Gamedesign Headaches

Posted on:April 04 2008


If you ever played a game where I was responsible not only for the programming but also the level and game designing part you might know that I may know how to programm some stuff, but I am definitively the worst game designer on earth. Games designed by me usually are not fun at all and are interesting for the technical aspect at least - if at all.
I faced this reality again when the closed beta of Darkness Springs started some weeks ago - nearly all testers told me that the game gets a bit boring and is difficult. Woha.
So in order to improve the situation I allocated some time now to tweak all parts of the game the beta testers reported to be worth improving. That list is not too short, but after it has been worked off I'll make the game publically available finally, as public beta test. I hope that this will be in the next few weeks and that a public beta will help it to improve even more after this.





Comments:


will you do a private and public gamma after that? ;-)
xaos
Quote
2008-04-04 17:54:00


keep it up niko. :)
Virion
Quote
2008-04-04 19:56:00


Well, thats why playtesters are for, no game may be perfect the first time. I think u shuld tweak configuration files and gameplay untill perfect.
For example IF crysis had some more ammo a little, and a lot better recoil in the weapons like timeshift or half-life 2 I would have liked playing it much more. On the other hand combat system of oblivion seems perfect.
I recently noticed that in Vampire : Bloodlines I can hit more bare handed as I have more of Unarmed skill, so I score low with weapons. I encountred this system in effect first time. It is amazing.
Unreal Tournament 2004
quake 3
age of empires 2-the conquerors
always felt like perfect to me, nothing can be added or subtracted or balance will tumble.
Only good addition was Warfare mode in UT3 which is great.
Though of course heavy playtesting and loads of tweaking is underway in these games. UT2004 was itsef a heavily community tested version of UT2003.
I think if u ry u will tweak Darkness springs in not much time to a more satisfactory level. Tweaking though possibly never ends as it is difficult to please everyone. For ex. If crytek - weapon recoil and ammo or valve - remove puzzles, pleases me then may be they will be disaapointed, and many more people.
hope this helps.
kinjel
Quote
2008-04-05 13:34:00


Yep, make funny games isn't easy at all :s ...
ps: It would be fine that the page of the darkness spring website were centered :)
blend
Quote
2008-04-08 19:39:00


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