Mistakes in game design (whining newbie)

[pubby8]

I tried to explain to Gyrovorbis this on his fanboy-filled IRC channel, but he cowarded away, and so I post it here:

Gyrovorbis has made lots of mistakes developing his game. These are all honest mistakes, but the problem is that he keeps making the same ones. I post this here not to tear him down - I give him valid advice that he should at least think about.

Mistake 1: forming teams prematurely
If you are going to design an "indie game," please don't get a team together until you've gotten the majority of the programming done! Artists are great to have, but they always leave shortly after, as they either lose interest or have nothing to do.

Mistake 2: promoting early
A community is a great thing to have - it gives you people to play your game, and also support. The problem is that communities should be formed only after the game is nearly complete! Why?- well if you have a community, you start to make false promises to them. Game devs will spend hours discussing their game to community, in lieu of actually making it. Also, the bigger the community, the harder you will fall if your game dies!

Mistake 3: being arrogant
Telling yourself you are a god can do great things to your ego, but it only hurts your performance. It is very stupid to scream at anyone who criticizes what you have done - many times it will turn out that they are right, and you only discover this far down the road AFTER you make the mistake (*cough* engine rewrite *cough*).
I know gyrovorbis is a decent programmer, but he is not "godly" enough to be so arrogant! He will learn much faster and write better code if he becomes more humble and realizes that he is not god's gift to computers.

Mistake 4: listening to fanboys
The internet is full of fanboys - something very bad that you should avoid! 99% of suggestions fanboys give will be garbage, and they will only turn you into an arrogant prick who thinks he's successful.
Good advice: Stick to old friends with similar interests as advisors, not 11-year-old idiots on the internet.
(I do not mean to be calling anyone here an "idiot fanboy" - as I don't know anyone here besides GyroVorbis!)

Mistake 5: not listening to critique
Critique is great - it forces you to fix your flaws, instead of covering them up. While many people hate getting told they suck, it is much better to "have sucked" than to "still suck" - you can fix your mistakes and improve if you listen to critique!
Side note: if this gets put into that wall-of-shame board and I get banned, then all hope is lost for you, and you will never amount to anything.


So those are my general points.

Because undoubtedly some of you are going to say:
"You don't have the right to say this, you jerk"
-Yes I do. I've made all of these mistakes, many times. Actually, I still make them - the difference is that I know that I am making them!

"You still don't have the right to say this - what have you done, dipshit?"
-I've worked on games too. I've know programming too. I know developement hell too. I am not "the master," and I have many flaws - I'm only posting this here as honest advice.
-I'm not telling you these things because I think I'm superior - I don't! This is not PUBBY8 vs GYROVORBIS cage match! (actually I offered to have one on IRC due to fanboys' suggestions, but gyrovorbis was a baby and wouldn't comply)

"You have nothing to back up your shitty points, you are spewing garbage!"
-The game's been in developement forever and hasn't gotten all that far. I am sure even Gyrovorbis admits he has made mistakes along the way.

"You can't criticize anything since it isn't finished yet"
-So then stop posting it all over youtube and this forum! I would love to criticize the source - but it's not availible to me!
BUT, I do have access to like 200 lines from http://elysianshadows.com/project/album ... album?id=4
I am going to say that it is nothing special, and there are many ways to improve it.

"You are a shithead pussy muthafucka who should go shove a stick up yo fat azz"
-

[pubby8]

Also, since you guys on IRC wanted source to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1z-yw5LtLs
Here it is:
http://www.host-a.net/u/pubby8/console_terrain.rar (compile on GCC with -msse) (intel might work too)
It was written in about 4 hours as basecode for the last ludum dare competition. It is buggy as hell.

[XianForce]

While I may agree with #3 (Sorry Gyro, but you do come off as arrogant a lot of the time ). But from what I understand, for mistake number 1, they were very far along with the programming and therefore got artists to make art. But then rewrote the engine, and it sounds like that is already far along as well. With that, art and music takes time to create just as programming does. We all agree that Falco, although cocky, is a decent, and knowledgeable programmer. So it does make sense for an indie game to get art this early on. It wasn't like they started looking for artists in day 1 of development. They waited until they had something concrete. And even if the artists leave, another talented artist should be able to follow the same general style of the art and continue it... So I don't see this as being one of his "mistakes".

