Hi, my name is "Error014" (which doesn't mean anything, stop asking me about that! And no, it's not my real name, silly you!).

As some of you noted, I haven't shown a big project for a while. In fact, I did the very opposite. I created a few games which were not much more then a simple prototype, which I'd then post in the forums. The goal was to find new and unique gameplayconcepts that were fun and of course to gain fame! ... which didn't quite work out. THanks, everyone. You're not my friends anymore.

In this thread, I kind of want to summarize the results I got last year: what worked and what didn't, what I'd change and so on. I hope that there are some valuable lessons for everyone to fnid! If not, I'm sorry, I tried.

Oh, and - uuh, somebody requested this! Really!

Enjoy, post your comments and let me know what you liked or disliked about it! In the end, I might show some screenshots of projects that never saw the light of the day (yet? ). A post full of fun!


No. 1 - no title (working title was "kometmunch", but it changed a LOT).
Replies: 17

Thread: http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/649991/page/0/fpart/2/vc/1



The very first game of this project! Back then, it was just a quick idea I thought of and I never expected to make a series out of games like this. In fact, I originally wanted to realize this game with my very own engine, but I never did. As soon as it was released, I never touched it anymore (as with every other game of the series, although, again, that was never intended)
I sent the prototyp to various people before I released it (thanks, Turrican&Pappenheimer!) and their feedback was pretty positive, but although critical. Although I took a bit of it, I was almost fed up with the project and released it, just to be done with it. Not surprisingly, the critics received were almost the same I got back then...

What went well:

- The concept - making stuff happen on the beats of the music really turned out well and was and is surprisingly intuitive. This is an idea that I'd recommend to everyone: Try to really use music in your game, make it more than just something that plays in the background. Changing it (Windwaker did a GREAT job on that, with the highlights playing when your landed a hit on an enemy) is one way to do it, but making the game react on the music is another one that really works well. Try it!

- including your own music: Although I feel nobody did that, it was still relatively easy to add your own music to the game. Even someone who isn't a programmer should be able to do so and that is quite a feat! The downside to all this is that it didn't analyze the files itself as originally planned (yeah, I'm a dreamer ). Still, it was a pretty easy way!

What didn't work:

- The graphics were horrible. It took a while until I realized that, but as important as gameplay is, graphics can really help. A coherent, stylish and unique look can really make a difference. Look at the screenshot above - it's terrible!

- No playlist kills the fun after a few minutes: This is something I really should have thought of. The music continues looping all the time. This is really getting on your nerves after a while. A game in which music plays the central role should change its tune, obviously. Also a lesson you can use: Provide enough stuff and keep things fresh! A gamer that quits because of boredom is something to avoid.

- The rules were too complex. Well, maybe that's not the right way to put it. It doesn't matter if whats behind the game is complex or hard to understand. But games like this should be explained in a minute or so. The simple fact that it took so many lines just to explain what happens when shows that something was wrong here. There were some good suggestion on how to avoid that, but in the end, it wasn't so much a problem of the game, but of the post! If I were to just omit these parts and stick to the very basic rules, it would have worked just as well. Nobody knows the exact rules of the battlesystem of Pokemon, and that is a good thing: Don't overcomplicate things and tell the player only what he REALLY has to know. He doesn't have to know that Gun X will do 1,234 times the damage and 2 times if gunfire was reflected + 1 for each succesful enemy shot before. Its enough to tell him "it's slightly stronger". He shall find the rest out by himself. Motivation!


What surprised me was how horrible I was at this game. I thought I was "pretty good", until Romac posted his combo, followed by MichaelSchwarz, which both made it clear that I - in fact - fail at my own game. I don't know if they cheated using their own tune with no beats at all, but I don't really want to think about that anyway. I like my visions of happy people playing my games, thank you very much.

No. 2 - Audience Artist
Replies: 14
Thread: http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/sho...01731dea39d9e00



At this point, I realized that I'd create more games anyway (more precise: I was already working on them!), so I went ahead and called it a series. The second game, Audience Artist, is probably the most popular... the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and really surprised me. I had a lot of problems with the recognizing of certain elements and even in the final game, they didn't worked as well as they should.
I did a lot of testing with the drawing and when I was finally happy with it, I sent it to other people only to find out that their spirals weren't recognized, leading to weird discussions on how exactly to draw spirals, anyway. I also had to make up super-lame puns for the subjectlines of the emails. It was really a hard time.

What worked well:

- The atmosphere is pretty wacky, which is exactly what I was after. This time, the excellent Turrican provided the graphics which led to this amazingly stylish look.

