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.

[Mustaklaki]

1. Default characters.
Oh, you used Ralph as a your protagonist? This is going to be great....

2. Grammatical issues.
It reminds the player that it was made by a single person, and is not official. It also takes you out of the experience and story and reminds you that it is a game, which ruins immersion.

3. Names
Swords of Talbrithia... Legend of Zontari.... Lands of Luentsha... Dungeons of Dargoth...
Seriously, if you game's title is "Something" of "Something", it already sucks hard.
Names of characters is also something I'm picky about, you should AT LEAST use names that exist in the real world. Just throwing a bunch of letters together because it sounds cool has no historic value in it because it NEVER EXISTED.

4.No scripts.
If your game has no scripts, go back and redo everything. No, really, everything.

5. Rebellions, Anarchy and lame wars.
You know the deal, the player wakes up in military barracks and "Oh hey there's a fight outside against some renegades" or "Hey we're going to take down the government maaaaan!" or even "Rabble rabble rabble! Your king is false king our king is better we will defeat you antagonists! Rabble rabble!"

Seriously... just come up with an original story for once.
I think that's the lesson here, be original and go against the grain. Someone else mentioned MIDI music... yes. Just search up a piano composition or something, as long as you're not going to be selling your game it's legal. Even the RTP music or anything related to that sound just sucks. Music is emotion, and you can get a huge weight on your chest or nostalgia in your heart from hearing one song. As a musician, I know this.

Using RTP tiles I really don't care about, what I do care about is people not being able to use them properly. You make your ground layer, then you use corresponding tile layers after that to build additional layers, and keep going. Then add events to move (Candles, waterfalls, butterflies, fish, swans, birds etc etc).