For mistake 2... What is he promoting? All he's said is what he's working on. He has made it very clear that there are no guarantees and he won't release it until HE thinks it is ready. And actually, it's likely a good thing that he does "promotion" as he has. If you don't promote an ambitious project at all... Then very few know about it, and there's no one to bother you when you start to lose motivation. Those people that complain about the team not releasing a new video, while annoying, definitely encourage the team to get to work (In my opinion of course...). I'd understand this argument if it was clear that Falco didn't have the MEANS of completing this project, but from what I can tell he has the intelligence and will power (maybe not so much the latter XD) to carry it through and finish.

Mistake 4? What in the world are you even talking about? Usually when I see these "fanboys" suggest something to Falco, I usually see Falco shoot it down... I've never seen him accept it... Which wraps to the point that this game is what Falco (and the rest of the team?) wants, and until it is up to HIS (and the rest of the team's?) standards, it won't be released.

Mistake 5 is valid to a very slight extent. Most of the critique that has been given to Falco has been given by those who don't have enough experience to be giving Falco critique. I agree that with all this falsely based critique, Falco might have come to ignore all critique, but I know dang well that Falco has accepted critique on things from those intelligent individuals whom he respects, such as qp.


So I understand where you're coming from, but I think much of it had little evidence to back it up... But I think #3 and #5 are so tightly connected, that by agreeing with #3 I inevitably agree (to a certain extent) with #5.

But I don't really mind that he's arrogant, that's a personal thing, and if he's fine with being arrogant, then I don't really care. All I know is, I have learned so much on these boards from the ES team and the other intelligent individuals on this board; more than I have ever learned from any other source... So, I have no reason to complain.

Hmm, but that's just my view on the whole matter...

[pubby8]

I thank you for responding without use of screaming/namecalling.

1 - While it works to have 10 artists do a mishmash over course of whole project, it is much easier to wait until very very later on in production to begin art. I realize that it is very easy to point out mistake of getting artist early in retrospect, but they still jumped the gun.

2 - Lots of buisness startups make mistake of announcing too much stuff early on, and then running out of resources and dying. Making an entire website, a video series, and a forum about a game that is far from done is announcing too much stuff early on. While I know it is too late to fix this, I find good things come the longer you hold off on "project announcement" (and hell, without this forum gyrovorbis wouldn't have to respond to people like me)

4 - Stupid questions waste time. For whatever reason, having fanboys/community causes a massive influx of stupid questions - I am sure that gyrovorbis knows this. This may not seem like a problem, but stupid questions require stupid answers, and they waste time. Having time to make game is hard, but it is much harder when you have to make a game AND deal with a bunch of 11 year olds!

5 - I sure hope "falco" listens to some of my critiques instead of calling me names and insulting my mother


These mistakes I've listed are what I've learned from my personal experiences in game developement. I know much less of "Elysian Shadows" than the people here, and so I can't say for sure what's going on (besides that there are problems), but I hope these reccomendations apply to something.

Arrogance is fine, but you'll learn faster if you realize that humans are inherently bad at computer programming, and there will always be someone magnitudes better than you are.

[JesseGuarascia]

I was originally going to post a response about your post, but then Xian beat me to it. I pretty much agree with him completely. I actually kind of like Falco's arrogance though, I think it gives other people the feeling that they're not doing things as good as him (which normally, they aren't). Then, I saw your response to Xian, and holy sweet mother of god XD.

I thank you for responding without use of screaming/namecalling.

Why didn't you stop there and thank him, instead of feeling the need to rant on about his opinion? Speaking of arrogance, just read the rest of your response.

1 - While it works to have 10 artists do a mishmash over course of whole project, it is much easier to wait until very very later on in production to begin art.

2 - Lots of buisness startups make mistake of announcing too much stuff early on, and then running out of resources and dying. Making an entire website, a video series, and a forum about a game that is far from done is announcing too much stuff early on. While I know it is too late to fix this, I find good things come the longer you hold off on "project announcement" (and hell, without this forum gyrovorbis wouldn't have to respond to people like me)

4 - Stupid questions waste time. For whatever reason, having fanboys/community causes a massive influx of stupid questions - I am sure that gyrovorbis knows this. This may not seem like a problem, but stupid questions require stupid answers, and they waste time. Having time to make game is hard, but it is much harder when you have to make a game AND deal with a bunch of 11 year olds!

5 - I sure hope "falco" listens to some of my critiques instead of calling me names and insulting my mother

Kind of hypocritical. You bash Falco for acting like a god, when in actuality, he works hard and gets bashed. In turn, he acts awesome to keep his self-esteem up. That's just my assumption of course >.>. Then you turn around and act as if YOUR opinion is the only one. Someone else gives their opinion, and the first thing you do is come up with points to prove how your opinion should be held over the head of theirs.