- The sounds. This is something I didn't expect. I went to flashkit to search for Audiencesounds (after all, I just sticked to what was shown to me at these forums), and the feedback you get through this was extremely satisfying. If I could, I'd add audience(sounds, at least) to every single game out there. It works well in SuperSmashBros, so why not everywhere else?
In the end, it's just direct feedback. Player does action X, he should see if its right or not. In Audience Artist, you immediatly see if you granted Wish Y, and if that was right or wrong. At the end, you get the points for this round (the "money" for your "painting"), and you continue with the audience boo-ing or clapping. Simple, but effective.
- Gradual changes: The game adjusts its difficulty: The more people in the audience, the more wishes to grant, which makes it harder. But if you don't manage to keep up, people will leave and it becomes easier again. To stop the game, paint will run out, so it won't continue forever.
But the fact that there is an audience and you want to see a LOT of people there keeps you going and trying harder. At least that's what I think. So adjust the gameworld and make it a better place, if the player plays well

- Exaggerated points: That sounds weird, but it feels better to get "4500$" than "45$". Although it doesn't matter in the end if everyone gets his score times ten, it just feels like a greater achievement. Obviously, this doesn't work with all games, and in some it's pretty common anyway (Pinball!)

What went wrong:

- The recognition was wonky. Amazingly, only one person had the courage to name that issue. Thunder, congratulations, you win!

- It becomes a little boring after a while. The amount of wishes of the audience is pretty limited. To counter that, I included events like earthquakes that should take place.

- The audience could have done more. Originally, I wanted single people from the audience to come upstage and have special wishes or to put a bucket on your head or whatever. I didn't. I couldn't go on with the game at a certain point. Meh.

- originally, I wanted soundfiles for the audience, so you really hear them yell "CIRCLES! CIRCLES!". Unfortunately, some things simply don't happen

I was impressed by the great, positive feedback I got: I really didn't know what to expect feedbackwise. In the end, the positive feedback made me continue with this project. However, it has to be asked: Why does nobody reply after I said "Keep the replies coming"???

No. 3 - Puzzletter
Replies: About 8 and a bunch of bugreports
Topic: http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/sho...01731dea39d9e00



I got this idea while brainstorming when I heard music that - in my mind - would have perfectly fit this game. Unfortunately, I was super impatient, so you never got to hear the music Turrican made for this game. Sorry, guys!
So in this game, you had to manipulate the letters, which originally formed a sentence or a word ("TO BE OR NOT TO BE") by rotating and moving them in such a way that the ball would end up in the goal. The ball was a physics entity.

Unfortunately, the game wasn't a success, it simply had too many problems on too many levels. The presentation was horrible (back to that, huh?), the physics sometimes didn't work and the game crashed too often. All in all, it was probably the least successful of the games.

What worked well:

- The editor was quite nice, although it could have been more flexible
- The idea isn't too bad. With a little work, it could have been supercool!
- It is quite addicting, as long as it doesn't crash
- The controls were quite good, I think
- The tutorial wasn't perfect, but provided a good start
- There were loads of levels to choose from

What didn't work:

-
- *sigh*. Okay, so what didn't work? It crashed too often!
- The physicsengine wasn't realiable enough for such a game
- Nobody actually USED the editor, because everyone hates me. I think.
- Some of the levels were awfully hard

All in all, a little more polish would probably worked wonders for this game. It is also a valuable lesson: It again shows how important a coherent artstyle can be, and of course how important it is that your game is STABLE. Also, immediate results of the user's action have to be reliable and clear (in this case: Not like the physics )
I think nobody beat the game and nobody understood the poll I made. It asked "Whose levels did you like the most", but I worded it badly, apparently. Oh well, let's move on.

No. 4 - Trouble Tower
Replies: ~ 10
Topic: http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/sho...01731dea39d9e00



I liked this one. I actually focused quite a lot on the presentation here, although it's look is simple. There was a "Milestones"-section, which provided qute a lot of information on quite some high things in the world. I learned quite a lot from this one . It also let you chose between metres and feet, because of our lovely international community here

In the end, it was about building towers from simple blocks with physics. It probably wasn't as "innovative" as I'd like it to be, but that's okay. It's not that it was the most popular game here! There were a few bugs, but it was far less problematic then with Puzzletter, so it wasn't too bad.

What worked well:

- Even though nobody commented on that, I feel that the milestone-section really added to the game. Although its hard to believe, it was inspired by the Trophy-section of SuperSmashBrosMelee. I SAID it is hard to believe!
Again, this is a relatively easy way to motivate the player. Show him what he achieved already, and maybe when he'll achieve the next thing. If the user wonders "what will I get THIS time", then you've won!

