story, be different, be unique, that's how you break a cliche!

Note: The Creative Leash STILL APPLIES to Cliche Breaking!

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  NUMBER 6: What NOT to name your game!

Pretentious Monotony: Cacaphony of the Derelict
Crystal Fantasy Tales 2: The Dragon's Star
AWESOME POSSUM KICKS DOCTOR MACHINO'S BUTT!
Macrophallic Epicaricacy I: Schizothemia

I sure hope you can tell that those are BAD examples of Game Titles.
General Rules to Follow:

1) Don't use the words Eternal, Crystal, Tales, Magic, Fantasy, Dragon, Darkness, Light, Legend, God, Divine, etc...
they've been used SO MANY TIMES it has become absolutely disgusting to see another game named
Fantasy of the Dark Crystal Song.

2) IF IT TAKES LONGER TO PRONOUNCE THE NAME OF YOUR GAME THAN IT DOES TO CLICK ON THE TOPIC, YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING WRONG!

3) Don't use Big words in an attempt to sound smart or mysterious.  It just makes you sound like an asshole.

4) Short, sweet, simple is the best.  With some relevance to the game. 
Sometimes Latin works, or Japanese, maybe Spanish.

Just make it sound GOOD.  Don't try to make it sound SMART, and don't use the aforementioned cliche words of RPG-ness.

also: thank Holk of RMRK for oompiling that list of overused game title words,
and offering a guide on game titles (this is a short summary/build off of his post)

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  NUMBER 7: Feature Creep

OH HEY COOL THAT SCRIPT LOOKS AWESOME, MAYBE IT WILL WORK WITH MY REAL TIME ACTION TACTICAL FRONT VIEW SOUL RAGE BATTLE SYSTEM!



When you make a game, plan a game, etc... you should come up with a list of features.
Browse around, find something new or interesting, maybe plan to make something yourself, sure, all well and good

OK FREEZE IT RIGHT THERE!
NO MORE NEW FEATURES!

You'll only create bugs, and prolong the game process.  And we all know most people on these sites have the attention span
of a goldfish.  The longer you take, you, or they, will become disinterested, and there goes your game!

Puzzles aren't features, btw.

Edit: as holk brought up so eloquently, this does NOT mean to flood your game with needless features.  The more complex you make your game, the harder the game will be to learn and the less people will want to play it.  Anyone ever heard of EvE online?

I hope this guide helps you along the path to planning a game.
as far as tips for execution go?

DO THE WORK AND FINISH IT ALREADY!

This is very helpful, especially rules 1,2 and 3. I never quite knew what exactly to do with my project(since I came into a dead end) before I read this. Thanks.

P.S. Nice sky picture.

I'm not a game maker, and I don't claim to be, but as a gamer, there's something I think you should add. You touched on it a little bit in the feature creep part, but there is one thing that immediately turns me off from a game: Overly complicated HUD. It's fine to have a little HP/MP status bar, or even something small to show the time of day, but when you cram your HUD with needless features, it can be more off-putting than bad maps. Imagine seeing screens for a game that look like this:



This is not something anyone would want to deal with.

1. Great tips here, NAM.

2. I also agree with what Holk said. The most I want in a HUD is a small HP/MP indicator. And that's only if my HP/MP is going to be affected a lot on the map.

3. NAM, were you a tad bit hyper when you made that? It's almost scary. ._.;

Good stuff Namkcor.

I'm not a game maker, and I don't claim to be, but as a gamer, there's something I think you should add. You touched on it a little bit in the feature creep part, but there is one thing that immediately turns me off from a game: Overly complicated HUD. It's fine to have a little HP/MP status bar, or even something small to show the time of day, but when you cram your HUD with needless features, it can be more off-putting than bad maps. Imagine seeing screens for a game that look like this:



This is not something anyone would want to deal with.

That's WoW basically.



Also, just a note: disinterested means unbiased. I think you want uninterested. :x

That was a good tutorial Nam!

Oh and on the 2nd one, i actually did that to the blank page. 

:stuff:

I think that'd fall under feature creep.

it's essentially adding too many features to the game, which ruins it.
every aspect of that hud can be considered its own feature.

though it's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up in this topic

that is also a matter of opinion, look at the XAS Hero demo, then look at BlizzABS, some people like more HUD than others, I suppose.

3. NAM, were you a tad bit hyper when you made that? It's almost scary. ._.;

lol, I wanted it to be kinda funny at the same time as it was informative.
I wrote a How To for project threads over at Chaos Project in the same way.

I'd post taht here, but Kitten already has a guide on taht, and I don't want to try and push that over.

It looks great NAM. Nice work!

Great stuff there Nam 

I think we all learned something. Probably.

I think i might have seen that dot and white thing before, but i can't think of it right now or ever, really. Sorry 

This has helped me, but I seem to have broken most of the rules >.<

Your game must be both annoying and bad.

also

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,25255.0.html

this is interesting : P
Altough I am very glad that i didn't break the title rule thing : D

Your game must be both annoying and bad.

also

http://rmrk.net/index.php/topic,25255.0.html

I showed him the other day in IRC, kinda opened it for discussion.

ahhhh, I only read last post XD didn't realize I was necroposting
please forgive me :'(