- May 3, 2018
- 1,403
- 997
At the time I wanted to work with teams to make games, and to sell myself I wanted to try to make games quickly by already have a set of tools, scripts and other quality of life improvements.
What I found out was that a lot of the time, people only had interests in a project for about 2 weeks, after that it would either feel like work and less like a passion, or they would just be disappointed because things were not going as fast as they had hoped.
So I am changing my strategy in three ways. First I am making a modular game engine, a game engine that you can build your game using mods rather than making one master source code. This allows users who want to expand their game engine to only need to add the mod that adds the feature they want. Second, I am thinking that some mods will also include their own tools, so instead of needing to code, you can use an interactive tool to drag and drop resources in, and wire everything together. and lastly, I'll change my strategy for joining projects. I'll either join a project because they need help developing a mod and toolset that does not already exist, or I'll join because I could build their game in a week or 2, and after that I'll leave them with the tools to keep working on their project on their own, that way they can do it their pace so they don't have to commit themselves to the project, but keep working on at as just a hobby.
For example, say you want to make a game that is, a visual novel, multiple dialog options, multiple endings, you can explore the world, there are mini-games, the user has an inventory and stats system. This would require the game engine and 4 mods.
First would be the User Interface Creator, where you plan out different menu types and designs by dragging and dropping things in. This would be for making things from the main menu, to what dialog scenes look like, or planning out how the inventory system will look. The second mod would be the Dialog Scene Creator, which allows users to create and animate encounters by drag and dropping content or pre-made characters in, and directly editing and animating things. This mod would use the 1 of the menus you have designed to be the menu for dialog scenes (that you have already designed) so you can simulate the dialog gameplay with the mod itself while you work.
Tools for mods can load other mods, and simulate gameplay because in reality, the tools are just versions of the game engine with the mod installed, and another mod installed that tells the game engine inside the tool what to do. The code that tells the game what to do, is created using the 3rd mod, the Game Systems Creator. This is where you can describe systems for your game. Systems like the inventory system, the player stats system, and if you have mods like the menu maker and the scene creator, the game systems creator mod can peek inside of them, automatically load their systems, as well as load up all the scenes and menus you have made. When you go to make a scene in the scene editor, and you want to simulate the gameplay, using the dialog interface you created, when you simulate for the first time, the scene creator will talk to your game systems mod asking for a menu, which the systems mod will check for a menues mod, and if you haven't selected a menu before, you can select one now, and it will load it up. In a more complex situation, the 2 key features of the game systems mod other than creating systems, would be to wire everything together so your game can run, and organize how your game progresses, such as unlocking areas, characters, character personalities evolving, etc.
The last mod is a tool dedicated to making the interactive world, either through a world map or through clicking on doors in a house to navigate through, describing scenes and locations. This is another mod that will rely on the game systems core mod, as the game core will wire everything up, so that the game world mod will be able to know when and what dialog scenes to play.
In fact, the core game systems mod isn't just for making games, but other tools or mods. But before that, I have to make the game system and mods from scratch. I already have the theory worked out, I'll be running some tests this weekend to prove the expandable nature of my system. After that, it is just a matter of developing an SDK and making mods using my SDK from raw code, as well as developing some art assets for the tool's menus.
I'm currently in a business development program, trying to get experience and start a tech company. So in the future this game engine maybe another one of my business ideas that I'll try to bring to market.
What I found out was that a lot of the time, people only had interests in a project for about 2 weeks, after that it would either feel like work and less like a passion, or they would just be disappointed because things were not going as fast as they had hoped.
So I am changing my strategy in three ways. First I am making a modular game engine, a game engine that you can build your game using mods rather than making one master source code. This allows users who want to expand their game engine to only need to add the mod that adds the feature they want. Second, I am thinking that some mods will also include their own tools, so instead of needing to code, you can use an interactive tool to drag and drop resources in, and wire everything together. and lastly, I'll change my strategy for joining projects. I'll either join a project because they need help developing a mod and toolset that does not already exist, or I'll join because I could build their game in a week or 2, and after that I'll leave them with the tools to keep working on their project on their own, that way they can do it their pace so they don't have to commit themselves to the project, but keep working on at as just a hobby.
For example, say you want to make a game that is, a visual novel, multiple dialog options, multiple endings, you can explore the world, there are mini-games, the user has an inventory and stats system. This would require the game engine and 4 mods.
First would be the User Interface Creator, where you plan out different menu types and designs by dragging and dropping things in. This would be for making things from the main menu, to what dialog scenes look like, or planning out how the inventory system will look. The second mod would be the Dialog Scene Creator, which allows users to create and animate encounters by drag and dropping content or pre-made characters in, and directly editing and animating things. This mod would use the 1 of the menus you have designed to be the menu for dialog scenes (that you have already designed) so you can simulate the dialog gameplay with the mod itself while you work.
Tools for mods can load other mods, and simulate gameplay because in reality, the tools are just versions of the game engine with the mod installed, and another mod installed that tells the game engine inside the tool what to do. The code that tells the game what to do, is created using the 3rd mod, the Game Systems Creator. This is where you can describe systems for your game. Systems like the inventory system, the player stats system, and if you have mods like the menu maker and the scene creator, the game systems creator mod can peek inside of them, automatically load their systems, as well as load up all the scenes and menus you have made. When you go to make a scene in the scene editor, and you want to simulate the gameplay, using the dialog interface you created, when you simulate for the first time, the scene creator will talk to your game systems mod asking for a menu, which the systems mod will check for a menues mod, and if you haven't selected a menu before, you can select one now, and it will load it up. In a more complex situation, the 2 key features of the game systems mod other than creating systems, would be to wire everything together so your game can run, and organize how your game progresses, such as unlocking areas, characters, character personalities evolving, etc.
The last mod is a tool dedicated to making the interactive world, either through a world map or through clicking on doors in a house to navigate through, describing scenes and locations. This is another mod that will rely on the game systems core mod, as the game core will wire everything up, so that the game world mod will be able to know when and what dialog scenes to play.
In fact, the core game systems mod isn't just for making games, but other tools or mods. But before that, I have to make the game system and mods from scratch. I already have the theory worked out, I'll be running some tests this weekend to prove the expandable nature of my system. After that, it is just a matter of developing an SDK and making mods using my SDK from raw code, as well as developing some art assets for the tool's menus.
I'm currently in a business development program, trying to get experience and start a tech company. So in the future this game engine maybe another one of my business ideas that I'll try to bring to market.
