At 10/24/06 12:22 PM, jmtb02 wrote:

At 10/24/06 12:16 PM, PureGonzoMedia wrote: When newer technology comes out it's going to change John

But even today, we are still seeing the platfomers and racing games that we have seen 20 years ago, and not only in Flash, but in next-gen consoles. Sure, we have a "3rd dimension" and better sound, but the gameplay still works on the same prototype, as many games still do.

That's just giving the people what they want. Why do they make teen-horrors? Because teens will go and see them.

Originality is a bit of a bitch on NG, so what if something is like something else it's a fun game who cares.

For everyone living in the Europe, we already know how many PS3s will be sold at Christmas over here. A grand total of zero...

At 10/24/06 12:23 AM, orb wrote: BTW, sorry for being totally out of the loop on this one,
but WHAT THE HECK IS A BLUE RAY PLAYER?

Man... the HD-DVD vs Blue Ray thing's going to completely seal Sony's fate if it slips to the HD side. Sony's track record at pushing new formats is less than desirable. Hands up everyone with a Betamax or Minidisc player.

At 10/24/06 12:22 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Fewer and fewer original concepts are being developed, and it is shrinking even further.

Changing it from within is going to be difficult. I've heard enough horror stories about the code farms that developer houses have become.

So change it from without. Start making original Flash games with completely different concepts driving them. Maybe EA Canada will take a note of the new stuff that's getting attention and force thier slave studios to make them next generation cash cows.

At 10/24/06 04:22 AM, SuperCandyBoy wrote: Halo Wars

Halo Wars is gonna suck on 360. Sorry, but you can't have an RTS on a console.

Example: Starcraft is like the most famous, most played, best RTS ever made. It was made 11 years ago and thousands upon thousands of people play it to this day. Now that's what I call gameplay time!

However, They came out with a Starcraft 64, if you remember. Who bought it? Like 14 people?

You can't do an RTS without a mouse. It just doesn't work.

For any of you that think the movement of the mouse isn't that big of a deal, you need to see this kid NaDa play Starcraft.

He's this famous Korean kid who makes $600,000 a year just to play starcraft.

If anyone wants to see a video of him play, email me I got it on my computer. You seriously won't believe your eyes. The intenseness of his accuracy and speed with the mouse will make you want to cry.

At 10/24/06 01:34 PM, orb wrote: Halo Wars is gonna suck on 360. Sorry, but you can't have an RTS on a console.

It'd be exceptionally cool if it played like an FPS instead of a top down RTS.

Imagine it. Taking a role of a general on a battlefield, sitting in a trench or in a Pelican, giving orders to squads and trying to outmaneuver your enemy from the real perspective of a general, as opposed to that vague god-like perspective of the standard strategy gamer HUD. If things got exceptionally bad, you could always take a more direct role in the outcome of the battle.

Although I think the last few games to tried that bited hard

Ive submitted my halloween game at last
im so happy :D:D

At 10/24/06 01:50 PM, fuzz wrote: Ive submitted my halloween game at last
im so happy :D:D

You deserve to be! That's awesome.
It's like Yugi Oh met Rock Paper Scissors met something exceptionally cool to make up for Yugi Oh's suckage...

Hehe... first on the Highscore table... ^_^

At 10/24/06 01:50 PM, fuzz wrote: Ive submitted my halloween game at last
im so happy :D:D

That's pretty cool :)

I got 77958

Awesome game fuzz, except that at one point on hard mode I got the gound munching guy 17 times in a row (dunno how long it would've gone on but I lost... of course you understand why), and the computer each of those times got the pumpkin... so it was kind of impossible to win there.

I had fun the earlier time when I played on easy mode though lol.

STUPID GLITCH >:(

What do you guys think the best type of game starting system for a multiplayer Flash game should be like? Do you think it should just automatically connect you to a game like Stick Arena or do you think there should be a more robust lobby system where you can chat and create / join specific games? If you think it should be a lobby system how should that work? If you think it depends on the type of game think of a simple board game type of thing. If you can think of an example game or site does it well I would appreciate it.

P.S. We'll need beta testers in the next few days.

At 10/24/06 02:48 PM, orb wrote: STUPID GLITCH >:(

Its not a glitch... it happened to me too but with bats, the thing is its random between the three (i suppose) and there are chances of it being the same 17 times in a row. D:

But great game anyway.- :D

At 10/24/06 02:49 PM, BleeBlap wrote: What do you guys think the best type of game starting system for a multiplayer Flash game should be like?

The key thing for all multiplayer games is, worryingly enough, multiple players. Anything that convinces me I'm having a good time with people on the net fits the bill for me.

