Video games have come a long way from their humble beginnings. And I'm old enough to have experienced most of the ups and downs along the way. The graphics are incredible, sometimes very realistic, and bigger budgets have lead to people getting very creative in designing new video games.
But there are issues, things that game developers and publishers seem to miss, or worse, forget, and when that happens, you end up with poor video games. So here is a listing of things that I think should always be considered when a new game is created.
There's a TL;DR version at the end of the post.
SoG - Save our game
I don't understand why game developers skimp when it comes to something as useful as a save point. If you want a larger market for your game, nothing will go further than having a useful save option. Sometimes stuff comes up. Not everyone is a teenager with loads of time on their hands. Sometimes the baby wakes up from his nap early. Sometimes there's an emergency. No game is more important than real life, and I'll walk away in the middle of a game to deal with things. But I'd really prefer to have a quick save game option. And none of this "start over from the beginning of the level" crap either. I want to be able to start right where I left off. Skimping on save options makes a game less enjoyable, and I will be less likely to buy a game from that developer in future.
It's too easy/hard man!
I remember playing Mega Man 2. It was one of the hardest games of my youth, and the recent Mega Man 9 channels its predecessor very well. However, I'm not twelve any more, and I find it frustrating to have to play the same small section of a level over and over. A lot of games have a selectable difficulty level, MineCraft and Star Trek Online are just two examples. In both, you can switch the difficulty level at any time without penalty. In STO you will get better rewards when you play on the harder difficulties, while in MineCraft you can avoid dangerous mobs if you switch it down to peaceful.
There are still holdouts though, games with only a single difficulty level, or with settings that go from too easy to ridiculously hard, with no choices in between. Dying dozens of times in a row, or blown through a level while snoozing, is not my idea of fun. Players should have the options to choose their level of challenge.
Luckily, for the most part, most game developers have long since realized this. And for the most part, games don't get dumbed down now when they move across the Pacific. I'm looking at you, SquareEnix.
DRM is just ignorant
Do you remember when video games came with code books? Whenever you would load up a game, it'd ask you to turn to page X and type in the code words there. Or maybe you had to correctly identify an object from the gamebook before it would let you continue. That was the earliest form of DRM, and it worked for a while.. Until everyone had access to decent photocopiers.
Now, I understand a company's desire to protect their intellectual properties, and more importantly their bottom lines. Video games have been pirated and traded right from their earliest beginnings, and the most modern of DRM schemes began as simple codes that only someone owning the game manual would have.
But there is a line between protecting your video game from piracy, and driving your customers away. If the pirates are having more fun playing your game than your legitamate customers, you're going to have more people pirating your game than buying it. I, like most people I suspect, don't like paying out my hard earned money for things that don't work. For example, I didn't purchase Spore due to the issues with the DRM, as well as the severe limitations that came with the game. Three installs? Really? Come on, EA, you've been around for ages, you know darn well that computers can be and often are flaky, and sometimes you have to reinstall programs, and even the OS. Three installs wasn't cutting it. Take note that I wasn't even tempted to pirate it either.
DRM is one of the things I look closely at now when buying new games. And I find it hard to buy games on their release dates, because I know that there are almost always issues with games these days, I don't want to buy a game and find out that the DRM mistakes my DVD drive for a ripping program or Alcohol 120. And it's really annoying when you cannot play a game online because the authentication servers are down. Murphy's Law, man, the more complicated you make something, the higher the chance something will go wrong.
If it's got multiplayer, it has to have LAN
Yes, it's 2011. Yes, broadband Internet services are stable, for the most part. But this should not, and does not, invalidate LAN. There are so many connections between your computer and the game servers, any number of things can go wrong. Power outages, viruses, planned downtimes, patching issues, DDoS attacks... These are just a small sampling of issues that crop up more often than people would admit.
LAN isn't a difficult thing to implement, it can be more reliable than Internet based multiplayer protocols, and there's the added bonus of only having to play with invited guests only.
If you must port it, you must create a proper control setup
The neat thing about video games is the ability, and the enthusiasm for, to port games from one system to another. Saves time and money, and allows gamers on other systems to enjoy the same games in the same timeframe.
However, trying to control an RTS game on a console with a PC's input scheme is frustrating, even anger-inducing. Likewise, trying to play a PC game with a consoles joypad controls is irritating at best, and keyboard smashy at worst.
You've saved yourself some time and money, game developers, how about spending a bit of that on implementing a proper control setup?
TL;DR version
Save points must be at-will, not scripted, and you should be able to continue right from where you left off.
The difficulty level should be adjustable, and doable even mid-level, heck, even mid-fight.
If you must have DRM, it should be unobtrusive, and it must not interfere with the proper operations of our computers and consoles. This means testing, testing and more testing. If you are enlisting a third party, you must perform due diligence and investigate and test the DRM before allowing it into your game.
Console controls for console games, and keyboard controls for computer games. If you are porting a game, at least take the time to set up the proper control scheme.
So, there you have it. What do you think?
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