Less Talk more Rock

Monkey Archive Forums/Digital Discussion/Less Talk more Rock

Shinkiro1(Posted 2014) [#1]
http://boingboing.net/features/morerock.html

Just wanted to share an article from the SuperBrothers (Sword & Sorcery).
I thought it pretty much outlined perfectly why the 'magic' in many modern games has been lost (although that's not the whole point of course).


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#2]
That is really interesting and I like how they tied together the creation of a game with the playing of a game. In particular: less talk, more rock.

Something that has been plaguing me for the last year+ is a version of "analysis paralysis". I am sort of new to OOP design in practice and since Monkey is such a beautiful language I want my next game to be so well designed it writes itself. So what have I done? Nothing. Except think about all the game ideas I have....


Shinkiro1(Posted 2014) [#3]
@tiresius
Yeah, that was another big takeaway for me as well.
One way I have discovered to work around this problem, is to prototype the game first.
This means you don't have to concern yourself with the quality of code and can fully focus on the mechanics.
If the prototyp doesn't feel right throw it away and start with the next one.


tiresius(Posted 2014) [#4]
So write the basic game and if it works, clean it up & refactor to be better? I've heard that before, I might have to give it a try.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#5]
Monkey's also very good for rapid prototyping, I find.

The only issue I have is that if you are a coder by nature, the prototyping comes easy anyway and is not the real roadblock. The advice may be more important for those who find the art easier. But it's also a cure for analysis paralysis.


rIKmAN(Posted 2014) [#6]
"Analysis Paralysis" is a great album title, or for a niche indie game like Papers Please!


Why0Why(Posted 2014) [#7]
This article is great. One of the great designers that espouses this theory is Sid Meier. They make a playable prototype as soon as possible and then iterate until it gets where they want it. I have always worked the same way and it definitely helps me enjoy the process more to be able to play something and keep adding to it.


Shinkiro1(Posted 2014) [#8]
Yeah exactly. It saves you from spending weeks on your awesome art & menus just to discover that the actual game sucks.
Still I think it only becomes really clear once you have experienced it yourself.

@Gerry
With html5 it's pretty fast, but the other targets take forever to compile.
I therefore made a module where you can change variables at runtime with sliders. Probably should put this on github if anyone is interested.


Gerry Quinn(Posted 2014) [#9]
I was thinking more of the language itself than the compilation time.
But anyway why not compile most of the time in HTML5, even if that's not your ultimate target?