Well, I kind of disagree with the article in some ways, but agree with it in others....

1. I dont think there are any ''rules'' you can follow to make a good game. Any rules you try and place on it are in fact getting in the way of creativity. Ideas just come to you, trying to manufacture them by following a set of rules is absurd.

2. 640x480x16 @ 20 fps? yeah right. I agree that technology lead games tend to lack creativity, but refusing to use it? thats just daft. Actually, I think that technology should have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the initial design process - its really up to what the programmers can achieve with the available hardware, given the demands of the game.

3. Dogme 95? I had never heard of it before I read the article. Developers have enough trouble making money with their games as it is without following a set of rules to make it into a pretentious arty farty piece of junk that no one is interested in (which is exactly how those dogme films sound to me).

4. However, I dont think he actually meant anyone to take the article too seriously. (at least I hope not) I think the main purpose of the article was just to get people to think about what they are designing. He made a lot of good points (eg good versus evil, the health pack in the oil tanker, unimaginative tired monsters etc.....

I don''t think it was intended for humor. (IMO) EAdams tends towards making noise about problems but offering fewer solutions. A lot of the time I think he''s a complete idiot too, but this time around he has some decent points.

Re: the video hardware. I think the specs are less important than the diea that your design should not require or depend on high end graphics. Let the programmers and artists worry about that, the designer must first build a solid game.

To put it another way, take a game designed with an upper limit of 800x600x16 and then put in the improved artwork after since it can only add. But if the game isn;t a solid game at the lower spec then you fail as a designer.

Or course if I was paranoid I''d say that it was aimed at the supporting XBox release since it will run most games on normal TVs.


I was surprised that ninjas were left off the list of ''cannot haves''. A few years ago they were the rage IIRC.


Can anyone clarify what he meant by "action games with special attacks"?

I think that it was an interesting article. It kind of reminded me about a thread on the writing forum about how important writing was in games.

Very, very, few games ever have any new gameplay, they just take an existing concept, and add better graphics, better writing, better whatever, but the gameplay stays pretty much the same through the years. There''s basically three types of gameplay that are really popular right now, RTS, FPS, and RPG (who''s gameplay I think is mainly the battle stuff, which can vary, but usually isn''t as integral as gameplay is in FPS and RTS). That''s just THREE different gameplay concepts, look how many different games it''s made! I definitely think it''s worth developers time to forget about graphics and such and just focus on learning the dynamics of gameplay. If they just come up with a few _good_ concepts that are actually new, that''s still three new genres that would have the potential to become as large as FPS, RTS, or RPGs.

I actually have a few more restrictions that I think should be added. I think that the only characters that they should be able to use are pink rabbits and crocodiles., all items have to be based on carrots some way, whatever. Story is NOT important to gameplay either. It''s just gravy. If they''re focusing on making new gametypes, they should already have all the plot set out for them. Rules can set you free.

Um, that''s all. I apologize for all bursts of incoherence, I totally blame it on the handful of chocolate chips I ate today.

-Firecat

A more coherent version of that () would be to take a look at card games. Ever checked out the book of Hoyle?

Card games almost all use the same set of pieces (playing cards) but the rules vary tremendously. And so do the games. Poker is very different than gin which is very different from bridge.

I''m not advocating we all design new card games, I just wanted tp point out an example of diverse game design.

JSwing

Sort of meets the standard I set out to hold up in the MMORPG I''ve been working on for (what seems) aeons. I have a particular setting and mood I want to offer, as well as realism that won''t comprimise fun in the game... there''s certainly combat, but I want to offer a lot else that isn''t available in current MMORPGs. Maybe I will succeed, maybe it will flop, but I think the most important goal for me is to do something that hasn''t been done before, to impress the importance of non-eyecandy items, and to woo crowds with believable settings in a fantasy world.

Not going to say much more, because the idea is still in the works.




MatrixCubed
http://MatrixCubed.org

I''ve read the article as well, and while incredibly amused, I think it has also stimulated my thoughts a little.

