Interested in what goes into making a video game?

Gather round gentlemen I have a secret that is so secret that it is perhaps the most obscure thing you'll ever have the privilege of hearing. I have a blog. Yes, I know, You are all shocked. Perhaps some of you have even fainted. If this is the case I sincerely apologize.

The time has come for me to induct you into the secret society of me and allow you a glimpse into the mind that most, if not all of you have never even noticed lurking the forums. I'm a big fan of troika and have looked to it for inspiration as I worked my way through the wonderful world of game creation. There are hundreds of websites that give you detailed instructions and advice on the technical aspects of making a game, but there are very few that address the social, psychological and marketing aspects. That is where my knowledge comes in, I've started a blog to share my knowledge on the subject with aspiring indie game makers. I respect this community and I'd love to hear from the most brutally honest community on the net what you think of the concept of a website that offers suggestions to increase the quality of an existing or in-progress game.

Check it out at http://www.VoFPro.com

If you don't like it, or me advertising it feel free to make use of the ban hammer and send me on my way. Cheers.

 

I hate blogs. Launch a website with articles and sections for topics. Much easier to navigate and utilize.

 

So you're saying he should make a better organized blog?

 

Oh drat, forgot to log into my "Captain Obvious" account.

 

No. I'm saying he needs to drop the blog format, and just build a normal website with a proper archival format that'll search and respond better than a blog, which is primarily date-oriented.

 

I agree with DF, a blog is pretty much confusing, the idea overall is great, but i would suggest you to, if you make it a website, to use a more appealing color scheme, specially for us guys 'ere, my eyes burned!
Also i suggest the use of pictures and examples, they make things easier to comprehend.

Also, What games have you worked at?
(i need to play new stuff)

 

At this time blog format is the most convenient for me to use, I started making a website but having to droll over pages and pages of html got tedious and each new article required changes to the entire site.

I opted for an installation of wordpress and I am quite happy with the ease of use. Though like you've said, It is very date oriented and I've tried fiddling with things to make it more presentable. Perhaps I could make the home page an index of some sort.

Most of my work has been with a game called Warcraft III. It offered an excellent editing platform for a 16 year old and I've been enjoying it ever since 2005. I managed to make a mod for the game that has had hundreds of thousands of downloads and I try to update it enough to keep the surprisingly large community happy. I've learned a lot of dos and do nots over the years and I feel like there are quite a few people who could avoid a lot of anxiety from my experience.

I've recently moved on to a free to use game engine called unity. It seems promising but my talents are less coding and more of presentation and player psychology so we will see if I end up making any web browser games or iPod applications.

 

My girlfriend and I are still avid Warcraft III players. What map is yours? I've been playing since 2002, and remember most of the good ones (including some little-known rarities).

 

Isn't Warcraft III just a rip off of the World Of Warcraft series?

 

I believe it is the other way around, being WOW a derivative of the Warcraft series.

 

I made the following mods for Warcraft III


Werewolf Transylvania

Vampire Hunters

Frankenstein

London Massacre


Werewolf being the most popular, followed by Vampires and then the other two were publicly released but flopped because London was too complicated and Frankenstein was way too simple.

I've made well over two dozen other mods but never released them to the public. Typically I'd get 80% done with a game and then have a new idea and start working on it.

 

What would "WOW" have to do with Warcraft?

 

Is your Vampire Hunters the one where the Hunters are in a town in the middle, and the Vamps have to go from village to village killing people and eating their souls to make money? At night time, the Vampires summon monsters to attack the town, while by day the Hunters need to kill a set amount of Vampires to win?

Always loved that one. I still try to get people to play it using the MMH Bot, but unfortunately my roommate is suprisingly unaccepting of new maps, so he quit because he couldn't run from me fast enough. Biggest flaw may be that it isn't immediately obvious how nuanced the map is, so you get a lot of newbies who drop out after a few minutes in this age where it isn't often hosted.

Played a lot of Werewolf maps, so I might not remember yours. Was it the very, very early one that came out long before Dark Deeds and the like?

Never played the other two, so I might have missed them entirely.

 

Your description of Vampire Hunters sounds spot on to me.

As for Werewolf Transylvania, It came shortly after dark deeds and almost entirely put dark deeds out of the game, among a great deal of other similar games. DD was fun, I enjoyed playing it as well as my own game, but they didn't make any serious efforts to balance the game before releasing a "final" version.

 

I played with a clan who would run Dark Deeds constantly, and I hated it. Though I surprisingly liked the very first Werewolf game that was on the market, which was just called "Werewolf".