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.

[Amy Pond]

I have been playing a few RPG Maker games and have found:

1. Only showing information once
People (or, me) tend to skip through messages really quickly if there are a lot of them. If you're then thrown into a massive world, and the message said "go and see x", if I've skipped the messages I don't have a clue where to go. Either the ability to go back and read the message again, or some kind of journal, is desirable.

2. Lack of save points after the introduction
If you have a long cutscene to begin a game HAVE A SAVE POINT AFTER IT. I'm unlikely to go through said cutscene again if I've done it once, and if I die at the beginning of the game, as seems to happen a lot, then I've got to start over.

3. Unclear save locations
A random house in the middle of a forest, which has 20 other houses in it, which has a book inside the bedroom upstairs with nothing pointing to it, is the only way to save? No thanks.

4. Dying too easily at the beginning
I'm not going to get into a game well if I keep dying right at the start. You need to ease players in, the game getting more difficult as you get used to the controls.

5. A world map joined together by smaller field maps which don't line up
If I have a world map, showing ARGEN in the bottom left and TUBANARI in the top right, I will expect, if I go through 100 field maps, that heading towards the top right will generally bring me out in the right place. People seem to just link maps together willy nilly and you can end up on average heading south-west to get to a north-east destination!