The demands seem ridiculous at first reading (What, NO ELVES? I love my elves!), but they do make sense in an Ernest Adams kind of way after a while.
There''s only so much you can do with elves. They''ve been bled to death in games, and people have come to expect patterns of behaviour in them. Elves equals no creativity, or creative elves might mean a disappointed audience. (What the hell are these tiny dudes with pointy ears and butterfly wings? ELVES? Elves are meant to be tall and fair and whack the crap out of Orcs! WHat do you mean, there are no orcs in this game??? There are ELVES aren''t there?? )

Most of the demands address a specific problem that has arisen with the mass production of games, just like the Dogme charter addressed problems with movies.

Eye-candy HAS become a selling point, and this IS a bad thing. Of course, it''s not a bad thing if you''re good at eyecandy and want to make a lot of money (yes, Id software, I mean YOU), but for the good and art of games, it is not a good thing. It stifles creativity, ''cause it has become a risk NOT to rely on eye-candy.


Just a few games that follow Ernest Adams'' charter might make the larger body of the industry open at least one eye halfway in that direction, so that they may incorporate some ORIGINAL ideas in their eye-candy-wrappers now and then. It''ll make for better games.


(ps. One game a friend told me adheres to most of Ernest Adams'' rules is Sierra''s Outpost 2. I think I''ll try to find that game to play it.)


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

I''m sure to most of you these points I''m about to raise are pretty self-evident, and some of them even MIGHT have been mentioned already (I''m trying to write this quickly between work assignments), but anyway - here''s my personal opinion on the Dogma 2001:

1. "The design documents shall contain no reference to any object which is installed inside the outer case of the target machine."

Obviously EAdams forgot that target Operating System is a pretty important part of ANY game, and should be mentioned somewhere, be it then the design document or not. You can''t really create a game without knowing the target platform - be it then Windows, Linux, all Java-compliant OSes, etc. I''m not a programmer myself, but I''m pretty sure one of the first things even a Dogma 2001 -appliant programmer would ask is "What''s the target Operating System?"

2. "The use of hardware 3D acceleration of any sort is forbidden."

I think this one''s squeezing the boundaries a bit too tight. I believe the original idea behind it is to keep the programmers from a) wasting time on supporting multiple APIs, and b) keeping everyone from dreaming of all the neat tricks that can be done with hardware 3D acceleration, instead of concentrating on the gameplay and story.

While reason B is a very viable one (and with a focused team even that can be avoided), reason A''s not. Just about every 3D accelerator on almost every Operating System out there knows how to accelerate OpenGL, so that''s no problem. If you''re creating a 3D game you''d have to create a 3D engine anyway, so why not do it by using OpenGL hardware acceleration? It would require a similar engine creation process as with software, and result in a similar range of supported end user systems in the markets (software engine doesn''t require fancy 3D hardware, but requires more CPU power, while hardware acceleration requires less CPU power and dedicated 3D hardware - both situations promote certain systems and denote others).

Point three I wholly agree with. If a game absolutely can''t be played with the controllers listed as acceptable, it belongs to a funfair.

4. "There shall be no .. giants .." (I''ve cut the list to include only the one creature I''lll use in my example)

When EAdams says "..there shall be no giants..", for example, he doesn''t mean that your game can''t have creatures of gigantic proportions. If in your game the player plays a bug, then naturally humans are GIANTS in that bug''s opinion. What Adams means is that you should not CALL your characters elves, giants, etc., and to avoid characters that can easily be classified as one of the "forbidden" classes by any virtue that can''t be explained by the in-game world. To demonstrate what I mean:

- Your game CAN have creatures that are gigantic in proportion to your character, or your character can be gigantic in comparison to others. Just don''t call creatures of that size "Giants" (as species). Yes, if your game has dialogue a character CAN say "Look at the size of that thing! It''s a giant!", but don''t have a library full of biology books naming these creatures as "the species known as Giants"

- Your game CAN have creatures that resemble dwarves, as long as it makes sense. What could cause characters being short? High gravity. If the planet your game takes place on has a high gravity and a species that has evolved there over millenniums, then it makes sense for them to be short. As with the first example, though, don''t call them "Dwarves".

