#finalfarewell

Indeed, we have come to the end of Gabe's Game Dev Blog. I know, it's crazy! It's been quite the ride for sure, with many learning opportunities throughout. Here, I'd like to say some final things about everything I've experienced, learnt, and some other things maybe.

I've gotta admit; going into this I was super excited. I'd never done anything like this before! It was so cool having homework be making games. Usually that's a hobby thing where I can never seem to finish any projects I start! Technically I didn't get to finish any of these either, but it was also kind of supposed to be that way. Something I'd learnt was the prototyping process (yeah, hopefully I learnt that! That's what the whole blog's been about basically!). Fullerton's book taught me that, essentially, you shouldn't try to make a full game from the blue because it's going to cost you, either mentally, emotionally, or financially. You could burn yourself out with a massive new project, get your ego smashed if you release something no-one likes playing, or you could end up wasting a significant amount of money on assets and materials that don't end up returning anything. I've learnt that it's important to come up with an idea, make simple, basic version of what that idea is, then keep testing it to make sure it's something people enjoy. If it's not but people think it's okay, rework it until it's great. The concept from Black Hole Heart eventually made it into Recyclathon because so many people really liked it. If it's just flat-out bad, however, then find a new idea. Keep repeating until you get one that sticks.

That also taught me a couple things about designing for the player, and also about not becoming attached to your works (or just not letting poor reviews get to you). If you make games you want to play, there's a decent chance not too many others will want to. There's definitely instances where game developers have created stuff because it's something they want to play, but they didn't get to the success they did without consistent playtesting. The "they" in the articles you see I'm assuming is referring to a mid-to-large team of people. If you're a single person, it's harder to make a game "you want to play" that will do well than if you had a bunch of people to bounce ideas of, compromise and conglomerate plans into a big whole. Additionally, I learnt that who we are and where we come from, and the things we assume about games and the people who play them, are also big contributors to how we create games. In The Rocks Have Eyes, I had assumed that players would click on the controls screen I had made, which detailed everything anyone would need to know to play. None of those controls were in the actual game part, though, so clicking start without reading the controls first would lead to massive confusion. From that I began to understand how the way I play games affected the way I made them, and my play style wasn't necessarily the same as (many...) other people. In Rogue-like Racing, the first iteration I published was slightly rushed, and therefore met with some criticism. It was the first solidly negative review I got for something I'd spent time making, so it hurt quite a lot to see it. However, I realised what Fullerton said in her book about getting attached to what you make: You should not. Sure, it's like caring for (or just straight-up building) a child, you learn to love the project as your own. However, you need to keep your distance with it emotionally, otherwise a passion project could turn into a source of intense emotional discomfort (sort of like the situation with Cube World).

Player experience goals are another thing that Fullerton showed me in her book that's essential for creating a game. You're making it for a reason, so you need to have an understanding of what that is. Are you making it because you want players to feel happy? Sad? Do you want to confront them with deep societal issues and spark intense cultural dialogue? Or do you simply want them to fly around with clouds and relax in the sights and sounds of your cosy sandbox game? These things (though not these exactly, but you know what I mean) need to be considered carefully before making something, because otherwise you have no metrics to test against when playtesting. In Black Hole Heart I had clear goals; I wanted players to feel the excitement of finding cool new Plat-O-Former3000 upgrade chips, to have fun testing them out, and to feel intelligent by solving puzzles using them. Because I knew this, I could make something people enjoyed and have ways to test it creating that enjoyment in the way I had intended. However, in Rogue-like Racing, I had neglected to consider any player experience goals. This led to a lack of direction, and an overall "okay" playing experience. It wasn't bad, and was quite fun, but I didn't have any way to make sure it was having the effect I wanted on my players. The player experience goals are a way to ensure you know what you want your players to feel and experience, and allows you to tailor the game to make sure everything about it does just that.

I also learnt a whole bunch of other miscellaneous-yet-relevant things, like how games like Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee are actually straight-up masterpieces. Okay, I'm joking (I mean, it is a super good game, please check it out, but it's not what I meant to say😂). Specifically, I learnt about the ways that games influence society, like sparking dialogue about major issues, making people feel things like artworks do, how they represent aspects of the cultures they were created in, and how they have the ability to transform societal beliefs and values about various things. I learnt that games have been around a really, really long time, in various forms, and I also learnt about how new video games are as a medium for entertainment. It's been such an intense fourteen weeks, but it's been really really fun!!

Lastly, I'm going to talk about what I learnt about the GDevelop game engine. For those who haven't tested any of my prototypes yet, it's what I used to develop them. It's certainly a unique engine, but like anything it takes little getting used to before you become comfortable with it. At first I found things kinda clunky and hard to use properly, but after a while attaching behaviours and adding events and conditions became like second nature! I've still got a ways to go in terms of my fluency with the engine (don't even get me started on trying to understand the online behaviour explanations ("Tick Interval: Adjust the tick interval"...)), but I can really see the potential it has to be something proper developers use in spite of its 2D limitations (which are being overcome slowly!). Since I've had some experience with RPG Maker (MV and MZ), I found it easy to grasp just how much power the engine can hold, especially when seeing finished products like In Stars and Time, Omori and the like. If things like that can come from RPG Maker, imagine what's possible with GDevelop, you know? Personally, I really like the GDevelop engine, and I wouldn't mind using it in the future for other things.

And that's it!! The end!!! . . . Or is it...? Wait, there's still more text...? Oh no...

Technically, yes, it's the end of this blog. However! For the sake of professional portfolio creation, it's likely I'll return with new blogs about various other projects I create. Hopefully the massive walls of text weren't too much to bear with this blog. I really enjoyed creating it (if you couldn't tell!), and this is probably an accurate reflection of what I can do without something like a word limit to drag me down (maybe those limits are actually justified...). Seriously though, it was fun to do all of this. I really hope it was fun to read all of it! Sorry for any typos you may have encountered, I tried to find them all but as you can imagine that was certainly not an easy task (also doesn't help when Tumblr doesn't pick them up!).

Thank you very much for reading through this blog and, honestly, congrats for making it this far! It couldn't have been easy for you...

Anyway, that's it for me. The final farewell. It may be a while (like, a long while), but please look forward to the blogs I create in the future!