Why we make games

Juuso of GameProducer asks "Why do you make games?". It's appropriate to ask this question at the end of the year, as it's a time for reflection and looking forward.

So what reasons are there for making games? When I think about it, there are really two major reasons why choose to create games.

The first is creative expression. I'm not much of an artist or writer, and although I enjoy drawing and writing, I find that creating games is the most satisfying exercise for me. It's certainly challenging, and there are many days when I wonder exactly why I bother when I could be doing something else. The drive to create something is strong though, and it keeps me going.

The second reason, and perhaps is the strongest, is the way games make me feel. I've grown up around computer games, from Pacman and Space Invaders to Lemmings, Sonic and beyond. Games have had a big influence on my life. Every time I reminisce about that cool part of Sonic 3, or the first time I played Halo, I know that it's a feeling I want to recreate for other people.

There is also the programming side, which is really part of the "art". Creating a nicely working piece of code is a strangely rewarding system, and you find yourself celebrating small victories as you go. Getting that first bit of playability running is always a challenge, but it's worth every second of effort and every drop of sweat (and blood).

I think if just one person gets a warm feeling inside when playing one of my games, I've succeeded. I'd be willing to bet that other developers feel the same way too.

We might not get the same respect as the composer of a symphony or the painter of a masterpiece, but the happiness we feel when creating joy in someone else's life is just as valid.

That's it from me for this year. I'll be returning in January with plenty of exciting things. Until then, I wish you all the best for the remainder of this year, and thank you for sticking around!

Hello 2008! A look back at 2007.

This article is part of the ProBlogger group writing project "Reviews and Predictions". Instead of predicting the future directly, I decided to predict things in the form of a retrospective of 2007. Talk about forward planning…

As 2007 draws to a close, it's time to pour a glass of brandy and take a look at what the year brought us.

1 - A surge in online game sales

With the PS3, XBox 360 and Wii becoming more integrated into homes around the World, there was a surge in the amount of people buying games online. New gamers who wouldn't normally buy online were more confident with the idea of downloading games instead of buying them in a regular store.

2 - Indies experimenting with subscription services

None of the big three consoles display prices in a regular currency, but use "points" instead. Several large indie publishers experimented with this method with varying degrees of success.

3 - More success for indie developers

Despite the continuing myth that indie developers can't be as successful as they once were, the full time indie club had plenty of new additions. There are still plenty of developers that don't quite make the cut, but the overall picture was much more positive.

4 - More diverse games

Although clones were still produced by the bucket-load, there was a glimmer of hope as more original games were high sellers. Games like Grimm's Hatchery helped to show that developers could follow their creativity and still be rewarded for it.

5 - Production values rise

This has always been the case, but thankfully it's nowhere near the commercial scene of million dollar titles.

Developers started to realise that they could no longer rely on "programmer art" for their projects, and 2007 saw a large increase in developers outsourcing their art. The overall standard of indie games rose as indies moved away from the programming mindset and towards a more general "game producer" one.

Consequently, it was a good year for freelance artists.

6 - Less programming, more design

Game development toolkits such as Ogre, RPG Maker start to become more popular as developers realise they must move away from re-inventing the wheel. This rise in toolkits really springs from the need to spend more time on production and less time on coding the perfect 3D engine.

7 - The World didn't end

Vista was released to the public, using consoles to purchase games online became more popular and development costs continued to rise. Despite all of this, the indie game scene failed to die the horrible death that has been predicted since time began…

Here's to an even more prosperous 2008!

This article is part of the ProBlogger group writing project "Reviews and Predictions".

I am it, apparently

If you read blogs regularly, you might have noticed the "5 things you didn't know about me" posts that are springing up all over the place.

If you haven't seen one of these posts before, it's a very simple idea. You must write five things about yourself that not many people know, and then nominate five other bloggers. I'm not really one for chain letters, but apparently it's the season to be jolly. Humbug.

Katy Whitton over at Flipping Heck! has recently been tagged, and has passed on the virus to yours truly. Brace yourself for five of the least fascinating facts you're ever likely to read.

