Gamedev Brain

If You Aren’t Doing the Happy Dance, Do Something Else

Posted on July 21, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Life is not easy, being a creator makes it harder. Make sure that you are happy with what you are doing. Game development is creation, you take nothing but an idea of an experience and start typing code that to a normal human being would be unrelated and, BOOM, experience comes out. If that doesn’t make you do the happy dance, do something else.

I mean it, if you are not jumping out of your chair and dancing, or at least holding your hands in the air wanting to shout…

I’m the greatest programmer alive!!!

If it doesn’t, then maybe you have the wrong hobby. It gets rough, it gets terrible even. You will think you cannot do it. You are wrong, but only if success makes you do this…

See the only reason game development is so rewarding is because there are times where things all fall apart. It crushes you, and makes you feel very small.

The thing is, directly after that, if you make it through, you hit the highest of highs. You defeat that crushing moment and feel like king of the world. You take down what seems like a dream killer, and you elevate yourself to seemingly one of the best in the world at problem solving. You stand up on the mountain and you simply dance, mostly alone, but you dance none the less. For a moment you are in game developer heaven.

So if you are in it for anything other than this, get a different goal. You won’t make money here, unless you love it. You need to understand the highs and lows, the crushing defeats, and the elevation of the successes. Really think about game development, do you love the lows? Can you get through to the highs? When you get there will you dance?

If the answer is no, get out. 🙂

No Pressure, It’s Just Your Dream

Posted on July 20, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Well, we are getting very close to the moment where we actually unleash what our project is to the world. It is not done or anything, but up until now we have just been talking in general terms. We will be posting our full list of features and description of the game.

We think it is a wonderful idea, but it is our baby. What if the world hates it? Or worse, what if nobody ever sees it? The latter is my biggest fear. I have taken it upon myself to get the word out about our work. I’ve invested a lot of time building a foundation to help us get the word out. I would be crushed if we still couldn’t get anyone to notice that we are making a game. The pressure is on, I hope my creativity and time pays off.

It would be far better to be told that our game idea is terrible and the concept looks bad than to have it just sit there with no interest at all. At least if you hear the truth you can move on. In any case, please wish me luck in the coming days and months. I’m excited and nervous all around.

Feeling Like Awesome Is Coming

Posted on July 19, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So I am sitting here today, feeling like awesome is coming. I’ve been working very hard on this project and putting a lot into it and it does feel like it could pay off with a load of awesome soon. I have no idea what that will look like, but that feeling is cool none the less.

We have a lot of things building up to a moment where we put our idea out to the world in a larger cohesive manner. Where people can be brought into the fold of what is truly being built. It will be both amazing and scary to ask the world, hey is this great or what? Not sure what’ll happen, but it does feel like a giant delivery of awesome is about to arrive.

What I learned along the way though, is help others promote their projects so there is a vibrant community for yours to live in. So I do take time every morning to find something that deserves a delivery of awesome and do my part by giving them feedback. It is rewarding for me and them because we are all better for it. It keeps projects moving, it fuels greatness, and makes passion thrive.

So all you game developers out there, or others with great projects, keep it up. People are watching you. If you bring it to the world, eventually the world will bring the awesome to you. In the beginning you push your project, your passion, after a while it pushes you.

Dear God Why?????? Ask Why!!!

Posted on July 18, 2015 by magicrat_larry

So, try something for me. Just little something. It’s easy and will probably change your life. Don’t tune out yet, I have something, ask why.

It is that simple, just ask why. How would this change your life? Let me first be clear, don’t ask why of anyone other than yourself. If you stand up to go get a drink, ask why. If you start to get sleepy, ask why. If you put your pants on backwards, say it with me now, ask why.

Why is the most powerful question we have in language. It leaves you open to many responses and a ton of learning. If you asked why to everything you do, you would either begin to see value in things, or begin to see where you have no reason to do what you are doing. Take note of those things that have an answer like, because, or I want to. Those things are not worth much to you.

If you have no good reason, why do what you are doing? Your time, and energy, could go to something else. Couldn’t you quickly find something else, if you were doing it right now, you’d have a great answer to why? Try it out, take a day and ask why. You never know, it could just change your life, it did mine.

Twitter, the Best Mobile Game Ever!

Posted on July 17, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I’ve said it to many people and I get the same response of laughter every time. “Twitter is the funnest mobile game ever! ” Why does everybody laugh? To me it is really true, Twitter is a very addictive and fun mobile game.

Why do I call Twitter a game? I think it has all the elements of a game. It has a large open world to explore, multiplayer, goals, rewards, and even disappointments. Twitter takes the game to the next level, where Facebook just touched the surface. Twitter made it fast paced, exciting, and very interactive in nearly real-time. Twitter turned the social networking experiment into a very huge Social MMO where everyone is attempting to contact everyone else and get as many interactions as possible in like 8 minutes or less, how exhilarating.

Let’s take all the game-play elements and explain them.

Open World

Twitter is a massive world, you can sit there and search many different areas of it and see nearly endless content that is quick, and entertaining. You can find anything and not have to read for hours, but just 140 characters at a time, or even just look at pictures. So this world is vast, diverse, and tailors to many kinds of peoples mindsets for gaming.

Goals

Twitter is very much goal oriented. You are motivated to create content, and try new things to reach the rewards that we detail in the next section. It is highly likely that you will end up putting a lot more thought into your 140 characters than you ever imagined.

