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独立开发者关于游戏开发的10大建议

发布时间:2015-11-10 15:05:42 Tags:,,,,

作者:Alex Barnes

在过去一年里,我们一直致力于创建自己的公司,但是直到2014年11月我们才真正开始开发我们的第一款游戏。现在我们是一支由四个人组成的团队。接下来我将直切主题分享独立开发者应该掌握的10大技巧。

1.为改变做好准备

互动和改变是优秀设计和机制创造的核心。你总说不可能尽心尽力地完成所有内容,有些东西是你需要让步的,有些东西则是你不应该让步的;所以你需要在开发过程中有选择地进行“战斗”。在你最初的设计中,大量的改变似乎是不可避免的,但你应该从“现在我变得更厉害了,那我该如何将这一内容变得更出色呢?”这样的角度进行思考。而你也应该牢记始终保持核心内容不变,并且在这方面不能做出让步,你应该始终坚持促成游戏理念的基本元素。所以你可以找到自己想要创造的根源内容以及你并不能做出改变的内容,然后再围绕着它们去创造可改变的内容。

2.计划是关键

要求自己去计划某些事情似乎非常困难,特别是当你想要真正开发一款游戏时,但是计划却是非常重要的事。很多时候游戏制作会因为你未进行适当的计划而受到牵绊。对于较小型的团队而言计划比较不那么重要,因为他们不需要担心与许多人进行各种协调,但是明确该做什么事以及做这些事需要花费多长时间也是很重要的。看着计划中的大布局能够让你明确前进方向并从更大范围判断需要改变的内容。也许做计划是件让人讨厌的事,但是如果你能够制定一个有效的计划,那么这将在长期发展中帮你节省下不少时间并避免许多不必要的麻烦。

note(from gamasutra)

note(from gamasutra)

3.为自己设定一些衡量标准

你到底在创造些什么?!说实话,为什么你在创造那样的东西?这看起来很蠢,如果你能够问自己这些问题并给出一些明确的答案的话就好了。你可以说你想要创造出像《Papers,Please》这类型极简主义风格的游戏,或者像《传送们》这样巧妙的系统,那么将这些游戏作为你的软目标并观察自己是否能够战胜它们。即使你拥有一些你认为非常新颖的想法,如果你能够了解自己的参考对象及其影响并根据它们去衡量自己做得怎样,你便有可能创造出更棒的作品。

4.清楚自己很渺小

如果你是一名独立开发者,你便属于小型开发者。这意味着你必须尽可能地缩减开支,因为你和坐在你旁边的人都不知道如何创造音乐或3D图像。你必须在浪费掉所有资源去创造下一款《刺客信条》般的游戏前意识到这点。你需要进行所有的项目管理,关卡设计,机制,QA测试等工作。所以你应该准备好迎接多重任务并学习一些不属于自己范畴的新内容。

5.尽可能利用自己的规模

虽然小型团队看起来较不利,但是它也有它的自由。你和你的团队必须决定好如何去运行你们公司。这里没有人比你地位更高,你的上头没有能够影响你的创造性决策或改变你的工作的大boss。这意味着你自己将影响着任何你所做的事。你将独自创造并完成一个项目。

6.邀请其他人去玩你的游戏

我仍然对很多人在创造游戏时遗漏掉这点感到吃惊,但是你真的应该让那些从未玩过你的游戏的人去尝试下游戏。你自己非常清楚如何玩你的游戏,你知道它的具体运行,难题以及解决方法,但是随机的游戏玩家却不是如此。他们是今后可能玩你的游戏的玩家,是你之前从未遇到并且可能永远都不会遇到的人。所以你应该让一些其他人去玩玩你的游戏,并且在整个过程中你都不应该插手。这不只是为了检查游戏漏洞,同时也能测试你的游戏机制是否有趣,UI设置是否合理,以及玩家在敌人死后是否能够注意到掉落道具。没有什么比看着别人玩着你的游戏却一直出错还受挫的事了。

7.睡觉很重要!

