Starting from scratch
Intro
Right - quick introduction, I'm Rob Manuel and I've run B3ta.com for years - and that means I know more about crudely-drawn penises and bad Photoshops than great games.
And that's the point - E4 have asked me to create a game, and as I've only ever really made jokey flash things, this is one hell of a challenge.
The idea is that we'll learn together, and you, gentle reader, will be even asked to pitch in and help.
Rob's general theory of everything
Right, in this lovely world, there's stuff you are interested in, stuff the world is interested in, and there is a tiny intersection in the middle where magic happens. We need to work in this bit.
So what are our favourite games?
To make something great we have to be true to ourselves. Yep, we might be able to rob a game engine from flashkit.com and stuff it with our own graphics, but unless we enjoy these style of games ourselves we're unlikely to make a great job of it. Simply put, our instincts will be wrong.
So, our job is already much easier - create something based upon stuff we actually enjoy.
And to keep the copyright lawyers happy - here's some doodles based upon our favourite games - can you guess what they are?
The Magic Rules
Ok, and here's a lesson you can try at home - make a list of games you've enjoyed through the years, and ask yourself what you liked about them. My theory is if we can hit a number of these points in our our game ideas, then we stand a chance of making something pretty cool.
- Single screen puzzles are great: loved The Incredible Machine, so satisfying to solve the puzzle and reach the next screen.
- Being naughty is fun: Turbo Esprit rocked for one reason alone - mowing down innocent pedestrians.
- Competition with friends is important: in retrospect I can't even remember even liking Manic Miner, but I played it to death so I could get to a higher screen than Ben Hurd from school.
- Simple rules with multiple interpretations = longer gameplay: I played Tetris for months before I realised that an alternative to keeping the screen as clean as possible is to build up gaps that you can drop shapes into to clear several lines at once.
- Complicated controls put people off: I've never got into Donkey Kong 64 because you had to play a massive training level to familiarise yourself with the controls before the game started properly.
- Being the only game in town helps: I'm the King of Snake simply because it was the only game on my Nokia for years.
- Celebrity makes people click: it's not the Swearing Keyboard, it's BUFFY'S Swearing Keyboard. Ok, if you can't use a celebrity for legal reasons then try pirates, ninjas or kittens.
- Don't bore us - get to the chorus: when picking stuff for our lovely newsletter we have the attention span of a gnat. If we're not entertained in the first few seconds of clicking a link then we're pressing the back button.
- Titles and URLS are important: often the only information a player will get before playing a game is a link, and they've got to make a decision on whether to click it. www.e4.com/112.html or www.e4.com/breast-stroke-game, it's obvious which is going to get more clicks.
- Endings rule: what would Portal be without the charming song at the end? Totally unexpected and the best genuine organic marketing we've seen, this tune was everywhere. We (sad old us) even turned up to see the writer Jonathan Coulton play his London gig.
OK, next week we're going to have a massive brainstorm session. If you're following along at home, then press pause on the VHS now.
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