I had my appendix removed when I was 5 years old. This was an important life lesson for me, as I found at that eating nothing but cream crackers is not as healthy as it sounds.
Despite being quite an analytically minded individual, I studied art for two years at high school (14 - 16). Unsurprisingly, it was my poorest subject, as you can probably tell by the stunning piece of artwork that adorns this page.
I run a local Scout Troop. I've been a uniformed leader for nearly six years, and before that I was a member of the same troop since the age of 12.
The first game I ever wrote was a text adventure called "Sonic's Adventure". It had 100 locations, each with a stunningly detailed description such as "you are in a field". Perhaps one day I'll re-release it as a "director's cut"…
I've served on a jury. I'm always surprised at people who want to skip jury duty, because I found it to be a very unique and rewarding experience. You're guaranteed to leave with a different perspective on things, and I know from my experience that you will see the best and worst that society has to offer.

So there we have it. For those of you that are still awake, it's time to nominate the people I shall be tagging. 99% of people on the blogs I read have already been tagged. If you're reading this and haven't had one of these messages, consider yourself tagged.

Tweaking the Sociable plugin

The sociable plugin is no longer available for download and the devbump service is long gone.

I use the "Sociable" WordPress plugin to add social bookmarking links to the bottom of every post. There are a tonne of social bookmarking sites around, so I've kept things light to avoid the icon overload that can be seen on some blogs. I've made two updates over the last few days, one was adding devbump and the other was adding CSS image rollovers.

If you're not sure about adding a few bookmarking buttons, you might want to check out the traffic increase at webloghits.com. That's the kind of increase that is worth a few minutes of your time.

Adding devbump.com

There are a lot of digg style sites out there, but devbump caught my eye because it's aimed squarely at game developers. Submitting your posts to places that are actually interested in the subject is always more useful, so devbump was a natural choice.

To add new sites to sociable, open up "sociable.php" and find the following line:

$sociable_builtin_known_sites = Array(

Once you've found it, add the following after the "Del.irio.us" definition:

'devbump' => Array(
    'favicon' => 'devbump.png',
    'url' => 'http://devbump.com/submit.php?url=PERMALINK&title=TITLE',
),

You'll have rebuild the list of available sites by logging in to your blog, and selecting "Restore Built-in Defaults" from the sociable page (Options -> Sociable). "devbump" should now be available to use on your site.

Adding CSS image rollovers

Now for the fun part. I used some code from Present Tense (Hacking the Sociable WordPress Plugin for Image Rollovers), but it didn't quite hit the spot so I did quite a lot of tweaking to get things looking nice. I've stuck it all in a zip at the end of this post.

Before you skip ahead to the freebies, there are a few important things to note.

Tweaked "sociable.php"

I made two main tweaks to sociable.php. One was because some sites have "." characters in their name, so it wouldn't work with CSS class names. The other tweak was to change the way that the HTML was generated. Instead of standard images, it's a list.

Internet Explorer

Naturally IE messes things up a little bit, so you might have to experiment a little bit to get things looking the way you want them. Removing the CSS tooltip may help.

16 x 16 Images

I like to have text next to my images, so each one has a different width. If you open "sociable.css", you'll see I've defined each networking site with a pair of definitions:

.sociable li.delicious a { width: 69px; background-image: url(images/delicious-hover.gif)}
.sociable li.delicious a:hover { background-position: 0 -16px;}

If you're using 16 x 16 images, you can move the width statement into the ".sociable li" definition.

Adding New Rollovers

To add a new image, you need to add a class with the name of the site, and then set its image. It's really just a matter of copying an existing class definition and changing the names. I'll add new sites as time goes on, but at the moment I've only defined: del.icio.us, digg, devbump, Reddit and Furl.

Free Stuff!

Everyone likes free stuff, so I've zipped up all of the files I modified for your downloading pleasure. There are still a few bugs to iron out, so I'll be modifying this post as and when things change.

To install the changes, just copy the files into your "wp-content/plugins/sociable" directory – you'll need to have sociable already installed (download here).

Download Latest Release (1.0) sociable-tweak-1.0.zip (11.0KB)

Interview With Amaranth Games

Grimm's Hatchery is now available for download. Try it today!

