It's pretty aggravating when you have a plethora of ideas, like for a story, or any general idea about game making. but you can't actually realize your idea because you don't "gotz teh skillz" to either make the music, script, or make sprites (I'd make sprites, but no tablet, and drawing with a mouse is really hard.) And for the writing a story thing, I always think of something, kind of write some notes of it or whatever, but never use it, and I don't have the patience to ever follow through on my projects and ideas, which is why I don't request anyone to make things for me (nothing extravagant anyhow)
It might be mostly an organizational problem for me for the story issues, so I'm thinking I may write a page long list of notes and story elements or something, that should help.
Making a game by yourself is hard. But at the risk of sounding cliche, it makes the finished product much more rewarding in the end.
and can someone explain to me what the hell is fooly cooly?
Full Version: It's a little depressing
QUOTE (Wanzer-panzer @ Apr 30 2011, 11:49 PM) 
It's pretty aggravating when you have a plethora of ideas, like for a story, or any general idea about game making. but you can't actually realize your idea because you don't "gotz teh skillz" to either make the music, script, or make sprites (I'd make sprites, but no tablet, and drawing with a mouse is really hard.) And for the writing a story thing, I always think of something, kind of write some notes of it or whatever, but never use it, and I don't have the patience to ever follow through on my projects and ideas, which is why I don't request anyone to make things for me (nothing extravagant anyhow)
It might be mostly an organizational problem for me for the story issues, so I'm thinking I may write a page long list of notes and story elements or something, that should help.
Making a game by yourself is hard. But at the risk of sounding cliche, it makes the finished product much more rewarding in the end.
and can someone explain to me what the hell is fooly cooly?
It might be mostly an organizational problem for me for the story issues, so I'm thinking I may write a page long list of notes and story elements or something, that should help.
Making a game by yourself is hard. But at the risk of sounding cliche, it makes the finished product much more rewarding in the end.
and can someone explain to me what the hell is fooly cooly?
hey there are always guys out there that want to help for the fun of it, dont let your impatience for storytelling override your desire to produce games. Some people, like ME included, have a hard time writing what they feel or know in their mind to be a cool story or ideas. Let your passion to write a story manifest in different ways if you can!
I dont know if you are good at art, but drawing scenes from what you wanna write about can express your ideas in ways that storytelling cant, remember a picture is worth a thousand or more words
keep at it
PS i dont have the slightest what a fooly cooly is.... google time!
Fooly Cooly, if I'm not mistaken, is the act of trying to seem cool or awesome and instead making a fool out of yourself, or looking like a fool. It's pretty common in Anime, where you'll see some character who tries to be a big time cool hero, and just gets his ass handed to him instead. (Pretty sure that's it. 
)
Making a game by yourself is hard. Perhaps one of the most difficult things you'll ever do. It will demand your soul to complete it. The more ambitious the project, the more exponentially difficult it will be. A lot of the games you see on the main page that're super-awesome-cool games were either done by a team or done by a single person over the span of 3 years who probably started with a lot of experience.
The less skills you have, the less ambitious you have to be with your project. and the more you'll have to settle You'll have to stick with doing what you know, and be ready for the sharp criticism you receive.
If you want to see your more ambitious games come to light you'll need one thing. Patience. Patience to wait for people willing to join your team. If you want to get more dedicated workers, and greater talent, you'll have to pay someone. If you want to make a commercial game you will assuredly have to pay someone, because you're going to get into some legal territory.
It helps to understand the good ole setup you'll be working with too.
You are probably the Designer/Developer. You think up all the cool features, you think up the nifty story, and you create the framework that is your game. This is where most novices start. They think up a cool story, they decide on some features, and then without a clue as to what's next, go into the recruitment forum and tell people about it and hope someone joins.
Then no one replies. And if they do, it's criticism. If it's a serious reply about joining, this person is probably gonna jump ship when production gets halted, and it will.
Here's why. And this is important. This is the part you'll want to note because it ties back to your first post on how to get organized and what you are really going to need to do to make a game.
The novices don't have a clue how difficult the design part is, how tedious it is, how long it is, and how much work it is if you do it right.
As a game designer you will plan every little detail. Lets start with an elemental system. First, you gotta think up every single element. Then, you have to think up how every element will balance itself against others. You will have to do some mock-up skills that will use it. You will decide who will use it, what monsters will use it, and to what extent it will be used in the game. You will decide on ti's restrictions and limitations. All this will be done in the face of balancing, and as balancing goes along, you will have to make sure the system is tweaked and edited according to the needs of balance.
You have to decide how many players you want. You will also have to decide how many players are on the team and how team swapping will be done. You can do this like so:
You will draw up a diagram of squares and boxes. Each box represents a Window, and in those windows you will show where each players face or icon will be presented for switching. Did you want face-sets or char-sets? If a player is unavailable after acquiring him will he be removed from the list or just blacked out? You will decide what details will be shown. You will decide where each window goes. And that's just the aesthetic.
