My only problem in life is I have a
hard time with human relationships.
Emotionally speaking I'm not very good as well.
I live in isolation, kind of in a cave.
So the hard thing for me is to meet people. And you
have to meet them at some point, You do have
to talk. Emotionally speaking I am very involved
in the work I do. And the hardest part is when
people tell me "We're not going to do this".
When they do often times they are right. But for me
it's as if someone said "Your child is not good enough,
they're not gonna go to school. Instead we'll
place them in a special institution." It
breaks my heart but that's how things are.
In the past I suffered so much from it that
before I present an idea, I play a role game
in advance in my mind. I ask myself whether they'll
like it or not. Here's an interesting game design
example. In Maspero Blue, the
experimental game I create, there is no mini-map.
You move to the North, West, South, or the East.
And it involves multiple players. So I thought it'd
be great to remove the North East West and South,
and to use visual landmarks instead. To go from
one village to the next, you wouldn't go 3 times
to the east. It'd be like "I went past the big rock,
I'm gonna go to the dead tree, then head to the village."
The idea was that people would map the game on their own
and because there is no cardinals from one
to the next you would get different maps with
different orientations. Rotated by 90, 180,
or 270 degrees. So when they share their maps they could
see that other people had theirs the other around.
I thought it be great. And people told me: "This idea is crap.
It won't work, forget it right now." I was quite sad but
I tried it out in the evening, I implemented it exactly
how I wanted. And it was absolute crap! It may sound nice
the way I tell it but it just didn't work. At all.
It made people go nuts. Nobody liked it, everyone got lost,
and trying it out was a relief. I was like: "Yeah
my kid really cannot go to school like all the others,
okay, I understand why now." It's cool to push and
experiment with bad ideas. You know for sure they're bad.
It's a luxury we have as independent designers, but
something you cannot do in production, on the day job.
But you learn a lot trying this out in your leasure time.
And that's why we have game jams.
Don't waste too much time on a given game.
You shouldn't overproduce in game design. Because
for one everything is going to be thrown away,
and because you're not going to make the game alone.
You need the persons who work with you to put
some of them in the game. You need the developer
to enjoy the game, the game artist to like it as well.
It's a bit different from the sound designer
in general but they also need to understand what
is the point of your project. Those persons are
going to work and suffer as much as you do during production.
Because yes it is very hard to create a game. In their
pain they have to feel like they are making their
own game and its worth the effort. If your game is
100% you, and you crush others with your ideas,
not only do your teammates suffer from it,
but they are suffering because of you.
So design around a Minimum Viable Product,
interact with others, let other people bring their
own ideas even if you don't like them. That's
how it is! Anyway if you have a strong idea in
the beginning its going to drive the entire project
and your teammates. Their ideas will mix with and add
variety to your gameplay. But you really need your
teammates to feel like they can relate to the game,
and to enjoy their work. This is a mistake
I made in the past. Just like people told me
some of my ideas were bad and that was painful,
I swept other people's ideas away violently.
I would say things like "This is completely rubbish."
And today I feel like I was dumb. I regret
this a lot. I'm trying to change and not be
like this anymore. For the team, for
the people I work with, and for the game.
Also for my own good! Because my ideas aren't
better than everyone else's. It's just that I
make a living generating ideas while
others are paid for codes, and God knows
it's a lot harder to do.
I'm a building engineer and I started making games
at the age of... 36 I believe. If you want
to make games, you can do so regardless of
your education and regardless of your age.
It's another form of expression like music, painting,
or something else. It's an art form that requires
more resources because it's complete. But if
you want to get started its possible.
The community is great, people are kind,
it's mind opening, people are open minded,
and game designers are not too pretentious yet.
In the movies industry for example if you want to
talk with a second-class director, you'll have
their agent or assistant intervene, but
in games if you want to meet any director,
from any studio of any size, the person is
going to meet you with a backpack and may talk
with you for hours because the profession is
still new and people are still accessible.
It should stay like this is journalist don't
insist too much on glorifying game creators.