Chapter 15
In This Chapter
Thinking ahead as a game developer
Knowing where the industry is going
When I was at Game Developers Conference in early 2014, I met members of the YoYo Games team and asked them, “If you had an opportunity to speak with a large audience of people who wanted to make games for a living, what would you tell them?” We talked about the latest trends, advancements in GameMaker: Studio, career advice, and basically what a budding game developer needs to know and do to make it in the industry. This chapter is an offshoot of those conversations.
One of the first things you need to think about before you start making your game is where and how people are going to play it. Are you making an HTML5 game that people can play on your website? Do you want to make a game that you can submit for inclusion in Apple’s App Store, or Google Play, or even for use on the Sony PS4 or Vita?
Whatever your goal, you need to know the differences between the platforms, such as which code will work where. In addition, you need to be aware of scaling and resolution issues — for example, will your heads-up display (HUD) be just as legible on a large monitor as it will on a handheld device? (Chapter 10 is all about scaling your games.)
You also need to keep in mind how you want the controls to work. For PC games, you probably have keyboard and mouse controls. For a mobile device, you need to think about taps, swipes, and pinching and zooming. (I cover mobile controls in Chapter 13.)
Who do you expect to play your game? Are you making a crossword game that you want people to play on Facebook, or are you making a shooter for the PS4? Do you want to make a hardcore game with a high difficulty level, or do you want to make a creative game that allows casual fans to use their imaginations? When you know who your audience is, you’ll be able to decide how you want to develop your different levels, if you want a tutorial section, or if you just want players to figure out how to play on their own.
Making money with your games eventually becomes one of those necessary evils that all developers must face. It would be nice to live in a world in which we could all make and play games for free, but that’s not the reality. Companies have salaries to pay and indies have their own bills to pay. So, monetizing your games becomes an important facet that you must incorporate into your games, unless you’re independently wealthy and don’t care about money.
Some of the best games you can make with GameMaker: Studio are platformers (games in which the player controls a character and moves it about the screen, jumping from one place to another, gathering coins, finding loot, avoiding bad guys, and so on). Nintendo’s Mario games are excellent examples of the platform genre.
Roguelike games also work well with GameMaker: Studio. Defining a roguelike game is not easy — like many things, the definition depends on who you ask. But at a basic level, a roguelike game is one in which
Usability is a concept that goes beyond just platforms and audiences — it dives deep on how the players are to play, and whether you need to teach them how the controls work. For example, if you’re making a game for the PC, and you decide to use the letters O, K, and L to move the character around, you may confuse your audience, especially if 99 percent of PC games use W, A, and D to move the character. Think of it this way: If all the other games used the spacebar to fire a gun, and you use the Esc key to fire a gun, you’re potentially confusing your audience from the get-go.
Testing your game is probably one of the most important things you can do. Quality assurance is what can make the difference between a buggy game that constantly crashes and a bug-free game that you can play without a hitch. So, test your game, then test it again, and then before the end of the day, test it again. Test all aspects of the game as you’re developing it. See what happens when you introduce something else to the game — how does it affect aspects of the game that you added before?
In the early days of mobile devices, there were many limitations as to what you could develop. These days, those limitations are quickly disappearing. However, it’s still good to know what will crash your game on an iOS device as compared to playing on a PC.
YoYo Games wants you thinking big. Like real big. Like Minecraft meets Grand Theft Auto big. YoYo Games is actually making a game that takes elements from Minecraft, such as building structures, and includes aspects from another huge game like Grand Theft Auto, in which you can get in a vehicle to move about. If you’re interested in participating in this project, head to the YoYo Labs (www.yoyogames.com/developers/yoyolabs). There, you can find the source code (http://yourworld.yoyogames.com/downloads) for this ambitious project.
Try taking the best features of your favorite games and combine them into one. Then add in that little something extra to give the game your own personal touch. If you can create something new that people already enjoy, making it a unique game that you can call your own, you may have a hit game on your hands.
With all that said, though, you should start off slow and simple. Make some silly games to get familiar with the GameMaker: Studio software and then keep adding to it as you go.
While making your game, always be thinking about the future. How could you improve this game later? How can you get the community involved? Gamers are a vocal group — they’ll let you know in no uncertain terms how much they love or hate your game. If you can get your audience involved and make them a part of the game development process, you’re that much further ahead. If possible, set a up a way to receive feedback from your audience. You could also make your game open source, so that people can contribute to it.
Expanding your game could also mean allowing the community to test it. Allow users access to beta versions of the game so they can try to break it for you. That way, you can learn a lot about how people play your game and what works and what doesn’t.
Last, but certainly not least, these days the video game industry is all about going independent. Some of the biggest games from the past years have been made by small or independent game developers. Games such as Spelunky, Journey, and Minecraft were all made by indie developers. You may not think of Minecraft as an indie game because of its enormous popularity, but once upon a time, it was just a single developer who wanted to make a game. Now, that indie developer has started his own studio with a staff of employees.
You no longer have to work for companies like Activision, Electronic Arts, or Bethesda to earn a living as a game developer. I’m sure there are lots of happy developers working for those large companies, but the fact is, you don’t have to limit yourself to a few big companies. New indie game companies are springing up all the time. And if you’re good enough, there’s no reason why you can’t be among them!
52.15.80.101