What I learned from this blog
March 13th, 2007 by Pierre-Alexandre Garneau
I haven’t posted in a while — this is, in part, due to the new job I recently started at. I’m now a handheld game designer for A2M, Canada’s largest independent game development studio. It’s a cool opportunity — the company is working a number of very interesting projects, which I can’t talk about — but it leaves me with less time to write on this blog. Moreover my work so far has been to work on a game pitch, so that also makes me less eager to come home and work on another pitch.
That said, working on that pitch really opened my eyes about how instructive this blog has been. Frankly, when I started it I didn’t expect too much from it. Would writing pitches for random themes, outside of real-world constraints, really make me a better designer? I believe it did.
The assignment I got at my new job was to work on a licensed title. It would have been easy to go for the obvious idea, the kind of stuff you always see for licensed games. In fact, at first I did. When I looked back on what I’d written, I realized that I could do better than that. Heck, I’d done a more interesting concept for a game about wine, of all things. That pushed me to search for something better, something that would do justice to the license and would be more interesting to play.
After thinking and searching for a while longer, I believe I found the right approach — an idea simple enough that it sounds obvious once you hear it, but which wasn’t obvious at all at first. This blog taught me to be confident that there was a better idea to be found, so I kept searching until I found it. But I obviously can’t talk about it. NDAs and all that. Suffice to say the project went from just-another-licensed-title to something pretty interesting, I think. Let’s hope I can help transform this original vision into a cool end-product.
I really recommend this kind of design exercise to anybody who wants to improve as a game designer. Being able to make game concepts without having to fear about the reception it will get from bosses, publishers, license holders and everybody else who can judge your work is liberating. It lets you push yourself to your limits. It’s like exercising in a gymnasium: it’s easier to go to your limits than when doing real work, so real work becomes easier afterward.
The limitation is that the exercises I did here were limited to the initial concept of a game. It’s a critical step, to be sure — if the core of the game sucks, it’ll be hard to make it good — but it’s not everything. I want to try something else: to write a design doc free of external constraints, to train myself in better detailing my designs.
So I plan on working on a design doc in my spare time. The game is a mix between the “Giant Steampunk Robot Battles” and the Drones high concepts I talked about earlier. Problem is, it’s not quite as easy to blog about this since writing a design doc is much longer and is filled with a lot more details than a pitch. I’ll try to find a way to update this blog about my progress, but I’m not sure when that’ll be or what form it’ll take. We’ll see.
One last thing: a number of people wrote me, telling me they have a game design they’d like to sell and asking how to go about it. My honest answer is: I don’t know. I don’t expect to sell that design I’m writing, because there’s no path to selling designs in this business. Somebody could write the world’s greatest game design in his garage, yet he’d probably never be able to sell it because nobody would look at it. And I think that’s a shame.
Wow. I’m glad you helped yourself. There is no greater feeling than that.
Good job man. 
Thanks
Here’s 3 game ideas which I’m surprised have not been used: they’re not actually that innovative, they’re just new settings. Gameplay for all three would be just like GTA or the Battlefield series, two very proven games.
Riot Simulator
This would be fun as an RTS/wargame or as a FPS, or as both, (Like “Savage”). It would also work in a MMORPG with “permanent death” because you get lots of combat, but you’re more likely to be arrested or injured than killed.
Fun as a cop, fun as a rioter, and you can have rioters VS other rioters, even civil war scenarios with cops versus other cops. Someone could also play as a media cameraman, trying to get the who gets points for filming the bloodiest footage.
Cops would get points for arresting rioters, and lose them for hitting/gassing bystanders, while rioters would get points for smashing specific targets, loot aquired, spraypainting stuff on prominent locations, etc. and lose points for smashing the wrong stuff, (Local people’s cars and windows etc.) or hitting bystanders, media etc. (You lose more points if there’s media filming you.)
You could also play an undercover provocateur, whose jobs is to smash and destroy as much as possible, without the rioters or media identifying you. Or a rioter dressed up as a cop, doing the same.
Note molotov cocktails don’t explode like grenades, and cars don’t explode when shot!
Battlefield 1914
WW1 before the mud and trenches. Just think about it: the planes fly low and slow, meaning you can see and shoot individual players on the ground, and they can shoot you. Air combat is fought with pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Fast paced action with armored cars, cavalry, motorcycles…
Also, trench warfare seems ideal for a first person shooter with randomized levels. Trenches are basically a dungeon labyrinth, and the fighting is very close quarters, with grenades, bayonets, even shovels and clubs. Call of Duty has already proven this concept.
American warlords
Picture this: civilization has collapsed, and everything’s gone mad max Somolia-style. Everywhere is run by warlords who have made improvized weapons out of everything they can get their hands on. Cessena planes with homemade napalm, cars with “hillbilly armor” and machineguns, helicopers dropping pipe bombs, molotov cocktails launched from home-made catapults on the back of pickup trucks, flamethrowers made from propane tanks…
You get modern guns but the planes fly low and slow, you can beat the armored fighting vehicles if you shoot in the weak spots, and you get to do drive-bys your favorite cars. This could be the later levels in the riot sim - things would start with riots, that slowly degenerate into all-out civil war.
Much of the vehicle modeling has already been done for microsoft flight simulator, and various driving games.