Now you get to the functional, where you put notes down that describe how the interface will interact with the players commands. What happens when you pick a hero, will the hero's icon jut out slightly when you select him and go back in when you deselect him? Maybe it just gets highlighted. What happens when you try to remove an essential party member? What party members will be essential at what time? What sound effect do you want played when switching?
Then you gotta think of your needs that you can tell the scripter. Certain heroes will not be available at certain times. If a hero is dead he will not be able to be added to the party until he's revived.
And how about that revival system? Will characters be at 1 hp in the next battle? Will characters be dead permanently? Will there be different systems for mana and another system for say rage?
The whole point of that is to show just how much thought really has to go into a game in order to make it take shape. All that is just the tip of the iceberg too. You can't be afraid of making decisions. You gotta pick every feature you want down to the last detail.
What I've done in the past is take a notebook and made a sequential order of events that take place throughout the game. It's very effective when planning out your stories events in sequence. Yes, you will have to plan out the details of your story. You can't leave it "Johny wakes up, becomes the prophecy, and saves the world." Doesn't mean you have to write it in novel form, just means you have to write it down so that it becomes very real. So that every second of the heroes life during the time of this story is written down and the life of all those around him. At the very least this will give you the material you need to give to your writer if you decide to get one. (And you probably should, because someone will need to do the dialogue and make edits to the narration and make sure the story follows a coherent plot. They also make sure all characters are being developed properly. Fortunately 90% of writers work for free around here.)
Another thing about being a designer is you have to be confident in what you want. You can't be making changes all the time and asking everyone and their mother what they want to do. That is just poor planning on the designer's part and a sign they weren't meant for this position.
Let me break it down from the perspective of a Team Member. I've been on a team where the designer kept changing things that I was suppose to be scripting. He'd ask a person outside the project what should be done. He'd ask for more features to be added while we were finishing up the details on another feature. He'd change his ideas because we'd suggest something. He didn't have the details we needed for one system done, but he'd be working on features for another system somewhere way off in the future. He had no clue what could and couldn't be done for scripting and how long it'd take.
You really should become familiar with your target engine before recruiting a team. Delve into a little bit of everything. Make a game (No matter how poorly done that game is, or if you abandon it, as it's just practice.)
As a designer, no matter how artistically inept you are, you will have to draw up diagrams and design ideas, or at least be able to explain them in a very descriptive manner. You will have to draw what you want your characters to look like, or find references that look like them. You can give these to a real artist later on, who can draw up what you want. But most character artists need either a reference or a really good description. Best results come from a reference.
I'll tell you one thing, as you begin to really hash out the details, the game will become far more real to you, and you'll be much more driven to complete it. You'll practically be able to touch the game in your mind as you hash out the details for it. You really gotta picture it as a game though. Picture the menu, the way it looks, how it acts. Pop open a game that is done the way you want your system done. Look at videos on youtube. Or even create a project and try to do it yourself even if not just poorly done.
Having references is going to go a LONG way in helping you design your game. The more notes, references, sketches, diagrams, and writing you have done for your story the more people, talented people even, will be willing to work on your game. You never know, you may even get a person normally commissioned to help you for free if you have a lot of material.
Anyways this long spiel is about what being a game designer really is, how many details truly must be thought out to make a game, what you should do to get organized and ready, and the benefits of doing such.
)Making a game by yourself is hard. Perhaps one of the most difficult things you'll ever do. It will demand your soul to complete it. The more ambitious the project, the more exponentially difficult it will be. A lot of the games you see on the main page that're super-awesome-cool games were either done by a team or done by a single person over the span of 3 years who probably started with a lot of experience.
The less skills you have, the less ambitious you have to be with your project. and the more you'll have to settle You'll have to stick with doing what you know, and be ready for the sharp criticism you receive.
If you want to see your more ambitious games come to light you'll need one thing. Patience. Patience to wait for people willing to join your team. If you want to get more dedicated workers, and greater talent, you'll have to pay someone. If you want to make a commercial game you will assuredly have to pay someone, because you're going to get into some legal territory.
It helps to understand the good ole setup you'll be working with too.
You are probably the Designer/Developer. You think up all the cool features, you think up the nifty story, and you create the framework that is your game. This is where most novices start. They think up a cool story, they decide on some features, and then without a clue as to what's next, go into the recruitment forum and tell people about it and hope someone joins.
Then no one replies. And if they do, it's criticism. If it's a serious reply about joining, this person is probably gonna jump ship when production gets halted, and it will.
Here's why. And this is important. This is the part you'll want to note because it ties back to your first post on how to get organized and what you are really going to need to do to make a game.