Hot on the heels of the interview with Hanako Games comes an interview with Amanda Fitch of Amaranth Games, creators of Aveyond .

Aveyond is a large and detailed RPG, with an engrossing story set in a huge world. There are plenty of quests to complete, monsters to battle and interesting characters to meet. If you're a fan of old-school RPGs like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger then you'll enjoy Aveyond.

The interview follows below, with my questions in bold.

Indie Life

Could you give a quick introduction - who you are, what you do (and why)?

My name is Amanda Fitch. I am the owner of Amaranth Games. My primary job is programming and coordinating the completion of games.

What got you started on developing your own games?

I couldn't find any games that I wanted to play so I decided to venture out and create my own. It's been a lot of hard work, but also lots of fun.

Your current project is called Grimm's Hatchery, could you share a some details about it?

Sure thing! In Grimm's Hatchery, you get to buy magical pets, raise them, and hatch new pets. Along the way, you must solve puzzles, create new species of pets, and keep your pets safe from danger. I've also inserted a twist of humor into the game. Once you've played it, you may think that the characters are positively insane! (In a funny way, of course!)

What would your perfect game be like?

Drats! The ultimate question, eh? I'm waiting for the day when I can put on my 3D glasses and actually walk around in a full-blown 3D RPG. I also dread this day, for no one may ever see me again…

What's your favourite part of being an indie developer?

The best thing about being an indie developer is taking risks. I don't think that big game companies have the leeway that indie game companies have. The budgets for their games are huge and each failure can cost them millions.

Conversely, what part is the worst?

Limited resources. I would love to have the amazing graphics that I see in some commercial games, but such things cost money. Lots of money.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to start their own indie business?

Don't borrow huge amounts of money, keep your team small (1-4 people), and don't quit your day job until you have a game or two under your belt. :)

Aveyond

Roughly how long did Aveyond take to create?

Aveyond took 1 1/2 years.

Are there any games in particular that inspired you?

Absolutely! Final Fantasy VI and Kings Quest VI. I tried to blend the two styles into an RPG/Adventure mix.

*You used RPG Maker to create Aveyond. What were the major advantages and disadvantages of this approach? I'm guessing not getting bogged down with trying to make a perfect engine is a big advantage!*

The major advantage was saving hundreds of hours in engine development and testing. Also, RPG Maker XP has a phenomenal level editor that makes is easy to build large, complex levels, and it leverages the RUBY scripting language.

The major disadvantage is that I can't customize the level editor and I can't port my games to Mac computers.

What was the hardest part of creating the game?

Cleaning up the loose ends. The first 75% of development is a lot of fun, however, eventually you get to a point where you have to clean up all of the annoying bugs that you kept putting off month after month. The last 25% can be really irritating and frustrating because you're no longer innovating.

Some bugs can take days to resolve and it's hard to stay patient.

Which feature(s) are you most proud of and why?

The storyline and the maps. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure the story was compelling. From the feedback I've received, I succeeded. I also had a lot of fun with my maps. I made them large so that players could wander around and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere.

If you could do anything differently, what would it be?

I would have created more side stories between the major characters in the game.

Aveyond has won a tonne of awards and seems to have quite a following. Did you ever imagine it would be so popular?

I didn't expect it to be this popular, but I had hoped… I still have a long way to go to make a game that truly resonates. However, I think Aveyond is a good start! :)

*There's quite an active community on the Amaranth Games website, including fan art and people sharing games they've made. What do you think has made the community section so popular?*

I think people come around because they have questions about the games that they are playing. Then, some of them stay to chat with other players and myself. I thought it was really great that some of the players liked the site, and so I decided to turn my site into a community with lots of things to do. I actually plan to roll out a new version of the site in January which is going to blow the old site out of the water. The new site lets players earn gold coins, collect items, buy a shack or a castle, and so much more!

Closing

Is there anything you'd like to add?

Thank you so much for the interview, Phil! If players want to learn more about Aveyond or Grimm's Hatchery, they should check out http://www.amaranthia.com.

And Finally

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Amanda for the interview, and I look forward to seeing Grimm's Hatchery being released. The new community modifications also sound very exciting, and it's great to see an indie developer with such a strong fan following.