Rewards

It will tell you in real-time when somebody noticed you and the part of the world you are creating. They can favorite you, which is like telling you that you rock. They can retweet you, which is like broadcasting your content to their part of the world. The holy grail though, is the follower. If they follow you your empire grows in power and strength.

Multiplayer

It is social, every bit of the world was created by another person. So every interaction you have in that world rewards another player, or disappoints them. There is not single player mode on Twitter. You cannot help but reward anotehr player with either a good interaction or a terrible one. You choose what you do to them and how. You can follow others, or gain a following yourself.

Disappointments

Twitter has its highs and its downs. This makes for a great story, not a conventional one, but a great one none the less. Followers bring you great joy. But the negative comments from some can hurt you. The posts that get no interaction what so ever really are a downer. Plus the dreaded unfollow. Oh man there is nothing worse than somebody leaving your tribe of followers.

Conclusion

When using Twitter make sure you see it for what it is. It truly is one of the greatest games created of all time. It is pure, simple, and genius. Play it and enjoy. Join me @magicrat_larry

A Plan to Herd Cats

Posted on July 16, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I do get frustrated with plans. They are nice to have, don’t get me wrong, but in my experience if you are going to be successful your plan is simply what will never happen. You can spend a lot of time coming up with a plan and have everything change by the end. So what was that plan worth?

The only thing that is of true worth is the planning sessions. Those times where you and your team are sitting there thinking intently about your project to devise the plan is the true worth. Seriously, how often do your plans actually work the way they were designed?

If you are honest there, I truly believe, it is 0%. So your plans never work. So their worth, after the planning session, is 0. Should you make plans? Yes, should you stick to the plans, probably not. See I really believe that the successful people are not great planners, they are great reactors. They are wonderful at changing their plans and understanding their projects.

That is what that planning session gives you and your team, a better understanding of your project today, and your mindset for goals in the future. Having a plan to get to those goals is like herding cats. It can be fun, but in the end you are just chasing cats. So change the mindset of your planning sessions to understanding sessions, your plans will fail, but your project doesn’t have to.

Your Idea Is Awesome, Right?

Posted on July 15, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Is my idea awesome? How do you get the answer to that question? Who has that answer? That is what I am trying to figure out. Your game idea is always awesome to you. So you don’t have the answer. The answer has to be with your potential consumer, at least that is my initial thought.

So how do we ask them these questions? Kickstarter seems like a nice place to ask that question, but it is based in money. That could be good, or it could be bad. It seems like this question is outside the scope of cash. Is my idea awesome, usually does correlate directly to a sale though.

Is there another way to ask if the idea is awesome besides Kickstarter? Places on the net like tigsource could help. Maybe even Indie DB. But, how do you go about asking that question? Do you just throw a bunch of content out there and see if anyone likes it, or randomly posts about it? Or, do you come right out and ask the question, do you like this idea?

So many questions, but they need to be answered quickly and early in order to not waste a lot of time on a game that is not wanted. We have a lot of work cut out for us to figure this out. Anyone have any suggestions?

Life is Hard, Let’s Make It Worse!

Posted on July 14, 2015 by magicrat_larry

My Twitter bio (@magicrat_larry) has a line in it – “If your life is easy, you are doing it wrong.”

I live that way. I don’t go out and find trouble or anything, but the fact is if you are getting no resistance from anything you are not doing anything at all. You can go through every day the exact same as, you did before, and have an easy life, but in the end, you will have done nothing at all.

I want to live everyday pushing it to the limits. I want to go to sleep knowing that I could not have done more. Life is not long, life is meant to be a quick ride. What ride are you riding? Are you riding the largest roller coaster in the world, or are you watch others ride it?

Jump on, Jump in, live life. If you have a dream, make it happen. If you want to do something, do it. Don’t sit on the couch, or lay in bed resting. Get it all done. Games aren’t going to make themselves.

Problem Solve, To the Extreme

Posted on July 13, 2015 by magicrat_larry

I do something nearly constantly every day that I think is just normal. But, it occurred to me that maybe everyone else does not do this, or maybe they do, I don’t know. I take stuff to an extreme to help put the reality into perspective. What does that mean? Do I go get a dirt bike and launch myself off ramps to understand game balance? Nope.

What I do is this, if I have a simple thing like health of an enemy, what should it be? Say it is 50 now, and he feels too weak. If I just add 10 would that help? how about 20 would that help? this could go on for a long time, but I am searching for a cap where he is just right. Instead of doing that, my first step is always to do something like this, what if it was 50,000,000 would that help?

What did I just do? You say 50,000,000 is probably always too high. Probably always too high isn’t good enough for me. How about 50,000,000,000 would that help? Now we are talking, the odds of that not being too high are very slim. So what does this do to our thinking? Now we have a range. somewhere between 50 and 50,000,000,000 is the correct answer. Now you can binary search for it at a faster pace than just trying to get it right by guessing.

I do this in every problem I am trying to solve, from business, to game development. Try it out, take a situation to an extreme, then usually the correct answer is simple to find.

EXTREME!!!! I had to yell it once. 🙂

Break Day

Posted on July 12, 2015 by magicrat_larry

Sorry gamedev brain readers, taking a writing break today. Enjoying manual labor in the yard, and I don’t really mean enjoying. See you tomorrow. Real life calls. 😦