Design Cheat Codes
Disclaimer: I’m not claiming games which use these mechanics are in any way lesser. I’m merely highlighting these as easy ways to sauce up a game. Think of it like add ketchup / mayo / vinegar to your chips
Originally Posted on AltDevBlogADay
Working on several projects which have been technically limited, or constrained by some unbreakable conditions I’ve come to appreciate these quick and simple ways to sauce up your game. Note that not all sauces work with all games.
Make it Kinematic
Movement is fun, controlling a kinetic object is juicy. Give items in your game mass and direct control.
Compare these two situations.
- Player selects a unit, then selects a destination, then confirms selection. Unit then moves along path.
- Player directly controls unit with key controls
- Player controls the unit acceleration and the unit has mass and inertia
I guarantee if you prototype those three cases in a sandbox and give 10 people controllers then 3 will get the most play time, followed by 2 then 1. The simple truth is players like the feeling of weight and kineticism. A simpler real world example is give a child 3 objects: a light foam ball, a baseball and a jelly ball.
Secondary Motion
Do all player actions cause secondary actions? So menu buttons have not only a hover and click state but an animation or action. When the player jumps, shoots or activates something in game they cause an action, then ensure that secondary actions happen around that action. For example if a gun fires, get some smoke, or bullet trail. A jump can have a nice animation on the avatar, dust at push off and landing. The activation of a button can press in then light up, the simple act of separating these makes the player more satisfied.
Particles and Shaders
Yes we have all seen particles, bloom and cheap shader effects done to death, the reason? They work! Do you have a well balanced aesthetic in a gorgeous game? Then do not heap it on top, it will bury your work. But feeling bit lack lustre? Well then particles and a few cheap effects like rim lighting will help.
Physics
Does your game need physics, no? That’s great news you can use physics to add secondary motion and sparkles. You don’t need to worry about syncing it up over a network or worries about minor glitches because all it’s doing is making things look better.
Leaderboards & Awards
Will they make your game better, probably not? Will they mean player’s play longer or are more likely to make a purchase, challenge friends or talk about your game... YES!
Read this article here about implementing leaderboards (thanks to David Czarnecki).
Brighter Colours
Well yes we like shiny things. Unless you’re producing a high quality well polished art style well then going for brighter bold colours, with clean lines will almost always increase eyeballs to player conversion.
Also bright bold, friendly cartoon colours have the broadest reach and appeal.
Remove Options
Okay this one is not so much sauce as just general good advice. I’m adding it here because it’s easy to do and almost always helps. Make a list of all you features, options, abilities ect... Measure the usage in play tests. Remove the bottom third of the options. A simple thing, and it feels like your subtracting, which you are, but your adding value.
Local Multiplayer
Okay if you planned it from day 1 and are confident you can deliver online multiplayer, then do it. It’s a great option but it’s not something you add to a project as sauce. Local Multiplayer however has none of those headaches. Whether hot-seat, simultaneous or asynchronous its’ all good.
If your AI is flaxy or your balance is weak, well the meta-game that evolves from multiplayer can often save you from that.
Conclusion
These are just some of the cheap sauces you can add to a game which will spice it up. They are not a substitute for a quality product which is well designed. They are good trusted spices and sauces to spike the dish with. Don’t believe me; look at PopCap, Zynga, Mini-Clip and all the other casual games performing well.
Learning Blender
Leaving Max for Blender
Back in the day... okay that makes me sound old. Seriously though I picked up 3D Studio Max way back when. I remember eagerly awaiting the character studio with 2.5.... and well lets just say I've been using Max a very very long time. I'm familiar with it and happy with it but well it's expensive!
Now I had a University license which expired a while back, but that was not the turning point. No the turning point was working on a mobile phone project and the god awful level editor I wrote. Followed by long discussions of how much our studio was spending on Art software, and how extensible Blender is. This lead a friend and I to conclude with proper tools support Blender could almost be a more effective tool than Maya.
That was about a year ago. Now as you may or may not know I've been working on several side projects and well I hit the point where I was about to reinstall that university copy of Max. When two thoughts hit me... is this license still valid, and what about that Blender idea?
So I sat down with Blender, some tutorials, immense frustration and set about it.
My Yellow Submarine
Finding good tutorials
Well the tutorials varied greatly in quality but the biggest barrier is that Blender's UI is extremely complex and very function focused. Which is very off putting at first, something they acknowledge with their massive UI rework but its still far behind Autodesk products in term of context flow and usability.
The real problem with tutorials is they were either for idiots or pros. Very few were focused at someone with 3D skills (technical skill, my art skills suck) but no knowledge of Blender. Though due to the UI I had to mostly depend on Video tutorials to help me with the crazy UI.
So I made a sad monkey, thanks to these tutorials - Blender 3D Design Course. I could write an entire blog post on the tutorial issue, which I may do.
Crash Crash Crash
Yeah this happened to me often. Way way too often. All I can say was save lots.
I miss X
So I set about music blearing to model a Yellow Submarine, Beetles style. Straight-away I started missing the Max modifier stack and many useful tools. Bridge oh how I miss thee.
Is it working?
So often while modelling I would accidentally create extra faces, verts or just screw up normals. The real problem though was the mistakes were not obvious and many kept coming back to bite me.
I cannot see!
Aaa the Max camera controls how I miss thee. Also with a laptop and blender depending on num keys. I mean like WTF?!? Also it took a while to realise how the right select and the 3d pointer worked. I mean what a mind fuck. After a few hours it starts making sense but it still feels so unnatural.
Keyboard Freaks
Give a programmer the job of UI and you will get lots and lots of key presses, combos and god forbid threads (pressing keys in sequence)! Yeah Blender suffers badly from this. The over-reliance on keyboard controls, and the programmer's desire to get as many features in as possible means they are all squished in there. So yeah be very very careful what you do with your keyboard... and it changes on context. Which makes sense but catches you out.
Seams Wonderful Seams
Yes seams are glorious! Just magically mark them and you help the unwrapping process to NO end. I'm sure with correct mesh construction (mine was sloppy due to being new) and correct usage of seams well it should be a dream.
Windows Frames View Thingies
With enough screen space and a bit of tweaking well the system is gorgeousness itself sauced with complexity and sprinkled with crashes! Love hate realtionships aside, skinning while seeing the effect on the model is very very handy.
Pin It
OOoh I love pinning UV points! So handy with remapping and tweaking. I do miss some of the more advanced Max UV features. It's very different, and the lack of the modifier stack... *sigh*. Also the whole shared vertex or location thing can be a bit infuriating at times.
I then tried to map it to a custom key. Though 4 hours on Google and no luck, not without writing some Python.
Finished Product
It should be stated I have no interest in the render functions, and I'm treating Blender as a content creation tool for games. But yes... success and drugs!
Conclusion
I'm getting familiar with it and I'm glad I'm using a free program which is easy to modify and build upon. Watch this space to see if I continue to rage or coooo over the Blender fight.