The novices don't have a clue how difficult the design part is, how tedious it is, how long it is, and how much work it is if you do it right.
As a game designer you will plan every little detail. Lets start with an elemental system. First, you gotta think up every single element. Then, you have to think up how every element will balance itself against others. You will have to do some mock-up skills that will use it. You will decide who will use it, what monsters will use it, and to what extent it will be used in the game. You will decide on ti's restrictions and limitations. All this will be done in the face of balancing, and as balancing goes along, you will have to make sure the system is tweaked and edited according to the needs of balance.
You have to decide how many players you want. You will also have to decide how many players are on the team and how team swapping will be done. You can do this like so:
You will draw up a diagram of squares and boxes. Each box represents a Window, and in those windows you will show where each players face or icon will be presented for switching. Did you want face-sets or char-sets? If a player is unavailable after acquiring him will he be removed from the list or just blacked out? You will decide what details will be shown. You will decide where each window goes. And that's just the aesthetic.
Now you get to the functional, where you put notes down that describe how the interface will interact with the players commands. What happens when you pick a hero, will the hero's icon jut out slightly when you select him and go back in when you deselect him? Maybe it just gets highlighted. What happens when you try to remove an essential party member? What party members will be essential at what time? What sound effect do you want played when switching?
Then you gotta think of your needs that you can tell the scripter. Certain heroes will not be available at certain times. If a hero is dead he will not be able to be added to the party until he's revived.
And how about that revival system? Will characters be at 1 hp in the next battle? Will characters be dead permanently? Will there be different systems for mana and another system for say rage?
The whole point of that is to show just how much thought really has to go into a game in order to make it take shape. All that is just the tip of the iceberg too. You can't be afraid of making decisions. You gotta pick every feature you want down to the last detail.
What I've done in the past is take a notebook and made a sequential order of events that take place throughout the game. It's very effective when planning out your stories events in sequence. Yes, you will have to plan out the details of your story. You can't leave it "Johny wakes up, becomes the prophecy, and saves the world." Doesn't mean you have to write it in novel form, just means you have to write it down so that it becomes very real. So that every second of the heroes life during the time of this story is written down and the life of all those around him. At the very least this will give you the material you need to give to your writer if you decide to get one. (And you probably should, because someone will need to do the dialogue and make edits to the narration and make sure the story follows a coherent plot. They also make sure all characters are being developed properly. Fortunately 90% of writers work for free around here.)
Another thing about being a designer is you have to be confident in what you want. You can't be making changes all the time and asking everyone and their mother what they want to do. That is just poor planning on the designer's part and a sign they weren't meant for this position.
Let me break it down from the perspective of a Team Member. I've been on a team where the designer kept changing things that I was suppose to be scripting. He'd ask a person outside the project what should be done. He'd ask for more features to be added while we were finishing up the details on another feature. He'd change his ideas because we'd suggest something. He didn't have the details we needed for one system done, but he'd be working on features for another system somewhere way off in the future. He had no clue what could and couldn't be done for scripting and how long it'd take.
You really should become familiar with your target engine before recruiting a team. Delve into a little bit of everything. Make a game (No matter how poorly done that game is, or if you abandon it, as it's just practice.)
As a designer, no matter how artistically inept you are, you will have to draw up diagrams and design ideas, or at least be able to explain them in a very descriptive manner. You will have to draw what you want your characters to look like, or find references that look like them. You can give these to a real artist later on, who can draw up what you want. But most character artists need either a reference or a really good description. Best results come from a reference.
I'll tell you one thing, as you begin to really hash out the details, the game will become far more real to you, and you'll be much more driven to complete it. You'll practically be able to touch the game in your mind as you hash out the details for it. You really gotta picture it as a game though. Picture the menu, the way it looks, how it acts. Pop open a game that is done the way you want your system done. Look at videos on youtube. Or even create a project and try to do it yourself even if not just poorly done.
Having references is going to go a LONG way in helping you design your game. The more notes, references, sketches, diagrams, and writing you have done for your story the more people, talented people even, will be willing to work on your game. You never know, you may even get a person normally commissioned to help you for free if you have a lot of material.
Anyways this long spiel is about what being a game designer really is, how many details truly must be thought out to make a game, what you should do to get organized and ready, and the benefits of doing such.
Uh... nope, Trihex. Fooly Cooly either refers to FLCL , or is slang for the act of fondling someone (These are not unrelated).
Anyway, uh... yeah. I'd... I'd offer some more advice, but really, I'm not even sure what you're asking for, or if you were trying to get something off your chest!
Anyway, uh... yeah. I'd... I'd offer some more advice, but really, I'm not even sure what you're asking for, or if you were trying to get something off your chest!
Haha, I should have been paying more attention to that scene where the dad is talking to his son about it in that perverted manner. I must've caught one of the bogus kid explanations of it. XD Oh well. Now we all know.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.