On that note, are you catering towards a “Don’t kill” motif, or are you just going for “You can kill, just don’t get caught” or “Don’t attract too much attention.” idea?

Ah….That joke NEVER Gets old!

You play as a semi anti heroish Mark Himmel. Its the best space sim ever.

Also too many games have interesting macro mechanics but sucky movement.

Frankly I’m interested in the concept of making a gun really impactful. I always thought of that was an interesting concept, but could never figure out how to actually implement it and just NOT include guns at all, except when it was important.

I wish I could help in some other way. The only thing I can do is write, the one area you definetly don’t need any help.

I know you are pretty brilliant when it comes to ideas for games (Honestly, after reading your Just Cause 2 ideas, I wanted to buy the game JUST to see how awesome your implementations would be)

I’m taking some programming classes right now, but I might try out Gamemaker. I tried it in middile school, back when I first aspired to be a programmer, and got confused (As you would expect) and quit. But maybe if this turns out well, I’ll be able to throw one of my ideas into “orbit”.

I’ve had a tower defense esque game on my mind since first seeing that L4D didn’t have a “director” mode, where basically you just play as the director, setting up “towers”(ZOMBIES) which try to stop the “waves”(survivors).

I’m sure the game’s not very big, but my computer only has a few gigs of HDD space left atm, and I want to save what I can for emergency updates if possible, but once I clear some space off (Or get a new Hard Drive) I’ll be sure to send you an email to help test your game. It’d make me feel important =o

Thanks to all the volunteers – I’ve noted your e-mail addresses but snipped them from the comments to foil spambots.

The reason platformers do this is because the initial jump is a binary action. You can’t control how high or far your initial jump is. So instead they let you control it in the air so that you sort of choose how hard your character jumped after the fact. Direction changes don’t make sense but are sort of needed to make up for not being able to choose your trajectory by controlling the initial strength of the jump. Done well (i.e. no radical direction changes) air-controlled jumps might be indistinguishable to an observer from a jump where you obeyed the laws of physics.

I don’t like the mechanic of holding the jump button to “charge” up a stronger jump because you ought to be able to do a high jump as instantly as a short one, both for realism and good gameplay. I sort of like the way the new Tomb Raider games do it where you jump instantly when the button is pressed, but the longer you hold the button, the longer the jump. But since her jumps are more realistic than a typical platfomer jump, the difference in trajectory is small.

Tom: By the way, I would love to help test your game.

Also, you mentioned you were thinking of him being an “asshole inspector Gadget” and unless you are thinking of a diffirent Gadget, then it wouldn’t be unlikely that Private Dick COULD control his jumps, useing some zany machine thing.

Unless you mean “asshole Inspectir Gadget” in personality alone, not his abilities. In which case no one would realy care about the character, because he’s be a bumbling, drunken pissant who hates people and still solves crimes despite not having much in the terms of skills.

“I found myself at the bottom of a pit. My god… what had I done?”

And i am particularly interested in this idea of “failing but not minding.” Would it be useful with this to not enforce it: starting off hard and expecting failure would be a bad way to do it. Maybe something that cut in after your first failure, so you can pass three midssions, then fail one, and plot X happens so retrying is an option, but not the only one.

If there will be platforming, give us the ability to control or jumps. The only game I know of that removes air control is old Castlevania games. They don’t have much platforming. When they DO its a complete bitch to do because you can’t control your jumps.

Also, I think you might be a little to ambitious. Its best to start small.

There are some very sophisticated GM games out there, as well as other various game-making IDEs.

As someone who used GM in a school environment, I would recommend Game Maker specifically to any professor who is trying to teach a game-making class, whether it’s programming-focused or art-focused. GM essentially has an “easy mode” (drag & drop) and an “advanced mode” (a custom scripting language called GML) making it ideal for those who want to hack stuff together without too much of a learning curve as well as those who are more interested in learning proper programming techniques but really want some training wheels.

Additionally, some of the features added in GM8 have made it a LOT easier for teams to use whereas GM7 had some severe drawbacks for people trying to collaborate on projects.

Also, drop me a line if you ever need any graphical assets. I love drawing/pixelart/animating in my spare time and it’d be cool to put that into use.

Don’t know if this model is at all applicable, but one of my favorite examples of Failure Isn’t Terminal, in a very micro sense, is Burnout Paradise.

1. Free Roaming around the city, when I miss a jump, I’m almost never tempted to circle around and immediately try it again because I’ve already hurtled so far past it that I’m already coming up on the next cool jump or the next shortcut to explore or whatever. So it’s partly the game having enough momentum to keep the player zooming to the next challenge so fast he doesn’t have time to consider going back. It’s partly that there’s not a big penalty for missing a jump or a shortcut – I’m just disappointed that I didn’t successfully do the cool thing I did but wait here’s another opportunity to get it right this time. So it’s also partly having a game that gives you intrinsic motivations for success – “do this hard thing because it will be fun and you will feel awesome if you succeed” vs. the extrinsic motivation of “do this hard thing or else you don’t get to progress to the next challenge.”

