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Let's Make a Game!!

6 years ago1,484 words

I'd be interested in trying to develop a game based on ideas from you, the potential players!

While at university, I longed for free time because it was scarce. Now that I have nothing but free time, I'm so depressed I can barely move or think because I've got no clear project to work on.

I talked about some things I've been working on in recent posts - ∞ Embracing Eternity, most notably ∞ - but I got the impression that people weren't all that interested really. I've also been playing around with some non-game ideas that this post was originally about... but I'll talk about those some other time. People knew me for my games development in the past, and even now people still comment on these posts about MARDEK, so even though I've not finished a game in forever, it does still feel like something I could do if I put my mind to it. Or something I want to at least play around with over the coming months when there's not really much else I'll be able to do.



I've been playing this mobile game called Marvel Strike Force a lot for the past few weeks. It's very similar to a game called Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, which I played and talked about ages ago, but which I've since stopped playing for various reasons. I don't particularly care about either Star Wars or Marvel (my opinion of both is blandly neutral), but the games use turn-based battle mechanics reminiscent of the JRPGs I used to love, and it's that which has kept me interested in them.

I mention this because I've also been regularly checking the subreddit for this game (I don't exactly use Reddit and I've never participated, but it's been interesting lurking), and people are constantly going on about how the developers don't listen, how there's no communication between them and the players, how the development team is this out-of-touch money-hungry monster that's always making tone-deaf decisions about their own games and causing outrage. I've never really been a part of the wider gamer community, but I've checked some subreddits for other mobile games and the impression I get is the same, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if all gaming communities are essentially like this.

I often think when I read those posts though that it'd be interesting to make and run a game where I did directly listen to user input, so that I could make the kind of game that people actually said they wanted. I wonder whether it'd even be a good game, or whether bending to everyone's whims would be impossible and giving people what they think they want would lead to an awful experience in general. Hmm.



I've never been all that interested in gameplay as a developer. I suppose I see games more like an artist would see their art than how a toymaker would see their toys, so I think "what thoughts or feelings would this inspire in people? How would it leave a lasting mark on their lives, and change them??" rather than "is this fun?" This isn't a good thing though, really, and I feel I've hit a bit of a wall recently with my attempts at game projects because I haven't given much thought to how to make them enjoyable just to play. A good game would be entertaining even if all the characters were grey cubes, but I take an unwise art-first path, where I devote my attention and time to making characters look a certain way then feel largely lost about what to do with them.

So as I said in the intro, I'm curious to at least experiment with making this a sort of collaborative thing. I don't mean that I want people to actually do any of the work for or with me. There'd be a bunch of issues with that which I don't particularly want to have to deal with at the moment. But it'd be interesting to me to hear different ideas, and to see if I could draw anything from them in order to make something we can all enjoy. To release prototypes that include things you've suggested so then you feel more involved. It would surely keep me more motivated than just trying to do everything alone, wondering whether anyone will even like it and feeling discouraged by the negative assumption that they probably wouldn't.

It's unlikely given my track record that I'll just magically finish something, so it'd be naive to aim for that. But even if no finished final product ever comes of it, perhaps it could be entertaining for some of us to go through the process, at least for a little while.

It'd be silly to be as vague as "I want to make a game, suggest anything!!"... I do have some ideas for what I'd like to do. It's just the details that I'm uncertain about at the moment.

I want to do something I've been exploring for a while, which focuses on spiritual themes, particularly the idea of taming one's own inner demons via emotions and understanding (for example using the runes and rapport system in Taming Dreams, Embracing Eternity, etc) rather than defeating things in combat.



I also started playing this game called Pokemon Quest a couple of days ago, and it's rekindled the passion that I've had for Pokemon since the first generation came out. This game is a very different experience to the core Pokemon RPGs, and to Marvel Strike Force too, and I'm finding it less entertaining because the setting is hollow (you're a disembodied character exploring some generic island "for loot" and Pokemon become "your buddy" just because) and because the game mostly plays itself. Is this a thing these days? Auto battling as a default? I'm out of touch with modern games - while I play mobile games a lot and I've played a lot of VR games, I don't own any of the current generation of consoles and it's been forever since I played a recent PC game - so I don't know what's popular or why. I'm vaguely familiar with terms like "idle game", but it seems sort of irritating to me that games which require little to no actual gameplay would be so popular. I can understand psychologically why they would be, but it's not exactly the kind of thing I'd like to make.

(I also played a Disney game - "Battle Mode" or something? - for a couple of days which had the same character building aspects of Galaxy of Heroes and Strike Force, but the battles were either full auto or the entirety of your interaction was pressing a special technique button when it'd charged up - the same as this Pokemon Quest. I stopped playing that because I was getting nothing out of it, but I've stuck with this for longer because of the place Pokemon has in my heart. If it wasn't Pokemon, I wouldn't still be playing.)

Anyway, I mention that because I'm tempted to return yet again to trying to make a 'mons' game, where you collect monsters that represent inner emotional demons and have them 'fight' one another (except conceptually it's not fighting, etc). Perhaps a game that did that would be worthy of note considering how many people do have to wrestle with their inner demons all the time. Perhaps you'd make a customisable player character rather than there being a clear plot, and you just explore your own mind or dreams or something... or maybe there'd be a story like the one I wanted to tell with Embracing Eternity, with dead people exploring the afterlife. I'm not sure.

I know this is quite vague and you've not got much to work with, but I'd be interested to hear your input. Or rather, I'd be interested in hearing what you like in games or what you'd make if you were making your own game, rather than comments telling me what I should do. There's a difference between those two, and for whatever reason it just irritates me when people speak as if giving commands, as if they know best and have the answer rather than just offering what they'd like to see.

It's unlikely that this one post and comments on it - if there are any; I don't know how many people who read this care about games made by me - would lead to anything clear, but I'll listen to what people have to say and then write later about where I could go next.

I'm just looking for something productive to do with my time... It's exhausting just burning it away ever, considering how precious time is.

(And no, I'm not going to make MARDEK 4.)