- The presentation. Yeah, I liked it! The cameramovements each round seemed very dynamic to me and showed the current state of your small tower.

- Newton Game Dynamics. I am still surprised on how reliable this is. I would have used the one from Acknex, but, well, I couldn't. It's not my fault, I only have Com!
At the beginning, every block had physics all the time. This changed pretty quickly

- Feedback. You saw your tower and you saw it growing round after round. I think that this is extremely satisfying.

- Fun even when you lose: The final moments in which your whole tower collaps are great fun. Even though it means you lose, you still enjoy it.

- The controls: They weren't that bad, especially tilting the camera!

- The atmosphere was a nice touch (it gets darker the higher you are). This idea was stolen from ulillillia. Wait, thats a li too much!

What didn't work:

- The Milestones might have been too far apart, or the towers too small. Maybe it just took too long to get all of them?

- Too few blocks: After 5 rounds, a new blocktype should have been introduced to keep things fresh. Maybe also a timelimit

- More unique: Maybe music or something along these lines would have helped to make it more itneresting?

- The controls: They weren't that good, especially moving the blocks.

All in all, I like this game. It's not in the same league as Audience Artist (or commercial games, for that matter ). It has more polish than most of these games, and this is a huge plus. The few little quirks are a shame, but all in all, it's not that bad. Again, more milestones would have helped, or a more exaggerated height. It's more satisfying to show "200metres" than "2 metres"!
Although, it wasn't so clear when you lose. Silly me. There might have also been a timeconstraint. Oh well.

No. 5 - Audience Abduction
Replies: ~7
Thread: http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/sho...01731dea39d9e00



You didn't really like this one. It was inspired by a flashgame, that asked you to add words together. I LIKED it.
The goal was to get your group of people close to an flying saucer, then describe it and to flee before the saucer abducts people (think of it like an tourist guide for supernatural stuff). It certainly IS an unique idea, but maybe it wasn't a good one.

What worked well:

- the music changed everytime you "said" something. This was a good idea, as it made the whole thing more dynamic.

- The speechbubble-style works well and looks good. Good work, Error!

- The animations were funny. It weren't MINE animations, of course, but the ones from testdummy, but they worked well.

- In my opinion, the combosystem worked well

What didn't work:

- apparently, typing words isn't what most consider "fun", which really destroys this game.

- Graphics: The whole game was a little ugly. It made your eyes bleed. These are games you post but don't show screenshots of.

- Maybe the combosystem didn't work so well. It was a little hard to make sure nobodyy gets abducted, with the irrational behaviour of the flying saucers.

- Finding flying saucers isn't fun!

- Some had trouble with the words. The game obviously asks you to name many DIFFERENT words. There is a database with quite a few words!

All in all, this game simply had an underlying idea that most didn't like, so you couldn't do much to change that. Good thing I haven't worked too much on this... Even though Turrican and I had a hard time thinking of the words for the saucer!

No. 6 - Cyto
Replies: 15 (thanks to me, whining)
Topic: http://www.coniserver.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/714731/page/0/fpart/2/vc/1



This one was actually made quite early, it was the third game or so I made for this project. I added the finishing touches more than a half year later to it and then released it. It was "okay" and had "average" popularity compared to the rest of the games. I also asked everyone why they hate me, with everybody denying that, of course. You can't fool me!

What worked well:

- As Calined puts it, it uses the "Snake-princip" very well: Become bigger, game becomes harder.

- It displays your achievments. You can see that you've become much bigger. This is important as it motivates alot.

- The (two) bosses mix things up and keep them fresh

- The controls were intuitive

- The menu looked AWESOME. There is no denying. It looked damn fine.

- The pulse at the bottom was an unique idea and it worked really well. It had its downsides though...

- Survival mode was a cool idea. I was surprised at how much fun it was.

What didn't work:

- According to Pappenheimer, the graphical styles (machine and organs) don't fit. I'm not so sure about that, but it is only fair to state this valid critic here!

- The pulse at the bottom had its downsides. To quote Calined (again!):

Quote:

---

imho you need music, or else the slower heartbeat gets me to fall asleep XD

---

- Yeah, there was no music. Whoops. Also no sound, aside the beep.

- there were a few bugs, but nobody noticed them

- maybe it was too hard to beat the bosses without any hints??

All in all, this game is "okay" and maybe one of the better ones of this series. With a little music and a little more polish, this might have been a very addicting game.