快上床睡觉。这是许多需要加班的工作都适用的建议。也许你正忙于系统执行工作中,但是即使睡觉也不会剥夺了你的思维。通常情况下你都不是在做一些细活,所以你很有可能不能专注精神并且会因为一些细小的东西受挫。而睡觉便能帮助你缓解这些问题,并让你重新迎接战斗。当你面对一个截止期限并且你不得不工作到凌晨6点才能完成所有任务时,你应该喝点咖啡或红牛进行调节。但是这不应该成为你的工作方式,你应该按时上床睡觉补眠,如此你的游戏也会感谢你的。

8.做好自己的功课并与其他人交谈

再一次地,你需要清楚自己的渺小。而这并不意味着你应该始终坚持独立做事。独立游戏社区真的很棒,在这里人们会互相帮助并提供有益的建议,所以你可以就某些内容去询问别人的意见。与社区人士见面能够帮助你遇到那些愿意资助你的游戏或发行你的游戏的人,或者你能够得到那些帮助你制作游戏的服务或产品。但是你也应该清楚所有人一年到头都很忙,所以如果你未能得到及时回复也不要太在意。

9.尽可能保持一切足够简单

这是适用于你的整体制作过程的一个建议。拥有一个非常复杂的机制,图像风格等会导致玩家逐渐疏远你的游戏,如果玩家因为游戏太过复杂而每隔30秒就要盯着控制器,他们便不可能沉浸于游戏中。这也将延伸到核心概念中。我们想办法用2个句子去传达游戏理念,不管玩家之前是否玩过游戏都不重要,他们都能从这2个句子中清楚看到游戏是关于什么。但这也不等于你需要删除游戏中所有复杂元素,这只是说你最好能够基于较容易理解的概念去创造游戏。你需要确保生产线足够简单,如此团队便能够清楚地了解整个过程,并确保生产的顺利进行。最后,保持事情的简单等同于保持内容的清楚,而内容越清楚便能够确保更多玩家以及你的团队成员更轻松地理解它们。

10.真正去享受你所做的事

不要因为游戏开发而感到沮丧。任何制作过程都有起起落落,所以有时候你会不想因为测试员的不理解而在凌晨2点的时候打开电脑去重新执行UI。这是一种低潮期,你会感到很痛苦,不过这时候你就更应该记得自己为什么要这么做,为什么你会喜欢制作游戏,以及为什么经历这些能够帮助你创造出更出色的游戏;只要想清楚这些你便能够更好地应对接下来的任何负面情绪。真正去享受你所做的事,你是为了让自己开心而去制作游戏的!每一个拿起控制器的孩子都会想要获得你这份工作!所以你应该搞清楚你喜欢游戏的什么地方以及制作游戏的乐趣,并始终牢记它们,这将帮助你更轻松地应对那些艰难的日子,并重回自己真正热爱的工作中。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转发,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

10 Tips From A Year In Indie Dev

by Alex Barnes

We’ve been working up to forming this company for the past year now, but only really started proper development on our first title in November 2014. We are currently a team of four. So without further messing around I’ll get on with my 10 tips for indie devs and stuff that I’d loved to have known at the start of the year.

1. Get ready to change

Iteration and change is really the core of good design and mechanics creation. You cant afford be precious about everything you make, there are things you can compromise on and there are things you shouldn’t; so you need to pick your battles throughout dev. Massive changes may seem like a kick in the nuts to your original designs, but look at it from the stand point of “Now I’m better, how can I make this better?”. However it should be kept in mind that you’ve got to retain your core and you can never really compromise on it, the pillar that made the idea come to life must keep going and cant be undermined. So find the roots of what you want to make and the things you cant change, then build your changeables from them.

2. Planning is key

Forcing yourself to plan stuff seems like a massive hassle, especially when you want to be actually deving a game, but planning is so very important. The amount of times where production has stumbled because he havent planned properly and have stepped on each other toes is annoying to say the least. Planning is less important for smaller teams because you dont have to worry about working with many people in conjunction, but its still important to outline what you’re doing and how long you think its going to take you. If nothing else its an opportunity to step back and actually look at the game rather than that one cool mechanic that you’ve been working on for the past couple of weeks. Seeing the whole picture in planning allows you to see where its going and what needs to change on a bigger scale. It may be a pain in the ass and eat into your development, but good planning can help save you time and a shed load of grief in the long run.

3. Set yourself some measurables

What the hell are you making!? Seriously, why are you making that thing look like that? It seems silly but it asking yourself these questions and giving yourself target answers is actually a really good idea. You can say that you want to get a minimalist style like papers, please or some clever systems like portal, set these titles as soft targets and see if you can beat them. Even if you have something that you perceive as wholly original its always a good idea to know your references and influences and measure yourself against them to see how you’re doing.