I especially liked this line:

These mistakes I've listed are what I've learned from my personal experiences in game developement. I know much less of "Elysian Shadows" than the people here, and so I can't say for sure what's going on (besides that there are problems), but I hope these reccomendations apply to something.

Like I said earlier, why didn't you just stop at the first line? You just wrote your own suicide note with those last two sentences. The fact that you know so little about what's going on with the development of Elysian Shadows, when compared to the so-called "fanboys" you just sound stupid. You're bashing something you barely know anything about. I don't go around bashing Jews and Islams because I don't understand their faith. If someone, such as Falco, Marcel, Tyler, and everyone else on the ES team works so hard, and likes the way they do things, why bother arguing it? Why do they have to conform to the way you do things?

But I don't know, I'm probably just some stupid fanboy...

[pubby8]

Why didn't you stop there and thank him, instead of feeling the need to rant on about his opinion? Speaking of arrogance, just read the rest of your response.

I did not mean my reply to be hostile - Xian's thoughts certainly made me appreciate "ES" more.

I was originally going to post a response about your post, but then Xian beat me to it. I pretty much agree with him completely. I actually kind of like Falco's arrogance though, I think it gives other people the feeling that they're not doing things as good as him (which normally, they aren't). Then, I saw your response to Xian, and holy sweet mother of god XD.

Kind of hypocritical. You bash Falco for acting like a god, when in actuality, he works hard and gets bashed. In turn, he acts awesome to keep his self-esteem up. That's just my assumption of course >.>. Then you turn around and act as if YOUR opinion is the only one. Someone else gives their opinion, and the first thing you do is come up with points to prove how your opinion should be held over the head of theirs.

Arrogance is not a measure of how much work is done.
This thread/discussion is on my opinion - you can change my opinions on ES, but not what I view to be general "mistakes in game design."

Like I said earlier, why didn't you just stop at the first line? You just wrote your own suicide note with those last two sentences. The fact that you know so little about what's going on with the development of Elysian Shadows, when compared to the so-called "fanboys" you just sound stupid. You're bashing something you barely know anything about. I don't go around bashing Jews and Islams because I don't understand their faith. If someone, such as Falco, Marcel, Tyler, and everyone else on the ES team works so hard, and likes the way they do things, why bother arguing it? Why do they have to conform to the way you do things?

So do you guys want to have a finished game, or just screw around, have fun, and end up wasting several years?

Like I said earlier, why didn't you just stop at the first line? You just wrote your own suicide note with those last two sentences. The fact that you know so little about what's going on with the development of Elysian Shadows, when compared to the so-called "fanboys" you just sound stupid. You're bashing something you barely know anything about. I don't go around bashing Jews and Islams because I don't understand their faith. If someone, such as Falco, Marcel, Tyler, and everyone else on the ES team works so hard, and likes the way they do things, why bother arguing it? Why do they have to conform to the way you do things?

But I don't know, I'm probably just some stupid fanboy...

Because if I wrote a single line, someone would say I have no evidence.
If you want to send me some information on what has been achieved in ES, then I will gladly look at it and form better opinions. Actual information is much more likely to change my views than arguing over "godliness."
And please chill out.

[JesseGuarascia]

*sigh* Alright, maybe I was being sort of rude in that response. It felt absolutely normal to me, and I felt I was being calm and collected, apparently not so...

Arrogance is not a measure of how much work is done.
This thread/discussion is on my opinion - you can change my opinions on ES, but not what I view to be general "mistakes in game design."

Ahem, what did I say?

he works hard and gets bashed. In turn, he acts awesome to keep his self-esteem up."

I was simply stating that the guy works hard, but gets bashed by a lot of people for the way he does things. I never once said nor implied that he was arrogant because he does a lot of hard work.

So do you guys want to have a finished game, or just screw around, have fun, and end up wasting several years?

Some people like to have fun, and I think that may be why they started this whole game development process, I don't really remember. Just seems like some dudes actually having fun doing something they love.

Because if I wrote a single line, someone would say I have no evidence.
If you want to send me some information on what has been achieved in ES, then I will gladly look at it and form better opinions. Actual information is much more likely to change my views than arguing over "godliness."
And please chill out.

I don't know if you've realized this yet, but the first time I said "why didn't you just stop at the first line?" I was talking about your response to Xian, not your original post.