5. "The following types of games are prohibited: .."

I find this rule severely restricting. Just like you shouldn''t restrict movies to only comedy or romance, you shouldn''t restrict games to only RPGs. As such, I don''t really agree with it.

6. "All cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden.

I''d fix this statement by adding a little something to it: "All NON IN-GAME ENGINE cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden." While I really, really like computer generated animation, I do realize that a game should entertain the player with its own capabilities, not something that doesn''t directly relate to the game.

Therefore I''d find in-game engine cinematics acceptable, regardless if the game''s a 3D game, a 2D game, top-down, first person, third person, whatever. As long as the cinematics make sense to the player (ie. you aren''t tossed into a cinematic at a point when it severely distracts from the game itself) and promote the storyline or plot (and not the animator), they''re ok.

On further note, in roleplaying games I''d try to keep cinematics centered around the character. Meaning that you wouldn''t see cinematics that depict happenings or characters in a place or time where the player''s OWN character is not present (the only exception to this would be generic, past events, like the introductory cinematic telling the player of a bloody war that took place before a long period of peace and harmony, etc). The player does not need to know what is said in the power-hungry king''s throne room, unless he''s there to witness it. Movies can have that kind of scenes, because in general the viewer is NOT ment to see the action the way the main character of the movie would see it. In CRPGs it''s distracting from what a ROLEplaying game''s all about.

7. "Violence is strictly limited to the disappearance or immobilization of destroyed units."

I agree with this to a point - that is, unnecessary violence should be stripped. What''s unnecessary? Beating an already fallen creature in hopes of getting more blood on the walls, for example (the Mortal Combat series'' Fatalities, anyone?). "Necessary" violence would mean hitting an enemy in a fight - obviously if you''re going to fight, you need to slay them before they hit you enough to take you down. Once the foe is down, though, there''s absolutely no need to beat the dead in hopes of gushes of blood.

8. "There may be victory and defeat, and my side and their side, but there may not be Good or Evil."

I wholly agree with this point. The old and propably quite well established tabletop RPG example tells of a hero going to caves to slay the "evil" goblins (or what have you) that live there. As the hero hacks''n slashes their way in, one of the goblins tries to stop him and ask why on earth he''s slaying them? After all, they''re just trying to live their lives - they have families, they need food.. Why are they automatically evil? Because a mayor (or some other important figure) said so?

"Good" and "Evil" promotes simple, single-minded thinking, and this rule really should make people realize that a story can be a lot better and multi-faceted if it''s not automatically equipped with good and evil sides.

9. If a game is representational rather than abstract, it may contain no conceptual non sequiturs, e.g. medical kits may not be hidden inside oil tanks.

I agree with this aswell. Games need to make sense, if they try to portray a world that us humans can relate to. If you''re doing a funny platform game where a red orb with eyes called Zyg tries to collect yellow orbs without eyes, called Gyz, then it obviously doesn''t need to make sense. But if there''s a medical cabinet in the game, expect it to hold medical supplies. If there''s an oil barrel in it, expect it to contain dark goo.

10. If a game is representational rather than abstract, the color black may not be used to depict any manmade object except ink, nor any dangerous fictitious nonhuman creatures.

What this rule means is all good and swell, but it does not include other objects that make sense in black, such as cars, airplanes, office supplies, etc, etc. Ink is not the only "manmade object" that can be black. A black object does not necessarely mean it''s black because it''s evil.

I''d really like to write a more thorough analysis, but unfortunately I have to dash now Feel free to comment on my ramblings!

Forgot this:

That long analysis was written by me I think I need to find my account password..

--JSP

My rebuttal.

quote: Original post

1. "The design documents shall contain no reference to any object which is installed inside the outer case of the target machine."

