DaVince: The book's a children's fantasy novel, the first in a planned series. The entire series is planned out chapter-by-chapter, it's just a matter of getting my lazy butt in gear, sitting down and actually writing the first one out.
Started reading the Valve handbook. Can't read that much text in one sitting, so I didn't finish, but by this part, I fell in love...
"Why does your desk have wheels? Think of those wheels as a symbolic
reminder that you should always be considering where you could move
yourself to be more valuable. But also think of those wheels as literal
wheels, because that's what they are, and you'll be able to actually move
your desk with them."
The book showcases a fantastic way to run a big-name gaming company with tons of employees that don't know necessarily each other, all kinds of products, etc. A proper
company company. It's given me some ideas for my hypothetical structure, as well. Though of course, I wanna do things on a much smaller scale, so it'll be significantly different.
Indeed, I think I'm gonna go all-out. I mean, as long as I'm gonna be posting my game documents, I may as well not hold anything back. For you see, I don't merely want to make my own games, I don't just want to start up an indie gaming company ("troupe" is probably a better term, company suggests largeness and impersonal-ness, employees in the triple digits; I'm aiming for a core contingent of about a dozen like-minded people).
I wanna make my own consoles.
Think about it. With the level of technology and manufacturing processes we have today, one could produce a console similar to the NES for probably just a few bucks. The console could then be sold to consumers for, say, $20, games could retail for $3~5. And considering how popular retro-style indie games are on modern consoles, there's a huge market for this kinda thing.
I mean, I'm not totally unrealistic in my dreams, I'm going to focus on making some indie games for PC and/or modern consoles first, but the goal is to make a brand-new NES-esque console.
Why?
I wanna start over. Start from the beginning. Start out making games for hardware with very limited power, and work up from there. Make an SNES-esque console some years down the line, then an N64/PS1-esque. Move up through technology the way the great gaming companies did.
There's just this ineffable magic and soul to the likes of Mario and Link and Sonic and Megaman that isn't replicated today, even in retro-style indie games. Part of it, I think, is that they started on such limited hardware.
Most of my games are designed for my own consoles that I've dreamt up, anyway, and they have unique controllers and features that would be lost if produced on a modern console. I'm willing to "pre-port" some of my games for my consoles over to modern consoles, especially in the beginning when I'm just trying to get games out, make a name for myself, get the troupe together. But ultimately, I wanna make my own consoles. (Or at least try ^_^)
So here's what I'm gonna do, as far as putting my designs online...
1) Write a troupe manifesto for the sort of indie gaming company I want to start.
2) Write a document describing my NES-style console in excrutiating detail. Technical specifications, sketches of the deck and controllers, etc.
3) Make a master list of all the games I've designed for my NES-style console (that's the five dozen I mentioned earlier) along with single-line, bare-bones descriptions (i.e. if I'd come up with Chrono Trigger, I would describe it as "16-bit RPG focused on time-travel and multiple endings.").
4) One by one, post game documents for each title. These will describe every mechnic explicitly, contain necessary lists (objects, items, monsters, whatever), sample levels and such.
A few important points...
First, though I'll post about those NES-esque games as if they were going to be released on my console (with its unique controller), I'm more than willing to produce the titles for PC and/or consoles first. Again, aiming high, aiming to realize my ultimate dream, but willing to negotiate with reality.
Second, concurrently with the NES-esque game documents, I'll post documents for games I specifically designed for existing consoles or PC. So it won't be all purely 8-bit stuff. Fame Frame, for example, is designed for Wii U, I've got a few designs for tablet/phone games, some for PC, some specifically for Sphere, actually ^_^
Third, I think I sorta misrepresented myself earlier. I said my dream job at my dream indie gaming company would involve managing others, coming up with the game stuff (maps, enemies, spells, etc.), all that jazz. I'm far from a control freak, though. I do very much appreciate the value of a team effort.
Aside from a few very personal projects (including the two games I've already 100% fleshed out), I don't expect to literally be solely responsible for all game content for any game. I not only expect, but highly desire everyone to contribute to multiple aspects of a game.
Yeah, somebody's main job might be coding, that might be ostensibly why they're part of the troupe, but they absolutely can and I absolutely want them to, say, design a boss fight, or a couple levels, or even just come up with names for NPCs or write some dialogue.
In my dream scenario, though everybody doesn't have to do everything, anybody can do anything. I myself almost certainly won't be writing any code, producing any graphics (though defs producing copious ugly sketches to get my ideas across :p) or anything of that nature. I'll exclusively be designing mechanics and items and levels and writing story and dialogue. But anyone else can contribute that kinda stuff to any project they wish. Even come up with entire games of their own.
As long as I can get some of my games out, I'll be happy
But enough about that, I'm rambling. I'll write it all up pretty and explain my vision precisely in my manifesto. Uh, though I should say, the most important thing is, this is just for the sake of holding nothing back and going all-out. I might join someone else's indie company or something, I might never make consoles, I'm just gonna describe everything because, well, why not?
Yeah, I'd love to work on a game with you. Tried Sir Boingers the other day and liked it, and of course I had a lot of ideas for where to go for a full-game version of Flippin' Matrix. When I first write up the master list of games, lemme know if any of the one-line descriptions (or even game titles) particularly catches your eye and I'll be sure to get to it sooner rather than later.
'cause as I said, it's gonna take a good long while to get all my docs out, just from the sheer volume. I'll likely complete my first fully-solo project before writing up even two or three dozen docs.
That'd be awesome not having to start up my own blog, having a subdomain on tengudev ^_^ How would that work, though? Would I give you html files and images and docs and stuff and you post them up, would I use Wordpress and just have a username/password for the subdomain and be able to upload things myself, or what?
Oh, and I have actually not had anyone read or critique any of my games thus far, because I've never shown them off to anyone. Partly 'cause I'm pretty private with my creative-y stuff (haven't shown any of my books-to-be to anyone, either), mostly because most of what I have written down about my games is on loose scraps of paper, sketches here and there, files on various computers and harddrives. I'm a pretty disorganized person. Also, I tend to write things very esoterically and incompletely.
I compose music a bit, for example, but I don't write typical sheet music 'cause I can't get used to it. I have my own way of writing music that nobody would understand unless I explained it to them. It's the same way with my game docs -- lots of stuff other people wouldn't understand, so I basically have to write everything from scratch. Though I still have all my sketches and stuff.
I can indeed take criticism, listen to advice, modify and rework my ideas, incorporate suggestions and so forth. I actually expect to meet some modicum of success with my writing career because of this; tons of writers go looking for publishers for their first books with this attitude of, "what I have here is a divine, untouchable masterpiece, and I'm offering you the priceless chance to publish it for me as-is." They fail almost without exception (*coughAnneRice*). My attitude is gonna be, "I've got a great story here and it's well-written; pair me up with a good editor and a good publicist we can polish it into something that'll be successful."
Radnen: Whoa, never knew that about you. You have my condolences
and congratulations; sucks you've got a bum arm, awesome how much you've done with one hand. Jeeze, shift- and alt-ing stuff must be friggin' annoying.
My coding improvements thus far have been largely thanks to you. I'm working on a solo project I'm not gonna post about until I have a demo, and I'm doing a lot of OOP! It's as simplistic a game as you can get, but still, I'm definitely gonna stick with it. For as long as my body holds out, anyway, heh.
Myself: You just spent an hour and a half writing this post. You're insane.