It is difficult to talk about what you`ve done for the few
previous months, considering how it hasn`t yielded any significant results just
yet, nor you`re exactly sure it will yield any considerable result in the
future. Nonetheless with the series of these posts that I`m starting I intend
to describe my experiences should anybody hoping to follow my path be more
informed of what can be ahead. Simply put, I decided to make games as a hobby
and will now share my experience.
Do note that at the time of writing this I am yet to
properly release (or even co-release) a game, so some aspects of my mindset
will probably change as we go along. In any case, it will be nothing if not
entertaining to come back to this text when a full release has actually
occurred (an “if” would probably be better here, but let`s stay optimistic).
So how does anybody really come to a realisation that they
want to try themselves in game development? In my case it`s a long yet boring
road of attempting different things.
It all started with map editors. I wonder if whoever thought
of the idea first realises how influential map editors are to players who want
to also create experiences within the game. Not only that, editors
significantly prolong the lifespan of the game giving the community around it
(should there be one) an actual reason to get creative with the game. Level
design is an integral part of any game experience and by allowing players
themselves to take part in it the developer allows the community to shape the
post-release future of the game.
The two behemoths that shaped my world of level design are
HoMM3 and Valve`s Hammer Editor. The first one, a simple yet somehow very
powerful editor for Heroes of Might and Magic 3 allowed me to not just create
starting conditions that would suit my playstyle (or rather lack of thereof –
who didn`t put a truckload of Archangels into their army?), but also it allowed
to tell a story. In a very basic way, make no mistake – the game had two types
of text based events: one time related, and the other location related. Yet
somehow jamming in a few sentences here and there made the maps feel more
complete, and as the time went on I tried to add more complexity to the story
and the map design. However, there are only a handful of maps I actually manage
to finish. All the other ones were just incomplete pieces purged at any of the
countless times when Windows got reinstalled (those were wild times – you
wanted a clean and smooth system, you reinstalled Windows).
 |
| HoMM 3 Map Editor. http://www.hota.acidcave.net/pyramid/111230184555edit.jpg |
The other one, Hammer editor, was a bit more sophisticated.
However, a lot of gratitude is owed to Valve for the fact that it exists. Also
a lot of gratitude is owed to various people writing tutorials for it in a
simple and clear language that teenage me could understand easily. My maps were
pretty basic and unimaginative in terms of object use and design, yet with some
of them we did have fun during our countless CS matches after school. But the
editor deserves a mention solely on the understanding on the depth of visual
design it gave me.
Other editors followed years later, Cities in Motion had an
absolute delight of an editor: it was pretty limited, yet it allowed painting a
pretty picture of a town that needed a transit system. Lastly, OMSI`s editor,
while buggy, non-user friendly, and pretty difficult to master whatsoever, it
gave a sense of satisfaction just to complete your own route. The incomplete
results of which can be seen on this very blog.
 |
| CiM Editor. http://www.manapool.co.uk/review/cities-in-motion-review/ |
Somewhere along the line I tried Game Making software. It
wasn`t much success, but it gave me a somewhat basic understanding of what a
game is made of technically: the engine, graphical assets, music and sound, and
tonnes and tonnes of scripts.
With all this in mind fast forward to 2018. The Berzpils
project is halted probably for good, and no current game gives an editor that
would satisfy my itch for creative expression. So my friend and I turn to
Unity.
Despite all the hate that it gets on-line Unity is a very
strong tool set, not entirely unlike the Hammer Editor, but this time for game
developers. Sure, it lowers the bar and allows a flood of low-quality content
to enter the market; however, at the same time it allows to create a foundation
for people that are interested in game development, like myself. But at the
same time quite a few of my first projects are and will be low-quality (to say
the least).
Unity works mostly with two scripting languages, and for
some reason unknown to me I chose C#.
And that`s the stage was set for our first project that we
can probably call a game. In the next DevBlog instalment I`ll talk about our
very first game and probably even share it on the page. Stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment