Game Making with Connor - Part 1
Hey I’m Connor (DarkWriting) and I am a tech on the gameshow, I have also built some of the games that have been played during it. One of the main aspects of my job is to make sure games work and anything needed redstone wise also works. One of the problems we face is games. Sometimes we have good ideas but they end up not working out, sometimes we have terrible ideas that we need to get done in a week (*cough* Journey to puzzle towers *cough*) and ends up being great. The big thing is to try and even if you fail try again or even try make it better.
So I've decided to make some posts about game development and design. Now I'm going to go into details and personal tips and tricks around making a gameshow game. So first things first you need an idea. Now this could be anything from a PvP to a Puzzle (Dwottyy is going to kill me for using that word) game. So the idea I'm going to talk is Colour Chaos. This game is an arcade game that focuses as a non-combat style arena brawl. The main focus of this game is to paint the most overall area with your team colours. The other part of this is that the other team is able to paint over your area and that every minute they’re is a chance that a door will open to another area on the map.
Now the main thing to think about when designing a game is Level design and Mechanics. These will be broken down into further points that I will get into at a later date.
Level design
Level design can change the game in many ways, if the level design is not properly planned out and causes players to become frustrated with it and couple of problems may arise, Firstly, the players may become angry at the level and be less likely to want to try / play the game. Secondly, the mechanics you chosen to use may help shape your level and help make the level design easier, this can also be reversed as the mechanics could also make your level look worse as you will be catering to the mechanics rather than design.
Mechanics
This is the bread and butter of your game, without good mechanics the game will fail. The biggest tip I can give anyone is be creative with your mechanics, no-one wants to play the same game over and over again, when think of a mechanic to use put it through the 5 points system:
- Will this be fun for the user?
- Does this make the game too easy / hard?
- Can I actually make this and make it effectively?
- Is there any problems that could arise from this mechanic?
- How will this impact my level design?
Once you have went through these 5 points and are still happy with the mechanic then you can go ahead and make a prototype! This prototype allows us to see the mechanic being used and from this we can analyse to see if the mechanic is still viable. If it still is then it’s time to make it as efficient as possible.
Now just go and build your build and just keep on trying as eventually you will make a game that people enjoy!