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I know what you're thinking, sitting there at home with no cash to buy a brand spanking new game...well I'm going to show you a way not only to get that cash...but to MAKE THAT GAME! Yes, that's right, here is the 100% guaranteed* way to create a blockbuster title that will sell millions, and make you rich! Let's go through all the essential points:
* not a guarantee
1: THE NAME
Everybody knows that the most important thing in a game is not the graphics, AI or even the fun you have playing it, but the name! As you may have noticed, most of the best games around have names with more than one word (eg. Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, Pro Evolution Soccer, Super Monkey Ball). Also, they usually have a number (eg. GTA3, MGS2, GT3, FFX). Thirdly, they usually have subtitles (eg. Sons of Libery, Combat Evolved, A-Spec, The Precursor's Legacy)...so that's what you'll need! Here are some handy examples:
Psychopathic Sex-Change Patient 14: 'Internal Bleedings'
Drunken Monkies 2: 'The Hangover'
Schroeder and Hercules 9: 'Passion in Paris'
So, now you know what to whack on the front of the game...but what else should go on there?
1.5: THE BOX ART
Again, the first thing you see when walking through your local SR shop's aisles is the box-art...so what do you need on the front? Well, it has to be eye-catching...so shiny hologram stickers should be plastered all over. Secondly, it has to have images of things that appeal to your key demographic...so, naked ladies, monkeys and guns should be depicted somewhere. The only thing is, this could be seen as being brash, or too 'in-your-face' and so threatening meek, 15 year old boys with acne and too many Dungeons and Dragons cards...therefore, you put all the good stuff on the back! By all means have the aforementioned girls, apes and weapons on the back, but on the front you need to take a different approach. Think Final Fantasy. Think Grand Theft Auto. Simplicity and minimalism may annoy people, but it will also intriuge them, and make them turn the game over to find out more (and of course see your lovely pictures, making them want the game even more).
2: THE SYSTEM(S)
Now, the next stage should be figuring out what system the game should appear on. The most successful (and therefore more profitable) console, the PS2? The most user-friendly and easiest to program for, owing to its Direct X...uh...stuff, the XBOX? Or the Gamecube, with it's purple hue and girly hande? "Obvious!" you cry, "the Gamecube/XBOX/PS2! Nintendo rocks/sucks/stole my shoes! Et cetera et cetera!" but this is why you are a lowly wannabe and I am writing this guide. See, XBOX titles take around 15-20 minutes to make...and the Playstation 2 is underneath tens of millions of TVs...so why bother going for the Gamecube? Well, you may as well...common sense tells you that more formats = mo' money, and so the smart money spreads the wealth. Of course, working on the XBOX will also earn you extra moolah, as Microsoft will slip you a few thousand under the table to add in exclusive levels for their version.
3: THE MAIN CHARACTER
For a game to be successful, you need a great main character...(excluding Pro Evolution Soccer of course. And Championship Manager. And Grand Turismo. And, um...SHUT UP)...so to help you, I have some neccessities:
A) Your character must have spiky hair...they will look stylish, and have a last-ditch attack. Some famous examples of this are Sonic the Hedgehog, and Freddie Ljunberg.
B) Second, your character must be male; this is because females are weak, and should be left to what they do best (cooking and cleaning)**.
C) Thirdly, they must have a snappy, one-syllable name such as Snot, or Whizz, or Bob. This allows you to secure big-name voice-artists without paying them: you simply go up to them in the street, and say 'my name's Snot, I'm your biggest fan'. Then, when they say 'Hi SNOT', you record it and use it later on...you can also try and coax them into saying other things...i.e. for a fighting game, tell Ben Stiller that Zoolander sucked, and voila! "I'll KICK YOUR *SS, KID!"
D) Your character needs a disproportianately large head. There is no scientific explanation for why big-headed people are in so many great games...but my theory is that big-headed people have funny, spindly limbs like they're in Thunderbirds. And Thunderbirds rocked. Rocks.
E) Lastly: the character must be likeable. If your target audience does not like the main character, they will not want to keep it alive (or whatever the aim of the game is). You can achieve this by giving the character a sense of humor (have him wear clown shoes and a party hat, perhaps)...making him a hero (by giving him guns as big as his arms)...or by plain old fashiones subliminal messaging.