Obviously EAdams forgot that target Operating System is a pretty important part of ANY game, and should be mentioned somewhere,
[snipped]

The operating system is not "any object installed inside the outer case of the target machine". It''s not hardware. Ernest Adams is talking about hardware here. Semantics, I know, but an important difference.

quote:
2. "The use of hardware 3D acceleration of any sort is forbidden."

[snipped]

Just about every 3D accelerator on almost every Operating System out there knows how to accelerate OpenGL, so that''s no problem.

No, it IS a problem. There''s a line to be drawn. You are allowed to use standard OpenGL (that''s not hardware acceleration), but relying on hardware acceleration to provide the necessary user experience is unacceptable. It''s gadgetry ("this game will only work if your graphics card can push 12million polygons per frame"). If it doesn''t work in software mode, it shouldn''t go in the game.

quote:
Point three I wholly agree with. If a game absolutely can''t be played with the controllers listed as acceptable, it belongs to a funfair.

This is one of the ones I disagree with. A two button mouse?? Can we help it that Microshaft and CrApple decided that even though humans have the wonderful complement of five fingers on each hand, we only need one or two buttons on our mice!

quote:
5. "The following types of games are prohibited: .."

I find this rule severely restricting. Just like you shouldn''t restrict movies to only comedy or romance, you shouldn''t restrict games to only RPGs. As such, I don''t really agree with it.

This rule is NOT restricting at all. It''s liberating. It''s freeing you from trying to make a game that everyone else would put into one of the categories mentioned. Ernest Adams wants you to make a GAME, not an FPS, RTS, insert any TLA here...

quote:
6. "All cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden.

I''d fix this statement by adding a little something to it: "All NON IN-GAME ENGINE cinematics, cut-scenes, and other non-interactive movies are forbidden."

Ernest Adams says there should be NOTHING but the in-game-engine, so that disallows all cinematics full stop.

quote:
10. If a game is representational rather than abstract, the color black may not be used to depict any manmade object except ink, nor any dangerous fictitious nonhuman creatures.

What this rule means is all good and swell, but it does not include other objects that make sense in black, such as cars, airplanes, office supplies, etc, etc. Ink is not the only "manmade object" that can be black. A black object does not necessarely mean it''s black because it''s evil.

No, you''ve got the meaning all wrong. You''re NOT allowed to use black for anything but ink. The reason? You''ll have to convey threat and gothicness in some other way than having everything in black. Black is not cool. Black is not the way to go. Make your FBI unmarked vehicles bright pink, and see where you can go from there.
Making something black doesn''t make it cool. So make it another colour, and make it cool as well using other means than a silly colour.



People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

Opinions are great because everyone''s allowed to have them.. So, here''s my response to that one:

quote: The operating system is not "any object installed inside the outer case of the target machine". It''s not hardware. Ernest Adams is talking about hardware here. Semantics, I know, but an important difference.

This really depends on what you consider an "object" - personally I don''t consider an "object" strictly physical (wether that''s wrong or right is another thing, I still don''t consider the word "object" to only include physical items). An operating system is installed inside the computer''s case, so I include it in the list of "objects inside the computer".

But that''s not overly important, just a difference of an opinion.

quote: No, it IS a problem. There''s a line to be drawn. You are allowed to use standard OpenGL (that''s not hardware acceleration)..

Right. And I did not falsely claim that OpenGL means the same as "hardware accelerated".

quote: ..but relying on hardware acceleration to provide the necessary user experience is unacceptable.

Why? As I pointed out, the HW acceleration / no HW acceleration points balance one another. If you use HW acceleration, you allow slower CPUs accompanied with a 3D accelerator to run the game. If you don''t use HW acceleration, then the CPU itself has to be beefier.

quote: It''s gadgetry ("this game will only work if your graphics card can push 12million polygons per frame"). If it doesn''t work in software mode, it shouldn''t go in the game.

Who said the card has to push 12 million polygons per frame? Did I say that? No, I did not say that. When I say "Just about every 3D accelerator on almost every Operating System", I don''t mean they can all push millions of polygons. I don''t understand how anyone could even THINK I ment that. It''s just like saying "Just about every car out there can move forward" doesn''t mean they all blaze along 200km/h.

