Archive for the ‘The design of VGS’ Category

Gamer != Game Designer

I could finish this post right now and I would consider I had said enough. This is sort of a re-post of a post on my now dead Portuguese blog. The basic premise is that a gamer is not a game designer and a game designer is not a gamer.

When I play a game as a gamer, I play the games I like to play. I have fun with the games, I truly enjoy the moment. When I’m playing a game with the game designer hat on, I don’t have to enjoy the game, but rather try to understand its mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics.

Being a gamer is for sure the start of being a game designer, as much as driving is the start of being a race driver, but no one is a game designer just because it plays games, the same way no one is a race driver because it knows how to drive! Game design, like it or not, is a technical work. Game design is not about having ideas for games, but to fill the blanks from the idea to the finished product.

While this is true a bit everywhere, flash market is a great way for gamers to start their crazy journey on game development and as soon as they put a box moving in the flash player they are automagically extraordinary game designers and awesome coders. Well, it’s a start, we can only hope that they work it out with time. I know I went through an automagical phase of my own only to find out that there’s a world of things to learn everyday.

Design that fits

Make it fit

I have an opinion about what separates the common game from the commercial game, mind as well share it with you.

A commercial game fits. “What on earth is he talking about?” – screams that gentleman over in the background. If he even existed, he would be completely clueless about what I’m talking about. Well, let me tell you a story about this imaginary gentleman.

He created a zombie game where the title screen has a stretched ‘googled’ picture from a movie in the background, pink letters in the buttons with the typical Times New Roman, blood splats made from vector circles and cartoon like characters in the gameplay.

Can you imagine this and see why it doesn’t fit? You don’t even need an example to see how wrong it is I hope.

While we are building our games, we need a design that fits. One that takes into consideration the theme and aesthetics of the game while we make sure that there is no shock between the several parts of the game.

This is a mistake that way too many flash developers make, one that jumps right up to any eye, even the untrained one aka common player.

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