Okay, here’s a bunch of things I learnt while making this mini game. It might be helpful to someone out there, but I also want to make this list for myself so I can avoid the same mistakes for whatever I work on next.
- Don’t assume people will play the game the same way you do. Make sure to let your friends or even some strangers play, and watch them if you can, even if it’s via Skype’s screen sharing or whatever. You’ll soon realise they’re likely to play it very differently from you, and they’ll probably break something along the way, too!
- Try and get rid of as much cheapness in your game as possible. What I mean by this is make sure the game feels fair to the player. There were a few instances in Best Quest where the player would go to the next scene and then suddenly there’s a set of spikes right in front of them, which gives you hardly any chance to avoid them. I also shrank the hit boxes on the character, the enemies and the traps (and lava). It got frustrating when you juuuust clipped the edge of something and then it was game over. It feels wrong, so make sure to fix it!
- Sometimes stuff you think is a good idea can become annoying or doesn’t work as well as it did in your head, so be prepared to cut stuff out. I had a joke about pooping on the grass, the sign would say that there was a huge fine for doing so, and when you did, you received a letter informing you of said fine. I then had the dog eat the letter. I thought it was mildly amusing, but I found out when others played it, that message would pop up when they were trying to fight enemies that were on the grass (because you fight them with poop, and the poop went on the grass) so it became annoying very quickly, especially if they died and had to do it all over again. That had to go!
- Don’t try and make an RPG/Adventure from scratch in a week. It’s probably not the best idea, but I am glad I did it, so take what you want from this point.
- Keep the graphics simple when doing these small projects, especially if you’re not sure you’re going to finish the game. I think making simple graphics was one of the big reasons why I was able to actually finish this project on time. Every other thing I’ve made has always had much more complicated graphics, and I’d dread making more because I knew how long it would take me. Not good.
- I would have liked to put some music in the game, but unfortunately my music skills aren't quite there yet. I'm trying to hone them as we speak, but it’s gonna take a while. I’m not sure this is really a point, but I guess it’s a note to myself to get better at music quicker so that I can put some in my next game!
Anyway, thanks for reading, and if you haven’t checked out the game, you can do so here:
http://benhickling.itch.io/best-quest
