Hello everyone
Just came up with a new doubt and guess what, this time it’s not technical.
So, I just wanted to ask, as the topic already says, how do we actually make game a game, I. e. to add flow to games.
Let me now state this more clearly, of all the games I created from June till now, even after working on them so much, they still felt no more than a prototype to play. Some lack fun, some the intense combats and so on.
So how do we actually add these things to our game and make it really a game?
Thanks in advance.
If I understand you right… Make screens like a normal game would have. Splash, main menu, options, game screen, end of level screen… Monarch is great for this. Then you want to have fail states where the game is over, or some kind of progression if you reach a high enough state to move onto another level. But only do that with a prototype you know is fun. If you give an example of a prototype you have made you think would be worth developing into a full game we can give you some better direction.
2 Likes
Yeah 
I did began with creating screens and they go through just fine. I was able to create a splash screen, a fully functional menu, settings panel( sound, music, reset game etc) , a simple fader and above all (& my best till now too) a cinema styled credits scene. So these are not the problems.
The actual problem starts when I move on to creating the game itself. However hard I try, there is no fun that the games have, just a wanderer player with enemies around him that have no interest in player. So more than a game, it actually looks a random collection of random things.
If you ask about this, I would be glad to introduce to the community Armalings, a three month old failed project.
So, the question, What is Armalings?
Short answer :
Take the graphics of chaos faction 2, give them some wings, and mix them with the dogfights of luftrausers, plus some bounciness and x100 fun
Long answer:
Actually Armalings came up during this August’s Ludum Dare. I worked on it for a week and made a almost complete prototype(dont ask how) almost ready for closed beta release. Still it lacked the feel-of-game factor. 
And then my computer crashed and as I hadn’t any backup I lost it.
So this was just a brief and sad history of Armalings. I have been again working on it for a fortnight (this time I have backups) and as I already mentioned, I have created the menu part of it. Initially I was thinking for a single player version with a campaign and vs bot mode and then extending it to multi-player over the next month before finally adding a 100 player BR mode.
So for the single player part, I created the player and it was OK. But the enemies seem to be taking no interest in killing the player and the game looks like they are being forced to kill the player. So actually there is no fun part, no intense combat, nothing and the game is really plain boring.
I know game developers are to tackle this problem on their own, but since this is the first game I am planning to release, I think I might need some help.
ps-since I am on phone now, I won’t able to share some ss, but will definitely do it tomorrow.
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This is the hard part. I’m really good at cranking out code, creating systems, frameworks, game mechanics and so on, but I suck at game design and making stuff fun. Making stuff fun, interesting and engaging is a completely different skill and something that you really need to work on to get good at.
Take a successful game in the genre you’re trying to create a game in and start analysing it. Try to break it down into different mechanics and concepts. Try to figure out what’s making the game fun. I find that the games I enjoy the most follow the “less is more” philosophy where the developers have peeled away everything that isn’t really necessary and focused on that core nugget of fun. The solution is rarely to add more stuff in the hope that it will make the game fun. It’s often a matter of polishing what’s already there and stripping away everything that doesn’t add to the experience.
7 Likes
This. Pretty much.
It’s a sad realization that I’ve come to recently, that I just can’t do everything myself. At least not at the quality level that I would classify as “really good game” 
Lately I’ve been trying to do my own spine animations, using graphics pulled from the public domain and edited into pieces. It looks terrible, but it works. 
Really good games (imo), are the efforts of multiple people who have various strong points. Programmers, Artists, Sound and Special Effects people - so forth. Hard to be great at all of it.
A funny quote I read on Unity forums(IIRC, and somehow remembered)
Artists are artists because they like shiny,
programmers are programmers because “It’s not working yet”
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@decoded Your story is almost the same as me, with the possible exception that I don’t go in graphics editing an d as far as possible, try to get along with public domain graphics. And most of the times I don’t have the required ones and so, just get irritated with my game and I have to leave it.
@britzl my problem is just the opposite of yours. I can make gameplay sequences on paper but when it comes to scripting and making it a reality, I fail there.
Still your idea seems to be very practical and nice. I will definitely try to pickup a game, dissect it and remake it in my own way, so that I can compare and learn. So yes, it seems worthy to spend a few days practicing this and learning( and if I succeed, probably make it a tutorial for beginners). I will search around for some good games for this and one request-of you do know a game which could be worth trying out pls do suggest them to me.
Ps-
Thanks for the community 'S continued support and 
.
That’s why I usually end up editing my own graphics, just to get something close. Pixabay.com is my goto source for CC0 images - along with cartoonize.net sometimes. Still, it takes me hours/days to create something an artist could probably whip up in 15 minutes.
It’s still learning, and honing skills, so… just keep learning and honing skills.
Looking forward to see Armalings beta! Sign me up! (and show us those screenshots!)
I haven’t got the time to use my computer for a while, nd with A STRESSFUL FORTNIGHT approaching, I think you’ll only get the glimpse of Armalings early October(With an upcoming teaser too 
)
As for Armalings Beta,worry not, it will surely come, probably this Late October, after I have learned developing prof. games, and with you as its first beta tester …