Game design: some advice needed

[williamwoles]

Hello guys,
I'm reading the book "The Art of Computer Game Design" by Cris Crawford(I know it's old, but it's still actual in term of game design principles).
The author says that one of the important steps of designing of game is defining "goals and topic".. What is the right way to define goals? How should I organize my ideas to extract the correct set of goals? Should I think relatively to player? Or the game goals in general?

Thanks you.

[Eli Delventhal]

Goal:
Make a fun game.
Make something you want to make.

That's it.

[williamwoles]

Dunno if it's that simple as you say

You need to keep people interested in playing the game and interested come back to play your game again, isn't it? You don't create game just for you... To create something that some people would want to play there is hard work on analyzing what people want, define everything in the beginning.. At list I think so

I'm trying to learn to organize my ideas and to follow the processes that conducted to successful games.. If anyone got some example or some information to share about initial phases of game creating I would be very thankful for the help! 

Games published by our own members! Check 'em out!

[Eli Delventhal]

You need to keep people interested in playing the game and interested come back to play your game again, isn't it? You don't create game just for you...

Nope!

Keep your priorities straight. It should be:

1) Make something you want to make.
2) Make something you will have fun making.
3) Make something you will learn from.
...
1058) Make something that other people will like playing.

Trust me. You really should not worry about making your game marketable (because that's what you're worrying about right now). If you make a game that you love then it will be fun and therefore it will be marketable. But if you make a game because "that would be something people would love to play" or "that would be something that would make me a lot of money" then you're totally in the wrong ballpark.

Facebook was made because someone wanted a tool for easy communication.
Google was made because someone wanted a better search engine.
Dell was made because someone wanted to construct cheap and affordable computers.

Make sense?

[h3ckboy]

Facebook was made because someone wanted a tool for easy communication.
Google was made because someone wanted a better search engine.
Dell was made because someone wanted to construct cheap and affordable computers.

I totally agree with your argument, but it is kinda one sided. Microsoft was made because they wanted to win a prize....

[Eli Delventhal]

I totally agree with your argument, but it is kinda one sided. Microsoft was made because they wanted to win a prize....

Naturally there are some companies started because they want to make money. But I think that's the rare exception. They might hope to make money, but they're not saying "this is the best idea to make money." That logic is inherently flawed.

[h3ckboy]

Naturally there are some companies started because they want to make money. But I think that's the rare exception. They might hope to make money, but they're not saying "this is the best idea to make money." That logic is inherently flawed.

yeah, I agree with you, I was just saying that there ARE those few examples wher eis does happen

[Gudradain]

Dunno if it's that simple as you say

You need to keep people interested in playing the game and interested come back to play your game again, isn't it? You don't create game just for you... To create something that some people would want to play there is hard work on analyzing what people want, define everything in the beginning.. At list I think so

Hmmm, I think you should follow Demonpants advice, REALLY!!!

Why? Well, no matter how hard you try if you are just a beginner that have no experience in making game, you first game will probably not be fun. So just make what you want to make.

[williamwoles]

Thanks a lot for advices. I'm going to try to make something fun and something where I learn a lot.

Thanks.

[ImNotBacon]

Making a game is fun for about two weeks.

Then it becomes rewarding hard work for about two months.

Then pain begins. Burnout sets in, and you'll start to hate the game and wonder if there are better ways to spend your time.

My advice is: make a game you will finish.  If you don't think you can survive the burnout phase, build something you can finish in two months.  Once you've completed it, the satisfaction justifies all the suffering, but when you're on the road you'll have to keep reminding yourself that believe it.