** just kidding; men and women are equal. Please don't sue me.
4: THE GENRE
In the old days, making games used to be a lot easier. You just had lots of coloured dots, a timer and annoying 'beep' sounds for everything...now, you need to actually tell people what sort of title your game is! Well, there's a lot of choice...basketball manager sim? No, nobody cares about managing b-ball...how about first person shooter? No, too much competition in the market. See what I've demonstrated? You need a middle ground...and before you ask, no! It is not acheived by finding a genre that is 'in-the-middle', such as BMX games...you need to blend a highly successful idea with a lesser known idea! Just look at Metal Gear Solid's great action-meets-stealth fusion, GTA's stunning hybrid of shooting and driving...and of course, Ecco the Dolphin's swim-em-up/lullaby. To get the ball rolling, here's a couple of potentially ground-breaking, original ideas:
Civilisation meets International Track and Field: button mash your way to an enormous empire with this, the official RTS of the 2004 Olympic Games!
Gran Turismo meets The Sims: build your own garage, and take control of your very own car! Have it throw parties, go on dates, or even trap it in the corner and force it to have barbeque after barbeque, slowly burning itsself alive with the first ever CarPG. Get it? RPG? Car?
So, now you have a title, it's box, genre, main character and formats...now all you need is some money to make the thing!
5: THE FUNDING
There's more than one way to skin a cat...but that'll have to go in my next topic. For now, let me talk about getting some dough to create this new video game. There are a few ways to go about this:
A) The 'Heartbreakers' method. You could marry a very rich old man, and when he dies and leaves you in his will...KA-CHING!
B) The 'Austin Powers' method. Get your way into someone rich's house...but they have to be rich enough to own their own hot-tub (Peter Stringfellow would be a good bet). Then, get in there with him and...you know...get intimate. Whilst he/she's distracted, nab their wallet, complete with credit cards and cash.
C) The 'Educational' method. Approach the government, or lottery, and ask them about a grant to make your game. Assure them it's 'educational', and will help the kiddies. They'll give you the money...or yell at you for being so dishonest. Hypocrites. Always shifting the blame, in a vain attempt to conceal their own inadequate go--
D) The 'Hard' way. This is also the 'convential' way, but we all know how much everyone loves originality so feel free to go for any of these methods. What you have to do, is compile all your ideas (the important stuff, like how loud the in-game music should be) and stick it in a folder, or 'portfolio'. Then, you put it in a postbox, and hope that a publisher will find it, and get in contact with you.
6: THE END
Well, now you have it all! The box art is finished, the main character is plastered across the side of buildings everywhere, and thousands of copies have been sent out to Special Reserves up and down the country...and you're done! Sit back, relax, and wait for the money. Nothing left...I've showed you how to make an original smash-hit game that is fun to play, and a great little earner...yup, nothing left to tell you. Oh, how do you make the game itsself?
Uh...
------------------ ----------------------- -----------------
Whaddya think of my first guide? Any game ideas you've got from this, please post as a reply :-D
* not a guarantee
1: THE NAME
Everybody knows that the most important thing in a game is not the graphics, AI or even the fun you have playing it, but the name! As you may have noticed, most of the best games around have names with more than one word (eg. Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid, Pro Evolution Soccer, Super Monkey Ball). Also, they usually have a number (eg. GTA3, MGS2, GT3, FFX). Thirdly, they usually have subtitles (eg. Sons of Libery, Combat Evolved, A-Spec, The Precursor's Legacy)...so that's what you'll need! Here are some handy examples:
Psychopathic Sex-Change Patient 14: 'Internal Bleedings'
Drunken Monkies 2: 'The Hangover'
Schroeder and Hercules 9: 'Passion in Paris'
So, now you know what to whack on the front of the game...but what else should go on there?
1.5: THE BOX ART
Again, the first thing you see when walking through your local SR shop's aisles is the box-art...so what do you need on the front? Well, it has to be eye-catching...so shiny hologram stickers should be plastered all over. Secondly, it has to have images of things that appeal to your key demographic...so, naked ladies, monkeys and guns should be depicted somewhere. The only thing is, this could be seen as being brash, or too 'in-your-face' and so threatening meek, 15 year old boys with acne and too many Dungeons and Dragons cards...therefore, you put all the good stuff on the back! By all means have the aforementioned girls, apes and weapons on the back, but on the front you need to take a different approach. Think Final Fantasy. Think Grand Theft Auto. Simplicity and minimalism may annoy people, but it will also intriuge them, and make them turn the game over to find out more (and of course see your lovely pictures, making them want the game even more).
