Starting with the right feet.

Pessoal, escrevi uma resenha para um site em inglês, ainda está sem revisar, sem melhorar a gramática, mas acho que vale a pena ler.

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You certainly wanna do a game using the easiest way possible, but you may don't know how long is the path to reach it and the troubles around it you'll meet when developing a game.

I'm here to share my experience and may save you for some troubles, waste of time or just pointing a good North for you.

First of all, develop a game is not too simple like 99.99% of the people think, and to demystify think about all the groups of elements one game involve, please, read down.



* Designing Graphics:
** Charsets (character set of sprites, to animate the characters);
** Tilesets (tile set of sprites, to paint the scenario);
** Chipsets (chip and bit set of sprites, to animate the objects on the scenario);
** Backgrounds;
** Fogs;
** Transitions;
** Menu Parts;
** Special Effects:
*** Natural Effects (like the light trespassing the foliage of a tree);
*** Fighting Effects (sparks, spells);
*** Movement and emotions (sweet, perspiration and that little spark in the eye of a lover Girl);
* Sound:
** Background Music;
** Sound of Effects;

Above, you read about some of the elements necessary to start a good game. But not only that’s elements happen on a good project, to meet all the elements you’ll need to be disciplined, organized, inspirited and have much time to spare working around simple solutions, like to jump in an 8 way RPG.

One simple walking animation take like 16 frames to happen in my game, and it's less than 2 seconds of animation, but, you have 8 ways, so, 8x16 is like 128 sprites just for the walking animation, and I did the walking, walking but preparing to run and the running animations, giving 384 sprites, that's not much comparing to every pose I did, like fishing, walking upstairs, downstairs, climbing edges, ropes, walking in the edges, swimming, diving, jumping to dive, falling in 8 different type, using mechanics, scratching his ass, sleeping, crouching like a soldier, sitting down, using parachute, flying kick, shotting an arrow with the bow, fighting with the sword (like 7 types of movements only for the fighting with a sword), axes, wands. I didn't changed the player pants, but if I do, it may double the work for each type of pants, all it for all the 8 ways.

So, I believe to start in a good point is just doing a flowchart. In the Center, place the core, the tool you’ll use, and branch some branches around it, each one with one of the main areas, after this place the sub-areas, branching each subsequence with sub-sub areas, meeting everything you’ll need to make your game. The most perfect flowchart is, the better your time will be spared and your game will be made.

If you don’t know to draw Sprites, and don’t have talent for it, forgot about making games alone, call the best artist you know to make a group or give up, because things don’t appear from the nothing, it need to be made by someone or yourself, and believe me, making things alone consume years. The same happen for sounds and coding.

After you setup your flowchart, start stretching how the first scenes would look like, if you think about an Intro, stretch it in some papers, feel about it before starting designing it and coding it, because one game need elements to be fun, and starting bad will make the first impression for a gamer, so, he’ll close your game asap as he can when an introduction turn it boring. Remember too, do shortcut buttons, nobody want see the same Intro every time he start the game,  and other people just don’t care about Intro and just want shortcut it to get in the action.

After the Intro, first scenes are like a gem, all the necessary things to play the game need to be presented here. Your game is about one guy who can run, jump, double jump, fight, using spells and/or weapons? Show to the player how to use the tools you designed for the game, so, the player don’t will feel like an idiot trying to guess commands and you’ll earn some positive points. Don’t miss to make a shortcut in the first scenes, remember, some users just like get in the action asap as they can.

So, time to make your storyline happen in the game, your mini-games,  quests, actions.

Oh, wait, wait, wait, that’s it? A rounded NooooOoooo… The best games use an artifice to make you vibrate playing them, like Super Mario 64, where the developers spared months just to setup the Mario to walk over the grass giving you a good feel, the first impression.

So, if your game is just a “kill and pillage” game, most of the people will play it for like 30 sec and close the window to find another game, but, if you do it right, the gamers will come a fan, trying to get better ranking and they will start to share your game, advertising it for free for you. Look the difference, in the XBOX Live have millions of Games like hack and slash, most of them just have the principle of killing monsters and finishing the stages, boring, hah? Yes, but one in particular used smart features to make the “The Hack and Slash” game, where you can select like 20 characters (every character look like each other, but changed the head and the color between each other), 40 weapons (again, the same movements for 3 types, like axes, swords and wands, but with different images), 3 spells (exactly the same for everybody, but they changed the looking and feel, so, one shot fire, other shot ice, poison, steel things, dust, etc). They added achievements to keep you playing again and again, they added pets and saving the princess cinematic for each stages, they did each boss with particular skills and challenges.

Next time you play a game, try to pay attention in the elements of the screen, what you most liked, etc, so, you’ll become one of the best Indie Developers Our Community never saw before.