By the way, I don't seem to have found much more on your Youtube channel (only place I looked, please show more if you feel inclined to), then tech demos, which if you watched the Adventures of Game Development, you'd know, is all ES currently is (for the most part). Plus, there's a big difference between freaking out and responding.

Aaaaand finally, to just show that you're probably not too aware of what you wrote yourself, here's your first paragraph which actually contradicts your whole argument quite nicely :D:

I tried to explain to Gyrovorbis this on his fanboy-filled IRC channel, but he cowarded away, and so I post it here

Hmmm.. seems almost as if you called him a coward for not hearing your opinion, yet have stated that you weren't directing this at the ES team/Falco directly. I don't know, just seems like you're sippin' on the haterade :/

I like your opinions; they have some logic behind them. It's just everywhere that you aren't stating your opinion in your first post (and everything in your responses), you are performing your own Mistake #3: Being Arrogant.

[pubby8]

I agree that it is very annoying to have people bash you for all your work.

I also agree that game dev should be fun - otherwise it is not worth doing.


I want to clear some things up: I directing my hate at gyrovorbis's attitude towards me. He has acted very unprofessionally to me, despite being leader of a big project. I feel I have every right to hate on him for this.

On the other hand, I hope my suggestions will help him, rather than piss everyone off with stupid hate. I do not mean to direct hate at what he does, as he gets my respect for putting lots of honest effort into it.


Yes, in ways I am being arragant, but it was not my intention to come here to discuss who is better than who. And besides, it is nearly impossible to win an argument being humble


Edit: Could you elaborate on the tech demo bit? What do you mean elusian shadows is only tech demo?

[Ginto8]

I'm not going to read all of this flapping of the proverbial mouth, but I do have a few things to say in reply to the first post.

Firstly, this community is NOT solely based on elysian shadows, and never was. It was originally a gaming board, that has evolved into a full-fledged game dev and programming community. If anything, by this point ES has simply become one of the many projects and groups that this board is home to.

Secondly, he hasn't formed any teams "early". He and his brother have formed the core of the programming team fairly consistently for a long time, and whenever they bring in artists, they have a fairly well-developed product. Even at the beginning, they already had most of the engine in existence, although by now it has gone through several iterations of rewriting.

Thirdly, yes, he's arrogant and he's a douchebag. However, he does not try to deny it, and it is often worse to not acknowledge your own personality flaws than to have them in the first place.

Fourthly, when has he ever listened to fanboys? Much of his support comes from fairly experienced programmers on this board, and though there are fanboys, it is not those that he has placed the most regard in.

Fifthly, the only critique he doesn't listen to is that he'd be better off working on a good 3D engine for more modern platforms rather than a 2D one for less modern ones. However, this is more stylistic/preferential than anything else.

I would like to note that throughout your post you have shown a general combination of disdain and hostility toward the members of this forum and the IRC channel. I was not in IRC when you were there, but I have no doubt that you came across people who were either inexperienced or highly sarcastic and abrasive. I think that you would have a much higher opinion of the community in general if you actually tried to become part of the community instead of coming in simply to criticize.

tl;dr for someone who calls Falco arrogant, you sure seem full of yourself

[pritam]

Ever hear the saying "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."?

Gyrovorbis has made lots of mistakes developing his game

The series is called Adventures in Game Development, go figure. And what would learning be without making mistakes? A blank white paper? You know what's interesting to see on a paper? Contrast. You're not mentioning any single "mistake" that is actually vital.

Mistake 1: forming teams prematurely

When the art is created isn't really an issue if you know the technical limitations of the target system.

Also, the bigger the community, the harder you will fall if your game dies!

This community isn't dependent on whether or not ES is finished or when it's finished and singlehandedly it certainly wouldn't bring the community to its knees, I don't think you've noticed what this community is. And your "point" about when to start a community doesn't make sense at all.

change my views than arguing over "godliness."

I haven't seen anyone but you argue over it, you made that up.

Yes, in ways I am being arragant, but it was not my intention to come here to discuss who is better than who. And besides, it is nearly impossible to win an argument being humble

Are you claiming you're being humble by insulting an entire IRC channel by calling them fanboys or even fanfags (and probably every 11 year old reading your first post)?

You're not the only one who has opinions like this and like them you're not changing anything either, you don't appear sincere.
I don't expect anyone outside the team, with some exceptions, to be able to supply appropriate critique.

[N64vSNES]

Clearly you have little or no experiance in game development or programming in general.