2. If you’re losing a race, you can say “Screw it,” and activate the Showtime mode, where you purposely wreck and try to earn points by taking out as many other cars with you as possible. It’s a little like Minotaur China Shop that way (another game that makes failure part of the fun).

3. The crashes are super cool to watch, so the player actually gets a consolation prize for failing. The game is fun even when you’re losing.

4. The game is not that hard. I might fail this time, but I don’t usually fail over and over and over.

Chris: I remember Trilby! I love the concept and potential of that game, but it’s so fiddly and hard that I never get anywhere with it. It’s definitely the closest point of comparison in terms of theme and presentation, though, well spotted. I want my game to be a lot more spacious, less intense, more thoughtful and more free-form than that.

gryffin: Yeah, they play very much like a thriller/drama. My goal, though, is to give guns that kind of significance but still let the player fire one any time he has one.

Jason: I see Hitman as primarily about social stealth and killing people. Mine won’t feature either primarily. You’re super-human in a way that makes your interactions pretty different to Hitman, and a lot of the challenge is going to be gadget-driven puzzles about getting access to your objective.

Lack: Yeah, I have something similar in mind. Hopefully with the mechanism I’m using, you’ll usually know where you’re going to hit without being shown, but extra guidance is always good.

Devenger: I have looked at Spelunky’s source. It’s a little beyond me. I was looking to see how he handled movement and collision, but I couldn’t even find the input response code. I spent a long time trying to use other people’s platformer solutions before I realised they just weren’t useful for what I had in mind, and I needed to code everything from scratch.

Jaz: nope. I’ve found a Creative Commons library that has some stuff I want, but it’s not comprehensive and I’m going to need a lot.

roBurky: you’re probably right. My movement system isn’t a big enough deal, and will never be slick enough, to support a game in its own right, but I do intend to get ‘a game’ functional with a few basic interactions after that. Most of the work I have planned is abilities rather than content, so I can make levels for the primitive iterations of it and add more complex ones when the game itself evolves.

TooNu: Thanks! Noted.

UberSprode: I definitely want that tension of ‘Ulp, that probably has consequences but I don’t know if they’re good or bad yet.’ In absolutely ideal world, I’d love to have the player shoot a guy and think “Fuck, am I going to get away with that?”

Wow: there are a lot of comments. Thanks everyone, it is inspiring.

If you want some advice, as corny as it sounds but “be yourself”, because your judgement in what is and is not good about a game is your strongest asset. It is why many of us read your blog in the first place. So if you just be Tom while you make it, the game will be awesome. Don’t bend to any “it was easier to do this instead” if it compromises your enjoyment, it will show.

Oh and I am putting my name down for your BETA, if you ever have a BETA I want to test play it :)

If getting some satisfying movement working is your first priority at the moment, I think my advice would be to try to create a simple game purely out of your movement mechanic (whatever that is). Then come back and build on that with more features from your grand plan for Private Dick.

A bit like the development model of Captain Forever, I guess.

My advice: Use every resource you can get your hands on to overcome barriers, particularly the making-stuff-work-with-code one. You’ve mentioned Spelunky already – have you checked out the source code for it that Derek Yu has released? Whenever I’ve tried making a game in a new environment, I’ve found examples to be the best entry point. Seeing how someone else structures their work is often useful; and seeing how they tackle specific common problems is invaluable (making a platformed is a really good choice, given the plethora of available tutorials and examples available).

Oh, also, don’t keep adding features to your To Do list. You’ll know, deep down, when you have enough things to be worrying about already. Have too many ideas that you haven’t implemented yet (and can’t think how you will), and your morale will plummet. Keep it simple! Be happy!

At a very basic level, each iteration of the game uses your previous input against you.

It will likely work in one of two ways, it will become impossible, or super easy, either way it will probably happen after just a few iterations. However, if you could prevent this, it would likely be endlessly fascinating.

One way to get around this might be to use inputs from other players of the game, with a global heuristic for what survives (if you create the most efficient play style, everyone else who plays the game will be competing against you). In essence, non-realtime multiplayer.

The trouble would be how to implement that.

I was thinking programmable robots (using a simple visual programming language like Lego Mindstorms) that get successively more inputs as you go through the game (first they are only aware of where your mouse cursor is relative to where they are, but as you progress you can unlock awareness of other obstacles and other robots).

“Enemy” robots would enter through the opposite end of the obstacle course (your goal) and also respond to where your mouse cursor is on screen and run variations of your previous code.

The map would never be larger than the computer screen (to prevent scrolling).

How’s that for a random game creation side note.

A major reason for air manipulation is the psychic jump problem, of course. I assume you’ve considered that before dissing the curly muffin.

Don’t despair and don’t give up. I suspect regular blog-updates will help keep the enthusiasm going. The concept is great for a first game. Keep going!

Sounds like a great premise with some interesting goals. Know that you are being watching, Mr. Francis.

The story compensating for failure sounds difficult to implement but I’d love to see if it could work. And having a gun as a true game changer, I really hope you get this one done.