Top five mistakes you see in a game, What makes you just look at a game screenshot and just facepalm Options

[slifer644]

Like the title says, what do find in game maker games that just ruin a game for you?

1. 5 house villages
Okay, how in the world can a village sustain itself if there are at most (based on my own formula for constructing which is 3 people min. to a house) 15 people? I was a major offender to this ( actually the more I think about what I hate, the more I realize I've done these), not putting much thought into making these villages. Another problem with having only a few houses in a town is that you can't have too many people without making it very unbelievable. For me, a fantasy village shoul have around fifty people, a town should have between 75 to 100 people, and a city should have between (this may sound insane) 100 to 200 people.

2. Boring/ confusing starts
When you start a game you can't just throw someone into it without a little bit of back story (unless your game is mostly a flashback up until halfway through). Having the player guessing what's going on is good, unless their still trying to guess twenty minutes into it, that's when you've gone overboard. The same applies to having the player do the same thing over and over again at the beginning till they reach a certain level and the begin the story. You have to give a little in both story and action to keep the player interested.

3. Underpowered enemies/ overpowered heroes
A big problem with making the enemies easy for the player to kill quickly is that it makes it seem unrealistic. If you're gonna make the fight a human enemy, you should atleast give the enemy the same amount or half that of your weakest character. This will make the battles
more tactical than just pressing the strongest spell you've got once in order to kill them (unless they're a spider or some small creature, cause that does make sense then). The only exception to this rile is if that attack is a finisher attack, cause then you're good.

4. Unoriginal settings/ unoriginal characters
I find that if I start some where that looks alot (alot... Hehehe) like that of a popular game that I've already seen, then that's just laziness. The same goes for characters in that if the the protagonist seems framiliar then it just seems like somebody is trying to get free ideas. The exception to this is if it is a fan game, then you're good. Originality keeps the game flavorful and draws the player into it more.

5. Forgetfulness
It is annoying when you get sent all over a flipping dungeon just to find a stupid that, guess what, you didn't even need in the first place. When the creator forgets that he put in a subquest and then scraps it later without removing what was in that subquest just gets annoying when the player finds it. Its even more frustrating when a player leaves the gameand the forgets what they were doing and can't figure out what they need to do.

You've hears my rants, lets hear yours.

[KD648]

1. Games Without A Focus
I'm a pretentious "games are art" type developer, so I can forgive pretty much anything AS LONG as it serves a greater purpose. I don't necessarily mind large, open maps as long as I know where I'm supposed to go and have a strong reason to want to go there, gameplay or otherwise. And of course, I'm entertained on the way over. I don't mind stereotypical, flat characters AS LONG as it supports old-school style gameplay (I DARE you to tell me that the characters in Dragon Warrior are complex). When the game flounders is when these components are included when they are supposed to be the most important part of the game. Artsy, "world-exploring" games HAVE to have great maps, and narrative based RPGS HAVE to have unique, detailed characters. However, games that are polished but don't have something special about them are just as guilty of this complaint. For example: Infinite Undiscovery was perfectly playable, polished, and whatnot, but there was no reason for me to keep playing it and not put in a Tales game for the awesome battles, or Lost Odyssey for the great art and intriguing story. I'm willing to forgive a lot of smaller annoyances as long as they don't ruin that something special. But there has to be something special.

2. Extra Features For Absolutely No Reason
Nothing irks me quite like a game that brags by saying they have a bank, and a card playing mini-game, and a crafting system, and another minigame, cooking, owning property, a third minigame, and something to do with equipping shards. Each of these is fine in and of themselves, but more often than not I find they contribute absolutely nothing to the game. I find that, sometimes, developers look at their games and think: "...something's missing... I'll find an item crafting script" when that really isn't the problem. The problem is (broken record) that your game doesn't have something special about it. And it doesn't have to be something complicated. Mass Effect is really just a shooter with a fantastic, branching story. It has weapon modding and character romances... but if the game came without them and we never expected them to begin with, would we care? Nope. Focus on something about your game, and take time to make sure it's REALLY good. Extra features and minigames are fine, but they're not the definition of quality.

3. Side-View Battles... Or Else
Side-View battle systems are fine, but they don't change gameplay. There's this stigma about using the front-view battle system solely because it's the default, and so everyone forces themselves to use side-view systems and guess what? Everyone uses the same sprites for each game because they need to have a billion animations. How many times have I seen brown-haired goggle guy? Too many. And he always has the same personality because personality and visuals indicate the other. A guy with a creepy helmet is probably going to be evil in some manner. Again, there's nothing wrong with side-view battles, but they're only different from front-view in terms of visuals. Earthbound and several others did just fine front-view. If you're going to use side-view battles, do so for a reason relevant to gameplay, not because front-view battles are being treated like the smelly kid at school.

...And that's all I got.

Edit: I thought of another, so I came back.

4. Appealing To The Lowest Common Denominator
I don't mean this in terms of crude humor (I've got PLENTY of crude humor in my own game). What I mean is that the quickest way to mediocrity comes from deciding the structure of your game based on appealing to the person with the shortest attention span. I'm actively disagreeing with some of you (no hard feelings) on a few topics because of this. One in particular is opening cutscenes and their acceptable length. If your story is complicated enough to require a ten minute opening cutscene, then do it. Do it WELL, but do it. As long as it's well put together and is entertaining the whole way through, the player shouldn't mind. Just dear God, make it skippable. The opening of Mass Effect 2 is fantastic, but only the first two times. People who are unwilling to read ten minutes of text will complain, not because your game is garbage, but because they don't like reading. That's not anyone's fault. I don't like football, that doesn't make it stupid. Do what's right for your game and provides the best overall experience, not what will quell nay-sayers.

This post has been edited by KD648: Mar 31 2012, 02:39 PM