AIGD was about learning, looking at chapter 1 compared to the latest ( I think chapter 18 ) they've all got a lot more professional.

He rewrote his engine like 3-4 times now but that's because the project means a lot to him and he dosen't want it to fail. He's admitted his mistakes.

You should probably think twice before insulting people with a higher IQ than your own squared, call me a fanboy all you want but you need to admit the fact he's still one of the most experianced programmers on this forum.

Want him to stop insulting your mother? Stop sucking her tits and wearing huggies.

Oh and also, I'm fairly sure the source from that screenshot is before he rewrote the engine.

[hurstshifter]

Pubby8 AKA Bearrick

'nuff said

[N64vSNES]

Pubby8 AKA Bearrick

'nuff said

The gamemaker kiddie? O_o

[adikid89]

Pubby8 AKA Bearrick

'nuff said

The gamemaker kiddie? O_o

pubby8 is also a gamemaker fan... coincidence?
Hint: http://www.host-a.net/u/pubby8

[Falco Girgis]

I'm being criticized by some nobody who thinks that his opinion matters more than anybody else's? There are people on these boards who have earned their right to criticize me. Sorry, Pubby8, but you're just a nobody. Not even worth my precious time. =/

What we do here is something that we do, because we want to. It's because we're passionate about something. The Adventures in Game Development was started as nothing but a vlog for US. I grow weary of morons misrepresenting our own video development logs as some kind of global, far-reaching, evil scheme to market Elysian Shadows.

We formed the team too early? You do realize that we were (and still are) just a bunch of guys having fun? We don't have this giant, corporate "take everything one step at a time" ideology. The team used to be comprised of my little brother and my best friend. You're just showing your ignorance.

And yes, we take our goddamn time with our work, our videos, and everything that we work hard to do. Go back and watch Adventures in Game Development Chapters 1-8. We didn't really know what we were doing. We were slightly above-average programmers with almost no experience and a giant amount of passion and drive. As we progressed, we went to college, learned so much more, and decided that the time had come to apply this knowledge and experience to our projects. Hence rewriting. Considering this a "flaw in our master development scheme" is something that only an inexperienced, bigoted individual such as yourself would say. You are taking the learning away from game development with a point of view like you have presented.

And point number three... I love how you seem to overlook many important key points here:

1) We are the most subscribed to indie game developers on all of Youtube. We don't even really try. We make the videos, because they're fun. And we're STILL on top? I don't flaunt this, because it really doesn't mean very much to me, but it's funny that you overlook this.

2) Our current website is a complete piece of shit, yet we still have a gigantic community (that you have just become a part of).

3) Youtube search "Game Development." Guess whose ugly face is number one? Obviously my points of view are informative or hold some water.

4) In one semester, I will be graduating as a computer engineer. My life's work is NOT Elysian Shadows. It is my FAVORITE THING TO DO, but I also have OpenGL projects, a graduate level GPU architecture course where I am tasked with submitting a masters/phD level article to academia that must be useful in the field, and a senior design project that is a lunar rover that is literally receiving corporate funding and will some day be operational on the moon.

5) I am currently employed by a local startup game development company.

Excuse me for honestly valuing my own opinion more than some random asshole from Youtube. It is more arrogant of you to present such arguments and feel that your opinion holds any more water than mine when I at least have an established history proving my work and experience. If my own higher faith in my own competence is viewed as narcissism, arrogance, not listening to criticism--so be it. It's not like qpHalcy0n, avansc, trufun, GroundUpEngine, or our other far more experienced and established game developers are criticizing me right now. I would be far more inclined to listen to their opinions than the opinions of a nobody who honestly seems to be jealous that he isn't receiving attention (and I honestly do. And yes, we all bitch at each other constantly, but this is an academic field and we're all smart people. "Bitching" is how we learn. There's still respect). I work goddamn hard to earn my OWN self respect. Get off your ass, quit bitching about what other people have done, and do something yourself. You simply come off as pathetic.

Nobody with any form of self respect or pride in his own work would pour his heart and soul into a project, work hard to share it with the world via videos that are literally a pain in the ass to create, and honestly promote his fellow game developers then take criticism from some random nobody on Youtube insulting the work, personality, and integrity of you and your project. And believing that I SHOULD respect your opinion without being presented with any compelling reason to do so is a higher level of arrogance than anything I could ever project.

Game development is about doing. Get off your ass and earn your own recognition rather than trying to bash other people, you self-righteous prick.