I had a kind of weird (new) experience about game design in the previous weeks. I have been thinking in the "mysterious" game I'm planning to do (I swear I will decide soon a provisional name!), but while I started to think about the game and the universe where it unfolds I often ended up thinking on an old game I used to make; an adventure game, with heroes, magic, fights against monsters, and so on, a kind of classic game that really inspires me.
The plan for the game I'm working on right now is different, I was thinking on making a deep psychological game, with a kind of weak and vulnerable main character. If you read my previous post I had the main music theme for the game, and I was looking to make a sad and unpleasing song with just a little light of hope. The problem is that I was having a hard time to imagine the universe for this game because I just couldn't concentrate very much on it.
This days off helped me to realize the reason why I couldn't concentrate in my new game and why I often ended up dreaming about my previous game. It seems obvious for me now: depressing games are just not my style!
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I never will make a deep psychological game, and that I will always going to make games about magical heroes and adventures, I just need to find my way to make the games, if they are deep and psychological, or simple and funny, it doesn't matter, there should be a way to make them on my way.
It's cool, because some artists use to look for a style - their style, and I feel I'm starting to develop a better perception of what my style is. I have decided that, even if I'm looking to create some simple games to grind some game-dev exp. points, I won't start any games that don't match with my style, at the end of the day, that is the greatest thing of being an indie game developer!
I developed this small checklist to analyze before starting any projects, I put it here for my own reference, but maybe it could help you too if you are a gave developer. From now on, I will ask myself the following things about the game to make:
- Do you like how the game would look in your personal portfolio? Would you feel proud of showing it to other people?
- Does the game inspires you? Do you find yourself imagining some cool scenes about your game?
- Is the game compatible with you? The idea could be cool, but maybe what you want for you as a game developer is not really going in that way.
- Are you eager to play your game? (If you are not, then who?)
- Would you find interesting the experience your game provides? (think that interesting could be the feeling you want to transmit, for example fun, suspense, etc)
Probably there are a lot of other points you could check, but for now I'm going to focus in these 5 points. Even when those 5 points seem to be very basic things, somehow I was just missing MOST OF THEM!
Let's see what I can think and create for this new game, hopefully my next post would show some results!
Let's see what I can think and create for this new game, hopefully my next post would show some results!