2: THE SYSTEM(S)
Now, the next stage should be figuring out what system the game should appear on. The most successful (and therefore more profitable) console, the PS2? The most user-friendly and easiest to program for, owing to its Direct X...uh...stuff, the XBOX? Or the Gamecube, with it's purple hue and girly hande? "Obvious!" you cry, "the Gamecube/XBOX/PS2! Nintendo rocks/sucks/stole my shoes! Et cetera et cetera!" but this is why you are a lowly wannabe and I am writing this guide. See, XBOX titles take around 15-20 minutes to make...and the Playstation 2 is underneath tens of millions of TVs...so why bother going for the Gamecube? Well, you may as well...common sense tells you that more formats = mo' money, and so the smart money spreads the wealth. Of course, working on the XBOX will also earn you extra moolah, as Microsoft will slip you a few thousand under the table to add in exclusive levels for their version.
3: THE MAIN CHARACTER
For a game to be successful, you need a great main character...(excluding Pro Evolution Soccer of course. And Championship Manager. And Grand Turismo. And, um...SHUT UP)...so to help you, I have some neccessities:
A) Your character must have spiky hair...they will look stylish, and have a last-ditch attack. Some famous examples of this are Sonic the Hedgehog, and Freddie Ljunberg.
B) Second, your character must be male; this is because females are weak, and should be left to what they do best (cooking and cleaning)**.
C) Thirdly, they must have a snappy, one-syllable name such as Snot, or Whizz, or Bob. This allows you to secure big-name voice-artists without paying them: you simply go up to them in the street, and say 'my name's Snot, I'm your biggest fan'. Then, when they say 'Hi SNOT', you record it and use it later on...you can also try and coax them into saying other things...i.e. for a fighting game, tell Ben Stiller that Zoolander sucked, and voila! "I'll KICK YOUR *SS, KID!"
D) Your character needs a disproportianately large head. There is no scientific explanation for why big-headed people are in so many great games...but my theory is that big-headed people have funny, spindly limbs like they're in Thunderbirds. And Thunderbirds rocked. Rocks.
E) Lastly: the character must be likeable. If your target audience does not like the main character, they will not want to keep it alive (or whatever the aim of the game is). You can achieve this by giving the character a sense of humor (have him wear clown shoes and a party hat, perhaps)...making him a hero (by giving him guns as big as his arms)...or by plain old fashiones subliminal
** just kidding; men and women are equal. Please don't sue me.
4: THE GENRE
In the old days, making games used to be a lot easier. You just had lots of coloured dots, a timer and annoying 'beep' sounds for everything...now, you need to actually tell people what sort of title your game is! Well, there's a lot of choice...basketball manager sim? No, nobody cares about managing b-ball...how about first person shooter? No, too much competition in the market. See what I've demonstrated? You need a middle ground...and before you ask, no! It is not acheived by finding a genre that is 'in-the-middle', such as BMX games...you need to blend a highly successful idea with a lesser known idea! Just look at Metal Gear Solid's great action-meets-stealth fusion, GTA's stunning hybrid of shooting and driving...and of course, Ecco the Dolphin's swim-em-up/lullaby. To get the ball rolling, here's a couple of potentially ground-breaking, original ideas:
Civilisation meets International Track and Field: button mash your way to an enormous empire with this, the official RTS of the 2004 Olympic Games!
Gran Turismo meets The Sims: build your own garage, and take control of your very own car! Have it throw parties, go on dates, or even trap it in the corner and force it to have barbeque after barbeque, slowly burning itsself alive with the first ever CarPG. Get it? RPG? Car?
So, now you have a title, it's box, genre, main character and formats...now all you need is some money to make the thing!
5: THE FUNDING
There's more than one way to skin a cat...but that'll have to go in my next topic. For now, let me talk about getting some dough to create this new video game. There are a few ways to go about this:
A) The 'Heartbreakers' method. You could marry a very rich old man, and when he dies and leaves you in his will...KA-CHING!
B) The 'Austin Powers' method. Get your way into someone rich's house...but they have to be rich enough to own their own hot-tub (Peter Stringfellow would be a good bet). Then, get in there with him and...you know...get intimate. Whilst he/she's distracted, nab their wallet, complete with credit cards and cash.
C) The 'Educational' method. Approach the government, or lottery, and ask them about a grant to make your game. Assure them it's 'educational', and will help the kiddies. They'll give you the money...or yell at you for being so dishonest. Hypocrites. Always shifting the blame, in a vain attempt to conceal their own inadequate go--
D) The 'Hard' way. This is also the 'convential' way, but we all know how much everyone loves originality so feel free to go for any of these methods. What you have to do, is compile all your ideas (the important stuff, like how loud the in-game music should be) and stick it in a folder, or 'portfolio'. Then, you put it in a postbox, and hope that a publisher will find it, and get in contact with you.
