Me a large group of friends in the game developer community have decided on the 5 points that are important to game creation.
1. Sound design
As a game developer whenever I mention that sound desighn is important I always get the same response "Music in a game is just an after though." and not telling a lie this actually annoys me to no end, for a few reasons:
Reason 1. Sound desighn is not just music.
Reason 2. MUSIC IS TOTAL IMPORTANT.
so let me explain my points.
When i use the term sound design I am also making reference to literally every sound in the game and while this includes music, this also incorporates everything. Using the well Mario games as a reference sound design includes: The Music, that sound when you press a button to enter the game, the jump sound, the sounds of you hitting a question block, even the back gfround ambiance you dont even notice while you play.
now to my second point. Music is an integral part of a game. music has a way of churning up emotions and a particularly good piece of music mixed with a little level design can even change the way you play the game, a great example of this is in the game "Hotline Miami" to which Ben "Yahtzee" croshaw so eloquently explains as "changeling the rage that comes with living in the 1980s". with a combination of level design and music it turns what could be a thoughtful game if tactics in to a rage fulled, lethargic melee, showing the magic that music can bring.
As a side note if i where ever to be asked to give an award for "Number one game that would be awful without any music at all" I would have to say the indie game "Keyboard Werewolf Fucking Drumset" a game that has playable mini game styled game play but is given all of its charm by the music played in the background adding to the strange and random nature of the game, you can find the song here alongside game-play: HERE
2. Art
in a short phrase this can be described as "EVERYTHING YOU CAN SEE". The art work is an integral part of the game and just like the music has a way of steering up emotions in the player of the game.
an amazing example of art work in side of a game is in fact one of my favorite games of all times "The Binding of Issac" and its remake "binding of Issac: Rebirth". The art work in these games are basically the same and has a way of forcing a guttural response from the player from as you traverse the disgusting, terrifying and at times down right scary basement of Issac's home.
Despite the two games being the same the remake adds so much to the game-play using nothing more than the art work, Like for real this is the only difference between the two games and yet ,the second feels so much better to play.
What the second game does to change it up is that the second game actually changes the graphics to a more "low res" style harkening to the era of the SNES and if I had to put a style model to it it would have to be that of the SNES castlevania mixed with the bold look of the "Super Mario world" game also on the SNES.
What can just graphics add?
Well i am glad you asked hypothetical man who likes to ask me questions. In the example of the binding of Issac it adds two main things to the game. Number one being that it makes it easier to play the game, for a start your character actually stands out more from the backfround and so does his outline meaning that his hit box is also easier to spot, and so are the enimies hit boxes (A hit box is the area of a sprite that has physical qualities, sometimes it is the whole image or sometimes just some of it :see "Castlevania Dracula fight")
the second thing that an update in graphics does is add the the game feel. you can't feel scared if you are walking around a field with "My Little Pony" in the background. Infact if I had to narrow game design to just two catagories it would be gameplay and game feel.
Here is a playlist from the game grumps that shows the game-play of the game "Binding Of Issac Rebirth".
3. Coding
A word that makes me flinch as well as smile. As far as building a game goes this is the most time consuming part of the creation of any game and unlike any other part of the game is something that is worked on for the whole time the game is being developed, let me explain.
A game in pre-alpha has the basics of the game with only basic graphics and the games basic physics and mechanics coded, also the story will have been done before all of this.
Alpha then has the graphics and even more coding to see what works and is where you choose the mechanics.
The Beta is where all the graphics have been finished and this is where the sound effects and the music is added in to the game to match the graphics, gameplay and everything else.
the final product is a few months later and is worked on by coders even after it is released, as they still need to address any glitches in the game they may have missed without an arduous beta testing cycle.
4. Story
This in many ways is more difficult than writing a story for any other form of media as you need to work out how the story fits in with a difficulty curve. you can't just have the main character fighting super death beasts on the first level and them just normal soldiers the next with the soldiers being inexplicably more difficult that the aforementioned super death beasts.
when it comes to story you need to be able to do three things:
1. Make it orientated to the game-play.
2. Do everything a normal story would do and do it a bit better.
3. Finally you need to make the story worth making a game about.
Story also involves the dialogue with characters and not just the main ones that move the plot. I mean as an example look at the dragon age games that have a ludicrous amount of side missions as well as just random NPC's that will talk to you just to add more life in to the game. as well as dialogue many games will have codex pages so you can learn more about the world that you inhabit.
the actually brings me on to one of the most difficult parts of story in a game and that is Lore. While in a story you can make things go as you pleases with little to no issue as everything you read is the lore but in a game everything is the lore of the game. From the back-story of every character all the way up to the large castle in the distance that you occasionally hear about, this is all the lore and is something that is very difficult to construct.
5. Cohesiveness
If all that alone feels difficult then I may have some shocking new to tell you as this is the section that makes literally everything to do with making a game so much more difficult and that is cohesiveness. You need all of these aspects to work together and while in a good game they work together and you find it difficult to find any contradiction, in a truly great game they work with each other and compliment each other so that sometimes it is difficult to find where one aspect ends and the other begins.
A beautiful example of this is in the game "dragon age: inquisition" (there I go talking about that game again) when you enter the tavern in the main hub of the game and you meet a character who is a bard in the pub and just plays music. The lyrics she sings are all relevant to the game lore and she even tell tales of legends that you can investigate within the game world. and this is an amazing way to bind, music, game-play and story in to one single package, that while very subtle is exceptionally well worked.
When you have no cohesion with a game you end up with with a game that is odd and just frankly bad. One issue is called pseudo-narrative dissonance, when the story doesn't match with an area of the game. a perfect example is the game "Nack" a PS4 exclusive launch title that was a mess in my opinion. SO what is the issue? Well the issue is that in story cut scenes your player character is invincible and is unable to be destroyed but while outside of the cut scene you are clunky and can have large chunks of your health taken from you from just a standard attack by an enemy. This makes the game feel strange and a little bit off when you see yourself as an invincible beast in one scene but in the game you are easily killed.
1ne Game 5ive Points
So (It honestly feels that I use so as an opener way to often) I am going to look at one game and briefly talk about the five points that this game encompasses.
The game? Oh yeah, been pretty vague. The game is one of my favourite games I've under mentioned and that is "Five Nights at Freddy's 3", a game that made me literally jump out of my clothes to reveal every hair on my body had been scared white.
First lets look at the sound design of the game, its funking good.
The sound design of this game is amazing as it is designed to disorient the player of the game by creating false positives for hazards while at the same time it is a vital part of the game as it is almost impossible to play the game through without the audio without a lot of luck and guess work.
As well as this the sound design of this game adds a new angle of fear to the jump scares as the sounds the hazards in this game make are not only inhuman but also distorted to a good effect.
Secondly lets have a peak at the art for this game. So every FNAF game is nothing more than a series of still images and a small handful of animations to go around however the graphics look fantastic for a game that is so easy on your processor, it's little more than a powerpoint thats only dream is for you to wet yourself.
the textures in this game are exclusively grimy medium to high polly areas and eery black spaces and shading. This makes the game crazy atmospheric as nothing within your vision seems safe it is either hidden in shadow or is textured in a way that it seems distrustful.
Next is the coding. As I said before the game is little more than a slide show at the Lecter house hold and yet is effective. In this game think of every area as little more than a curved picture you can't see past the edge and what you see seems to be 3D, but it isn't. The game is exceedingly simple making three things happen, number one all PCs can run it, Number two you can have as high a frame rate as you want and finally 3 it must be more innovative to succeed.
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