4. Be aware that you’re small…

If your an indie its likely that you’re kind of small. That means that you’re inevitably going to have to make cut backs, because you and the guy on the computer next to you don’t know how to do music or 3D art etc. Be aware of this before you slap all your chips on a decision to make the next Assassins Creed. You’re going to have to do all of the project management, level design, mechanics or QA testing (that’s a big one) the list really does go on. so be prepared to multitask and to learn a lot of new things that aren’t in your area of expertise, by any stretch.

5. …So use your size to your advantage

Being small is scary but its also kind of liberating. Remember that at the end of the day you and your team get to decide how you run your company. There is no one higher up than you, there is no big boss that can take your creative control or change how you want to do things. This means that anything that you make will have had a significant impact by you. You’re bringing your project to life.

6. Get other people to play your game

It still amazes me how many people miss this when they are making a game (although, I am massively guilty of it), but you should give the controller to someone who has never played your game before. You know how to play your game, you know the ins and outs, the bugs and the remedies, but does a random gamer? because that’s who’s going to be playing your game, a random person who you’ve never met and probably never will meet. So the games got to be playable by someone other than you, without you holding their hand throughout the process. This isn’t just to check for bugs but also for testing to see if mechanics are fun, if the UI makes any sense or if anyone notices the item drops when an enemy dies. Nothing is more frustrating than watching someone play your game wrong, apart from playing someone’s game and not being able to make sense of it.

7. Sleep is important!

GO TO BED. This bit of advice has come from more than one crunching session. It may seem like you’re making massive headway with that system implementation, but sleeping on it reveals the truth your sleep deprived mind never could, you were doing some pretty shit work. Now this isn’t always the case (programmers seem to be the exception to this rule as they start functioning after 10pm) but more often than not you’re not doing quality work, chances are that you aren’t focused and are massively frustrated with the smallest things. These problems dissipate with sleep, so again pick your battles. Got a deadline that can’t wait and you need to work until 6am to get everything ready, sure then you can drink coffee and red bull until you are so jacked that you cant do anything but work and spasm from the caffeine occasionally. But do you really need to do it all the time, seriously just go to bed and your game will thank you.

8. Do you’re homework and talk to people

Again, you are small. That doesn’t mean you have to be alone however. The indie games community is pretty great, people giving each other help and advice about a whole host of subjects, so you can just ask someone for some tips on things and chances are they’ll give you the advice you need. Meeting people in the community also helps you meet people that could fund or publish your game, or give you a plethora of services or products that could really help out your production. However its always good to be mindful that everyone is super busy almost all of the year, so if you don’t get a reply don’t take it to heart, they’re probably shouting at a screen somewhere about why the lighting maps have broken!

9. Keep everything as simple as possible

This is just a good policy to adopt across your whole production. Having overly convoluted mechanics, art style etc will alienate your players and people wont be able to immerse themselves if they’re having to look at the controller every 30 seconds because its all too complicated. This extends to the core concept, we managed to boil our game into 2 sentences that could sell the idea of the game to anyone that heard it, it didn’t matter if they’d ever played games before, they just knew what we were making. This doesn’t mean that you have to strip out all complexity from your game it just means you should build it from easily graspable concepts (jump becomes double jump becomes jumping off walls etc.). production pipelines should be as simple as you can make them so that everything is clear for the team and everything is moving smoothly. In the end keeping things simple is a kin to keeping them clear, the clearer something is the more players and your team will understand what it is.

10. Have fun with what you do

Don’t let dev get you down. Every production has peaks and troughs, so just be aware that there will be days where you don’t feel like getting on your computer at 2am to re-implement UI because your testers don’t understand it. These are the the low moments and they are pretty tough, its important in these moments to remember why you’re doing this, why you love making games, why doing this horrible thing now will make your game so much better; and free you up to do much more awesome stuff later down the line. Be happy with what you do, you make games for crying out loud! Every kid that ever picked up a controller wants your job! (it doesn’t matter that they think all you have to do is play games all day) So find those things that you love about games and making games and hold them close, they are the spark that’ll see you though those hard days and get you back to doing what you hopefully love doing.(source:gamasutra)

 


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