6: THE END
Well, now you have it all! The box art is finished, the main character is plastered across the side of buildings everywhere, and thousands of copies have been sent out to Special Reserves up and down the country...and you're done! Sit back, relax, and wait for the money. Nothing left...I've showed you how to make an original smash-hit game that is fun to play, and a great little earner...yup, nothing left to tell you. Oh, how do you make the game itsself?
Uh...
------------------ ----------------------- -----------------
Whaddya think of my first guide? Any game ideas you've got from this, please post as a reply :-D
Page:
WOW! Thanks SR!!
Also, thanks everybody who read and replied...Whitestripes, that comment was purely in jest.
Also, thanks everybody who read and replied...Whitestripes, that comment was purely in jest.
swander87 wrote:
> so why bother going for the Gamecube?
Hey, he said it first, I'm just defending my prefered console using the same method he put it down with in the first place.
> so why bother going for the Gamecube?
Hey, he said it first, I'm just defending my prefered console using the same method he put it down with in the first place.
Whitestripes wrote:
> Actually the GC is the easiest to program for, and seeing as its sold
> over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is
> why bother developing for the X-box?
Another Nintyboy....
Neither the Xbox nor the GC are easier to program for at all. The GC suites the classic console games developer with the custom OS and dev kit, but the Xbox, with its adaptation of Direct X, is amazingly easy to program for by anyone who's done P programming.
However, neither of those facts matter *much* when deciding what format to make a game for. You DON'T always want to target the bigger audience. Sometimes the demographics of the players will be different for example. More importantly, you might want to exploit a captive market as many developers did with the N64. Because it had such a truely pathetic proportion of the market, the few companies who made games for it didn't have much competition, and so probably did better than they would on the PS1.
All this despite the PS1 being easier to program for, having the bigger audience, and lending better support.
Sonic
> Actually the GC is the easiest to program for, and seeing as its sold
> over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is
> why bother developing for the X-box?
Another Nintyboy....
Neither the Xbox nor the GC are easier to program for at all. The GC suites the classic console games developer with the custom OS and dev kit, but the Xbox, with its adaptation of Direct X, is amazingly easy to program for by anyone who's done P programming.
However, neither of those facts matter *much* when deciding what format to make a game for. You DON'T always want to target the bigger audience. Sometimes the demographics of the players will be different for example. More importantly, you might want to exploit a captive market as many developers did with the N64. Because it had such a truely pathetic proportion of the market, the few companies who made games for it didn't have much competition, and so probably did better than they would on the PS1.
All this despite the PS1 being easier to program for, having the bigger audience, and lending better support.
Sonic
swander87 wrote:
> Whitestripes wrote:
> Actually the GC is the easiest to program for
>
> Only because if you make big mistakes, the four-year olds playing it
> won't realise. AHAHAHAHAHA. AHA. HA.
>
> and seeing as its sold
> over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is
> why bother developing for the X-box?
>
> Like I said, you'll get extra money from them, to put in extra stuff.
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were a pr*ck.
> Whitestripes wrote:
> Actually the GC is the easiest to program for
>
> Only because if you make big mistakes, the four-year olds playing it
> won't realise. AHAHAHAHAHA. AHA. HA.
>
> and seeing as its sold
> over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is
> why bother developing for the X-box?
>
> Like I said, you'll get extra money from them, to put in extra stuff.
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were a pr*ck.
swander87 wrote:
Hypocrites.
: D
lol @ the whole thing
Hypocrites.
: D
lol @ the whole thing
Whitestripes wrote:
> Actually the GC is the easiest to program for
Only because if you make big mistakes, the four-year olds playing it won't realise. AHAHAHAHAHA. AHA. HA.
> and seeing as its sold
> over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is
> why bother developing for the X-box?
Like I said, you'll get extra money from them, to put in extra stuff.
> Actually the GC is the easiest to program for
Only because if you make big mistakes, the four-year olds playing it won't realise. AHAHAHAHAHA. AHA. HA.
> and seeing as its sold
> over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is
> why bother developing for the X-box?
Like I said, you'll get extra money from them, to put in extra stuff.
Actually the GC is the easiest to program for, and seeing as its sold over half a million more than the X-box (worldwide) the question is why bother developing for the X-box?
swander87 wrote:
and Freddie Ljunberg.
That made me laugh, wuite a lot :-D
and Freddie Ljunberg.
That made me laugh, wuite a lot :-D
I see why you called it the Duffer's guide... it's the equivalent to trying to cook a meal without buying the ingredients first.
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