----


Thats it! Thats all I'll say for now. I hope you had fun with this trip through the experiment and I hope that some of you can use the "lessons" of this Experiment. The games weren't so successful and none of them managed to beat "Gun X" or "Shader Y", but thats okay. (Not really it made me cry!)

I also want to thank Turrican, Pappenheimer, Kihaku and Spike for their testing and hosting! Turrican especially because he also helped out with graphics, music and sounds (in some games)!

Now that this is out of the way - which of these games did you like the most? Or do you hate them all and want me to die, so I never post again? POST!


Maybe I'll post on a few more games that I haven't released at a later time, depending on the interest on that.


For more information about this project, see my blog: Experimental Blog - trying to create fun

Nice thread!

Not many of us (myself included) could compile such a history of our efforts. Your post-mortem "what went right/what went wrong" is very useful for you and for us. Hopefully this will become a standard for game developers so we can learn from our past.

Again Error, really nice thread and great introspection on your series!

I guess you remember this article about substance and style:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20051004/sylvester_01.shtml

You're a master of substance, of programming a unique kernel of challenges and demanded decisions, maybe you can extend your knowledge of style to add identification, feelings and story, to connect the gameplay to our experiences and our unconsciousness. Because each game needs sympathy - and that's a main part of style.

I think, the first two games of this list already had a base to catch sympathy. The other games still need some work to achieve that.

Even, if your prototypes were no success, you will perhaps get additional ideas from time to time, where finally one adds the final feature to one of them to make it really addictiv.

If not, I'm sure, you will find a bunch new gameideas for prototyping!

Quote:

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I might show some screenshots of projects that never saw the light of the day

---

May we see it?

Quote:

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(way uniquer than my games!)

---

`

"uniquer"?
Aaah, yes! (Is that actually a word? )

unique, uniquer, uniqimagnitestical?

But, seriously, Kihaku, your idea wasn't bad, too.
What your idea has in difference to Errors, who care less for that, is that your idea presentates a myth, maybe, not a big one! Look into Wikipedia, look into scientific essays, myth is a very special philosophical, sociological and psychological thing...#
A girl collecting roses in a black evil world is deeper connected to our twisted combinations of wishes and fears than abduction by aliens or bacterias.

Sorry, Error, I spoiled your thread (again? )! Two posts of mine, and noone dares to post anymore!


Speaking about prototypes and prototyping, and the sense to prototype, and the values of your pototypes:

I always looked at your prototypes as very early tests of the substance of an idea of a gameplay, I never looked at them as sort of 'final' prototypes to decide wether proceed with one of them as a project or not.

I always expected at least a second stage of your prototypes, where you add a story, a main character, an identification, a myth or an imagination or whatever. A sort of prototyping within the style part of the game...

... hope, one understands me, at least you?

Okey, let's try a revive of the thread!
Its named "Lessons I've learnt in my Experiments!".
With such a title, there isn't much to say for the others.
Maybe, they can post what they learnt from their experiments?
Or, they could post what can be learned additionally from your experiments. That's what I'm doing, and that's what I'm proceeding with. Mercyless!

One way to learn from one's experiments is, to compare it to other's experiments.
Kihaku's Angela's World is one of the few experiments presented in forum.
Result: His experiment has a myth. A rose is a symbol for love, its colour red symbolize blood too, the black and white, symbolizes, at least in the western world, evil and good, guilty and innocence, death and light...
Very common, like love and death, the central themes of novels and movies.
But, very effektive, because everyone's life is deeply connected to that themes.

But, Error, your prototypes have myths too. They are hidden, because they are less planed and less consciously constructed than the gameplay itself!

That means, they are more difficult to recognize.
Thinking about the colours in Kihaku's game enabled me to see the speciality in your choices of colours.
You chose the opposite of black and white, you mainly chose 'colourful' (german:"bunt") and bright colours.
Okey, you could say Kihaku was more focused on style than you, and you chose the colours because you didn't think about the colours much.
But, that could be the story of the creation of the games, but that's not the story about their effects to the audience.
Think about other bright and colourful games. Which are coming to your mind?

What do the colours symbolize in their worlds?

Could we call the colours "happy colours"? And, "Colours of childhood"?
Colours, which are untouched by death and love and the related fears and disappointments?
With this in mind, we have a sharper view at the stories in your prototypes, and why they worked or didn't work.

In my opinion, the stories of your prototypes should work, if they fit within the careless mind of a happy child and its thoughtless wishes.

-------------------------
BTW:
Writing this, I remember Wing's experiments!
His games were colourful, too.
But, in a different way. Although I don't know how to describe the difference.
Maybe, someone of you has an idea...

