Rapid Prototyping Boot Camp · 1680 days ago

Game Design’n

Yall done get that hammer and gitcher butts in here. We gots some nails ta whack!

Last time it seemed to me that you shouldn’t do too many things automatically for the player. Not because I think automation is bad, but because doing too much of it takes the freedom of making that decision away from the player, and treats her to a handholding session. I’m not much of a believer in game design rules, and maybe it’s just the hammer I’ve found to hit all these nails with, but I’m finding lots of uses for this idea lately.

In hopes of educating ourselves, it’s been suggested that I interview other game designers on their thoughts and methods. If you have any questions you are particularly interested in an answer to send me a mail and I’ll include them.

Making a Game In a Day

You have more power for quickness than the Empire realizes young game developer. You fail to accept this at our peril.

Two weekends ago, I got together with my friend the Masked Tennessean and attempted to make an entire game in one day. We’ve been throwing around a simple game idea for a while, with neither of us having the time to work on it. We decided it’d be fun to see how much we could accomplish in a single day.

I’ve seen others doing this for years with the indie game jams, and game-in-a-day events. I’ve always been attracted to the idea, but not having done it ourselves we didn’t realize the value of it.

At the end of the day, we were successful in completing what we started. It’s rough around the edges and we didn’t get to all the features we wanted, but we did have a level, two different types of enemies with decent AI and custom sound effects. We used the core Torque Game Engine, with my own AI script system.

About 4 hours into the day it became apparent that if we wanted to reach our goals we would have to put the 3D artwork off till later. When you only have a few hours till your deadline it’s really easy to make this decision. When you are on a project that’s taking a year to finish it is much harder realize, but still just as important of a decision.

Even without the custom artwork, the game was actually very fun to play. More fun than I expected to have after just a day’s worth of work.

Here’s a screenshot from the game in a day project showing a kamikaze unit running at you.

I found the entire process extremely valuable in the rest of my work. It really shows me exactly how much I can get done in a single day. It also shows me what is important in getting the game done, and teaches us how to do it in as short a time as possible. And, if you are somewhat successful (and you’ll be surprised that you will be) you have a working prototype at the end of a day. It’s a game development boot camp I think all game developers should take part in to hone your skills.

After doing it I’ve had two of the most productive weeks working on Unearthed Gods, which I’ll talk more about in a couple days.

For another tale of rapid game making success, and a great read, check out the GameDev.net game-in-a-week feature by Jay Barnson of Rampant Games, where he talks about creating a complete hack and slash RPG in one week.

-Clint



  1. trying to make a game in a day really does teach you a lot. one thing it taught me was that i’m really slacking most of the time. i could be working harder. i could be accomplishing so much more. at work this past week, i also was forced to work at a high rate of speed to get a smallish application up and running in just a couple of days. there is a saying about work filling up the time alotted to it or something like that which could be relevant right now, but i’m not that smart as to draw a lot of potentially enlightening conclusions about anything….
    — masked tennessean    Aug 5, 10:58 PM    #

  2. also can’t wait to hear about your last two productive weeks.
    — masked tennessean    Aug 5, 11:08 PM    #

  3. i also forgot to mention one thing…i want my WCW Championship Belt back Nature Boy. i’m comin’ fer yew!
    — masked tennessean    Aug 5, 11:11 PM    #

  4. hah the belt is mine! We should do another game in a day session soon.
    — Clint    Aug 7, 06:09 PM    #

  5. agreed.
    — masked tennessean    Aug 8, 12:05 AM    #

  6. wow! the masked tennessean? he was maybe the greatest wrestler of all time.
    — wheelbarrow    Aug 8, 12:07 AM    #

  7. ...was? ...maybe? what crazy language are you talkin’ mr. wheelbarrow?!
    — masked tennessean    Aug 8, 12:09 AM    #