Personally, a public lobby with private games you can invite people to sounds like a far better idea than a list of games to join. Might build some community, or allow people who are chilling out to get to know each other better (and then play more games with each other)

P.S. We'll need beta testers in the next few days.

I might be up for that

At 10/24/06 12:06 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Which leaves me at this... how much original Flash is there to be developed on the internet, given the insane production of Flash games over the past 5 years? Is there actually original content anymore? Is it going to be faded games being reushered into a new light of gaming, only to become a popular game again? What do you think?

There's PLENTY of original ideas to be made, just tapping them the right way is key.

I'm making a sequal to paths as most of you know, i still consider it original even though it's a sequal cause well i made the first one and that was original. They cant say i'm ripping off my own game now can they? Same with magnetism.

A neat way to come up with an original game is to start with an existing one.

For paths, i said "Mouse avoider games suxs, i should make a new one with a twist"

So i came up with "draw a line" and have the ball follow it.

Now, alone, that would seem very much like a mouse avoider with a twist, but i added some more ideas after that like what if the player could control moving objects and rotating ones, etc.

In the end, it still has it's roots in mouse avoiders but is nothing like one anymore.

You can do the same with virtually any popular genre of game. For example (i'm doing this off the top of my head):

Platformer game (art based)
Now, the first twist is something like... instead of downward gravity, have a point so it's like a strange planet, everything falls to one point (or perhaps more than one), a central gravity force. Perhaps rotate the camera so that point happens to always be facing down for a neat view of the world.

So one twist, although a large one, still makes it seem like just a platformer with a twist. Next thing you need is some small twists to work it out of the generic platformer, get X coins, get to the exit, etc goal. So what if now, you made yourself able to destroy the terrain on the planet. And perhaps have a jet pack and "fuelling stations". Maybe add vehicles. Have the goal be something original, such as fueling up a ship so you can go to the next planet.

You don't need to invent a genre to create an original game. Just tweak existing genres, combine more than one genre together, and add twists to it. There's millions of combinations out there that can make something original. Some will work and be a blast to play, some won't. It's all a matter of sort of "unlocking" a new idea.

I always try to add twists to my games, even if not meant to be original, I like twists. When making a game, I think "What seperates this game from the rest of the games in this category? Why should people play this one when they can just play that one?"

And of course, how well you make the game is also a big factor in the success rate of it. You could have the most original idea in the world, but if you dont have the skills to complete the project and make it good, dont. Write the idea down and come back to it later when you have the skills to make it awesome.

But remember, if you have an idea (I'll use paths as an example, cause it's recent), don't hesitate to make it. Just make it decent and quickly. Nothing's worse than working on a project and see someone else submit the same idea to the portal (it happened when i started making blockslide 2, so now my theory for that is just make it better than all the others). Make it quickly, then spend time on the sequal. If you made #1, #2 will still be original, despite it being a sequal. You won't get people saying "This is a complete ripoff of the first one."

That's my 2¢, think about it.

At 10/24/06 03:01 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: A neat way to come up with an original game is to start with an existing one.

Twists are good, but limit yourself to one major twist per game if you're basing it on something already existing. A major twist could be "It's a first person shooter with a tractor beam" or "it's a first person shooter with intelligent allies who help you when you're driving the tank" or "it's our last two games, but in three-dee".

Add too many extra twists, and your players may feel lost. This is the problem with creativity in games - people like easy fitting genres. They like to be able to say "That's a platformer", or "that's a GTA Clone" or "That's an FPS" when describing the game thier playing. They don't want to have to think about that answer - if it's rocket science, then it's no longer a game.

Try any brainshatteringly original game, like Siboot, Façade or Game of Life and you'll either be so overwhelmed by the originality you'll sing thier praises, or get so confused by not being able to transplant skills from one area to another that you'll feel betrayed. Most people (and by most, I mean "those who are voting on / buying your game and are not your fans or friends") are members of the latter category.

Still, the original stuff needs to be tried - just so we can see whether there IS a new side to fun...

Not arguing GG. Supporting, but in my own cynical way. I want to try making a game like Siboot sometime...

nothing's wrong with twists, the more the better.

The thing about it though, is you don't want to overcomplicate things. You can do a twist without making a new button or putting something new in the instructions. Look at paths, that was a mouse avoider game with like 50 twists.

At 10/24/06 03:01 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: Platformer game (art based)

Fucking genious.

I have no idea how you come up with so many original game ideas.

At 10/24/06 03:56 PM, orb wrote: I have no idea how you come up with so many original game ideas.