I''d imagine that minimal OpenGL hardware acceleration is among those "common things in a gamer''s computer" alongside a soundcard and a color display. You can''t even buy a new computer from a store these days, which came with a vidcard that couldn''t accelerate OpenGL to some degree. Sure, if you buy a cheap package computer you usually get a lousy vidcard, but even those can do it.

quote: This is one of the ones I disagree with. A two button mouse?? Can we help it that Microshaft and CrApple decided that even though humans have the wonderful complement of five fingers on each hand, we only need one or two buttons on our mice!

I actually missed that point about a TWO button mouse - I, too, would include a three, four, or five button mouse with a scroll wheel into the "acceptable controllers" -list. But really, if you don''t accept even minimal hardware OpenGL acceleration (which is commonplace), how come you''d accept a three-button mouse? Not EVERYONE has a three-button mouse. People with two-button mice would automatically be in a disadvantage against players with more buttons in their rodent. Some people don''t have a mouse at all - laptops for example come with trackpads or small "thumbsticks". Yet the same laptops can do minimal OpenGL acceleration. How come that''s acceptable?

quote: This rule is NOT restricting at all. It''s liberating. It''s freeing you from trying to make a game that everyone else would put into one of the categories mentioned. Ernest Adams wants you to make a GAME, not an FPS, RTS, insert any TLA here...

Right - this is you saying what I tried to say about the giants and dwarves. You can have giants and dwarves in your game, just as long as you don''t call them Giants and Dwarves. Likewise, you can make an FPS, RTS or RPG, just as long as you don''t call it a "game" instead of trying to live up to the TLA.

So in essence we agree - you can make ANY type of a game you want, but don''t make the game for the sake of getting it into a certain category.

quote: Ernest Adams says there should be NOTHING but the in-game-engine, so that disallows all cinematics full stop.

Right, so Ernest Adams has created a God rule. Are you aware of God rules? It''s those rules like "You can''t have more than 10,000 credits in your in-game account, because we say so", or "No, you can''t walk outside of the city, because we say so". Ernest Adams can create any rules he wants, but if you read carefully what I wrote in that reply of mine, I was commenting on what Adams wrote, and letting MY opinion be known.

Just because Microsoft says Linux won''t make it in the business world doesn''t mean Linux sucks. Meaning, just because someone says something doesn''t mean everybody else has to agree to it, and not express their own opinions on the matter.

quote: No, you''ve got the meaning all wrong.

And you totally misunderstood what I wrote and ment Don''t worry, I''ll explain it below (yes, I''m patronizing you).

quote: You''re NOT allowed to use black for anything but ink. The reason? You''ll have to convey threat and gothicness in some other way than having everything in black.

Did I say I wanted to use black to convey threat or danger? Did I? No, I don''t think I did. Ironically you, who try to talk against using black for displaying threat, spread that message more than I. You seem to think that every black van (with darkened windows, too) that drives by you while you''re on your way to work or school is some underground terrorist detachment on their way to blow things up.

I suppose people who can afford private jets can''t have them painted black either, because they''d be shot down when people like you saw them.

So, if I make a game where you can walk around a city, I can have vehicles of all colors but black, simply because some lowbrow player might mistake the black vehicle as "evil"? Hell no. Rule 9 states that medkits shouldn''t be found in oil tanks and such. It means that medkits should be found from places where they make sense. Which in turn means that they (and other things) should display REALISTIC BEHAVIOR. Why would it be more realistic to NOT have black items in a game, since in the REAL world we have black items?

Can''t a bar in my game where bars like those in the real world exist have a piano with black keys alongside the white ones? No, because Adams said black can only be used in ink. So I guess the piano itself can''t be black either, even though black''s a very common color for pianos.

Great.

What I want to point out with this is that don''t think I''m NOT thinking outside of the box already. Don''t make silly assumptions.

But do have a nice day

--JSP