... ah, the difference is not as much in the colour than in the shape of the entities, yours and Kihaku's entities have strong and clear shapes sharply seperated from the environment, they are on earth;
Wing's entities are lucious, transparent, enlightened, in heaven.

A question:

What are your conclusions in respect of proceeding or cancelling the projects?
What do you think are the consequences of your pros and contras?

A thought:

A lot of your experiments are 2D, which is good for easier faster prototyping, but I think they where good for 3D as well.

Suggestions to your prototypes:

To No. 3 - Puzzletter :

About the crashes: you don't need the physic-engine, the simple bounce function would do the job as well.


To No. 5 - Audience Abduction :


Instead of typing choosing a word with scrolling through a list of words, deciding which word fits (fits to a given sentence, subject or whatever; but it should be something, which the game offers), could be an alternative to typing.

@Pappenheimer:
Scrolling through a list is not very satisfying either, at least in my oppinion.

Another concept which just jumped into my mind is some sort of "mind-map".
Put all possible words into categories and let the user kind of scope through the categories.
Example:
*Adjectives
-> Colors
--> red
--> blue
...

-> Properties
--> Size
--> Shape
...

*Verbs
-> Aggressiv
--> attacking
--> shooting

-> Peaceful
--> kissing
--> smiling
...

-> Motion
--> walking
--> standing
--> running
...

Hope you get the idea, however I'm not sure if that system would work either.

Thanks for the feedback, guys! Keep it coming. Especially huge thanks to you, Pappenheimer, for your noble quest to keep this thread alive

Quote:

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I always expected at least a second stage of your prototypes, where you add a story, a main character, an identification, a myth or an imagination or whatever. A sort of prototyping within the style part of the game...

---

I did this experiment as a way to finally use all these weird ideas you get. This helped me to find out what works and what doesn't in a game. I am still far away from immediate recognition "This-will-work", but I'm closer to it than I was before.

These games were never meant to be more than simple prototypes, simple ideas that I wanted to show and see hwo people like them (Answer: they do, but not as much as AK-47s. Yes, I am bitter ). As far as the article goes, yup, my games present substance, but very little style. Most of the time, I only give a very rough scenario (if at all), and go from there. But there is no story or emotion or anything that keeps things going.

At least in the projects I showed! There was one project in particular that had not much more than story going for it (well, a stylish presentation!). I never finished it, though, for a simple reason: The story made the project too complex, too long for this Experiment. I think thats the reason most of the games don't go much further than a simple scenario: A story thats interesting and meaningful has to have a certain length (at least if you want to add gameplayelements into the mix!).

However, I think that story is pretty important in "real" games (more than just these simple minigames). My current project (that Kihaku hinted at) is different and concentrates a lot on story and characterdevelopment (well, at least thats what I'm after!). Few games show the importance of story as well as the Phoenix Wright-games (which I absolutely love). I hope I can achieve something valueable as far as the story goes, but so far I am quite content with it. We'll see if that one will finally manage to break the evil spell that are models of AK-47s

Quote:

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To No. 3 - Puzzletter :

About the crashes: you don't need the physic-engine, the simple bounce function would do the job as well.

---

Hah, yes, you're right. That should have done the job just as well. Hm, I really should have thought of that myself. Guess I just wanted to use that feature a little more ("I payed for it!" )

Quote:

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To No. 5 - Audience Abduction :

Instead of typing choosing a word with scrolling through a list of words, deciding which word fits (fits to a given sentence, subject or whatever; but it should be something, which the game offers), could be an alternative to typing.

---

Personally, I enjoyed typing the words out and I guess there are people out there who'd enjoy it just as much. Problem is, MOST don't like it. But I'm not so sure if it was really that people didn't like to type or that it was to think of fitting adjectives?
Scrolling through a list or using a mindmap-approach take the creative side away, which isn't what I'd like. An idea mentioned by ... uh, I think it was Exciter?? .. suggested that these UFOs would have a certain theme or maybe a letter and you'd have to thnk of words for this (but not the UFOs themselves), making the whole thing similar to popular Flashgames ("Bookworm" and whatevertheyarecalled). So maybe that would have been the way to go? It also becomes boring to describe the same things over and over again.



As far as unrealized projects go, maybe in another post. For now, I'll leave you with a few screenshots, because I just don't feel like writing about these games

(Each of these is a unique project I never finished and/or released. Some became too complex, some are just missing the finishing touches, others turned out to be not too much fun or were changed into other games...)