...... i just explained EXACTLY how i came up with it.

Now twinsen get on AIM we need to talk about blockslide

At 10/24/06 03:01 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: Platformer game (art based)

You make thinking up something like that sound so simple, but I try and think up an idea using that kind of method all the time and have never come up with anything worthwhile.

Conclusion: You're one hell of a creative guy >:(

Thanks too everyone who commented on my game :D
Neashir was great to work with. My first full completed project in a while :D im so happly lol :)

At 10/24/06 03:59 PM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote:

At 10/24/06 03:56 PM, orb wrote: I have no idea how you come up with so many original game ideas.

...... i just explained EXACTLY how i came up with it.

Whatever. Lol.

Now twinsen get on AIM we need to talk about blockslide

K I'm on.

At 10/24/06 03:26 PM, pirateemoninja wrote: Add too many extra twists, and your players may feel lost. This is the problem with creativity in games - people like easy fitting genres. They like to be able to say "That's a platformer", or "that's a GTA Clone" or "That's an FPS" when describing the game thier playing. They don't want to have to think about that answer - if it's rocket science, then it's no longer a game.

Yeaaah you hit the nail on the head of what I was thinking. We've been learning about genre and classifications of genres in college, and you got it pretty spot on. Genres although they can seem a bad this (predictible, cliche) can be good, or on the whole are. It gives viewers what they are going to be watching (or playing in the case) and it invites them into it, they may see Alien hominid and think 'ooh, I like games like that, sweet'.

At 10/24/06 02:07 PM, PureGonzoMedia wrote:

At 10/24/06 01:50 PM, fuzz wrote: Ive submitted my halloween game at last
im so happy :D:D

That's pretty cool :)

I got 77958

What about the style of it though? ;)

At 10/24/06 12:06 PM, jmtb02 wrote: Which leaves me at this... how much original Flash is there to be developed on the internet, given the insane production of Flash games over the past 5 years? Is there actually original content anymore? Is it going to be faded games being reushered into a new light of gaming, only to become a popular game again? What do you think?

Funny you mentioned this because I was just considering that last night. I started making a defense game engine because I've never done one, they seem faily easy and do fairly well.. then I thought about how... How many defense games are out there? Did I really want to just copy someone else's work? Did I want to be called a rip off? I started going through things in my head that could possibly make it original. I'm not afraid to tell you guys here my thought process here and hopefully, no one will steal it.

Step 1- Use very colorful, detailed graphics designed in photoshop. Node gardenish. Haven't seen too many like that... most are vector images.

Step 2- Create a bit of originality. You can fire multiple color projectiles. Each enemy will be a color. You need to kill each enemy with the same color projectile to kill it.

Step 3- Ohh let's take it one step further. If you mix colors (hit a blue enemy with a yellow projectile) He turns green and gives you a powerup.

Now, it seems like a bit more original... and as far as I know, I won't be considered a rip off. I think graphics and audio have quite a bit to do with it as well. Seriously, look at all the "collect items in a platform style game."

It's done in the real industry too. Look at the mass of GTA style games that have come out since GTA3 flooded the market. Look at how many "Sup up the rice burner vehical" games have come out.

Its really about finding that hook... that one little difference. I took my eyeball game engine and made that new crappy halloween game and changed very little programming. You'd think the games would be identical, but they seem fairly different. It's the same thing old platformers used to do. Programming wise, the original Ghosts and Goblins is not very different from Castlevania III.

FFIII for SNES and Chrono Trigger are basically the same engine...

Along the same lines of conversation, I thought my game Grammachnophobia was unbelievalby original.

One of my reviews said I ripped it off from a jump start game designed for 4th graders. I debated it. He sent me the link to a game that had a spider running around trying to spell words out of bugs/letters that landed on its net.

Unreal...

At 10/24/06 04:25 PM, PureGonzoMedia wrote: Yeaaah you hit the nail on the head of what I was thinking. We've been learning about genre and classifications of genres in college, and you got it pretty spot on.

One of my former lecturers runs a company called Strange Agency. Thier flagship product, which they sell for a LOT of money, simply crawls the internet looking for games with the keywords you type in. It then cross-references the data with the stuff it's already got, and feeds out the data of your game.

Want to know how many games give you customisable character options and a freeform mission mode whilst working under an FPS? Or even better, want to know how well each of those games sold? VERY good to have THOSE figures when you go to a publisher...

Because publishers like stuff that sells.
Genre Sells. Licenses Sell. Sequels Sell. Put an established genre with a lisence and it's sequel will sell like hot cakes. Lego Star Wars anyone?

