New Beginnings

Once I had transitioned to Unity I decided to make the leap to 3D games while I was at it. I followed some tutorials,coded an FPS control method and built a basic "danger room" level to move and shoot in. Wow this is so easy! I had a rough idea at the back of my mind for a game and the time was ripe to flesh it out. So  I put my farting jacket and thinking cap on and pondered. I started research in earnest and to my surprise first person exploration/puzzle games were far more common than I realised. I had read a lot about Journey and watched an entire play through on YouTube. I was enchanted.

The whole game was played without words leaving the player to interact with the environment and piece together a story and indeed gameplay mechanics. It looks like pure genius. Im ashamed to say I still haven't played it  as I don't have a PS3. Inspiration struck and a more solid design for my own game emerged. Im not going to lie and say its a massively original concept. Its more of a remix of elements but it was a direction to shoot in.

The Plan

My idea was taking a more solid shape. The central themes of my game concept are isolation and exploration. The likes of  Ico, Shadow of the Colossus,Enslaved and early Tomb Raiders really nailed those feelings for me. Now I want build my own world  that players can immerse themselves in. So I churned out a brief design document. I use workflowy by the way. I find it excellent for tracking ideas and designs, even to do lists. I would start my project and see what happens. I'm sick of making tiny scale mobile games that are ignored on the play store. This is the one. Ill make my mark with this.

Rabbit Holes

I wont go into too much detail yet, but my game would be set in a distant land. That means terrain. Fine so now Ill learn how to generate terrain in Unity. OK so terrain is like a large plane that has a height map applied to it. Fine that makes sense. Now I need to either make my own height map or find some freely available ones on-line.I lost entire days to the subject of height maps.

Finally I have a height map. I've applied it to my terrain.

Now I need to texture it. Oh there are specific shaders for terrain I can download and use. What is a shader? Oh and light. Now I need to sort out the light. You can probably see where this is going. 

Again I had bitten off more than I can chew. Making a game of this scale for a lone gun part time indie cowboy is certainly possible but the odds are not favourable. There are plenty of success stories out there of small teams building incredible games. But considering the level I'm at right now it may be too ambitious or it could just be the case that I need to assemble a team.

Getting sucked into the graphics and tech side of things is far too easy. I should have just built a basic prototype. Get a game running and worry about graphics etc later.

Focus You Must

I do want to stress at this point that I am in no way complaining about my issues. In fact quite the opposite. These are happy problems. I'm at a point where I know that what I want to build is possible, I'm enjoying learning and creating. But I must remember my end goal. And that is to build and release a game. That isn't going to happen if I spend three months looking at water shaders and atmospheric scattering plug ins.

I've encountered two problems with designing games. I've described one above. Learning sink holes. Sliding down a tangent on a topic is so easily done, you can spend days on a topic  before you know it.

The other problem is a little more nefarious. Its to do with the actual design itself. In unity when beginning a new project the editor presents you with an infinite(ahem very large at least),empty worldspace. You can do anything within that space. Therein lies the problem for me at least. 

Having such a broad canvas can be quite intimidating. For example my big first person mystery project I mentioned. I started with what I thought was a decent direction to start building a level. But when I actually started in Unity I soon discovered how woolly and undefined my design was. So I allowed myself to be distracted by concentrating on graphics, tree placement and getting a decent looking skybox. After a week or two of this I stopped. I wasnt getting anywhere. I put the project on hold and decided to make a 3D version of 60seconds. But that's another story.

The Importance of Planning

My experiences may be typical I dont really know. But what I do know is that planning and time management are key for free time Notch wannabees. What I did after squandering weeks on yet a another overly ambitious project was to sit back and evaluate my reasons for wanting to make games. I want to make games that people can immerse themselves in. I don't want to make a COD clone, a beat em up or a shooter. I want to create new worlds for players to explore. Down the line it would be great to get some financial kickback to enable me to dedicate more time to making games. I'm not looking to be the next Peter Molyneux or Guybrush Threepwood. Clichéd though it may be, I want to make something that means something to people. If the games don't take off then worst case is I have new skills to add to my CV.

Plan your project in detail

Reading other indie blogs and articles more or less confirmed that I wasn't alone with the problems I have experienced. So my advice is to draw up a design document for your game. There are lots of resources out there on the interweb to aid you in this and pick an approach that suits. Or just use your own. Detail the game loop, screen layout,control schemes,art style, delivery platforms and so on. Don't code anything until you have a clear project outline. Now I'm not very strict with mine. I don't create UML diagrams or anything like that, to each his own.I do like to break down my project into stages though. For example stage one might be getting a basic gameloop running, stage two might be adding menu screens,stage three adding sound etc. A real game designer might look at this at say HA! What pish! That guy is so wrong! But it works for me. It helps me focus on the task at hand and breaking a big problem(the game project) into smaller chunks is much more achievable.

Start small

When starting out frustrating as it might be, the best thing to do is to make smaller more manageable projects. Release them, gather feedback and maybe dip your toe into marketing. Actually finishing a project is a big achievement for free time devs and a great learning experience. Like I mentioned earlier, getting a few little projects to market and you will see your skills improve. 

Prototype

Graphics are massively important to games. There I've said it. Call the graphics whore police. Especially in the games I'm looking to make. Im not talking about ultra 4k, 120fps ten hundred million gigaflanges per pixel graphics but having very specific lighting to create atmosphere, getting the colour palette bang on, that sort of thing. The hard part is that graphics can be intrinsically linked to the gameplay. The visuals of Journey and Naissance really pull you into their world and make you want continue exploring. Ignore that for now though. Block out your game and get it running.Nail the gameplay and then purty up the game.