Part of it's why people play games in the first place. Humans are really good at pattern recognition. Scatter paint over a surface and I'm betting you someone will claim to be able to see a face in it. We're also really good at setting our bodies INTO a pattern without realising it - tell me which hand you used to grab the cereal box / bread / coffee mug this morning if you can.

Games are patterns that you learn off by heart. Strip away the game's graphics and setting and whatnot to it's absolute core - where you're looking at it like it's Pong - and you'll see pattern overlaying pattern. Avoid this, don't avoid that, press button in sync with that button here...

It's one of those survival instincts we picked up in the stone age. Avoid sabretooth tiger, don't avoid dying wounded animal, throw stick with pointy bit at the end when your buddy shouts you to. And our brains compress so much into pattern recognition and parallel processing that we are able to put everything into patterns.

Genre definition is just one of those patterns we run ourselves into - we know that an FPS will involve hammering certain keys and pressing the mouse to fire weapons in a twitchfest. We don't conciously think that when we play it or call a game an FPS, but it's something we've associated it with.

Soon as you work out that games are just patterns, you realise how to abuse those patterns to make an exceptionally good game (hint - in most cases, you simply make the pattern gradually more complex). The hard part is trying to weave an entirely new pattern.

What GG's doing is what all good game developers do - take an existing game, and bolt an extra on. It's timehonoured, it's battlehardened, and it'll make him famous and wealthy. But it's not what we're going to call "original" - after all, we'll be able to describe it in terms of other games "but with an extra feature". Most people should do the same - possibly to once make an entirely new "what the hell would we call THIS?" game just to stretch the market a tiny little more.

Its possible to still be original today, you just need to create a unic compound of genres or incorporate unic controls and/or concepts of a genre that are new.

At 10/24/06 05:24 PM, Shmelo wrote: Its possible to still be original today, you just need to create a unic compound of genres or incorporate unic controls and/or concepts of a genre that are new.

By the true definition of "original" your statement is wrong... but I do agree with you. Who cares about the textbook definition. I think if something is fun to play and isn't a cookie cutter of another game, it's "original"

At 10/24/06 05:24 PM, Shmelo wrote: Its possible to still be original today, you just need to create a unic compound of genres or incorporate unic controls and/or concepts of a genre that are new.

A hybrid isn't original.. it's a hybrid :).

I dont really think completely 'original' exists. It's always an evolution from one thing into something new. For example the first computer game can be considered original, because computers werent used for gaming before. But the game was still based on computertechnology which was around alot longer. And the first computer wasn't completely original because it was basically an advanced factory machine. It's like that with everything. Only god is original if you believe in that stuff lol.

At 10/24/06 07:00 PM, AloneInTheDark wrote: I dont really think completely 'original' exists. It's always an evolution from one thing into something new. For example the first computer game can be considered original, because computers werent used for gaming before. But the game was still based on computertechnology which was around alot longer. And the first computer wasn't completely original because it was basically an advanced factory machine. It's like that with everything. Only god is original if you believe in that stuff lol.

God's probably not original at all. I bet before anyone believed in god, people believed in some sort of higher being. God just copied that. The only really original thing are those glow in the dark stars that you can stick to your cieling.

At 10/24/06 04:45 PM, Johnny wrote: Along the same lines of conversation, I thought my game Grammachnophobia was unbelievalby original.
One of my reviews said I ripped it off from a jump start game designed for 4th graders. I debated it. He sent me the link to a game that had a spider running around trying to spell words out of bugs/letters that landed on its net.
Unreal...

The worst part about cases like that is that people will not be convinced that you'd never seen the game. They'd sooner believe that you searched out some obscure kids game, emulated it, and grabbed all the credit. Everyone's a cynic. I had a similar problem with one of my main characters from Vanguard Mercenary named Dakatana sounding close to some notoriously shitty game called Dai'katana or something along those lines. But I wanna change her name if I ever use her again, because it's stupid anyway :P

By now, pretty much everything is gonna look like something else, so it's borderline impossible to get away from the "Yoo copeed!" net altogether. Even people who think they've got the untapped formula figured out - Glaiel for example :P - could have their Paths game easily compared to Kenney's Jack Russel. But it's not a ripoff, and neither are most of the things on Newgrounds. You've just gotta bring something new to the table, even if it's familiar elements cobbled together in a way we've never seen.

At 10/24/06 07:04 PM, Jesus wrote: God's probably not original at all. I bet before anyone believed in god, people believed in some sort of higher being. God just copied that.

You'd know....Jesus