Mistakes some Game Makers make...

K12gamer

Member
Post a possible FLAW you might have noticed in a game you've played or just saw on a video.
Post a video link if possible.

Example:
Here is a game video I recently saw TETRIS EFFECT (Youtube Video)
It's basically just a TETRIS game...but they used a whopping 4GB to make it.

All the flashy backgrounds waste memory and seem to distract you from the game.
If would be like making a 4GB PONG game...while the movie Star Wars played in the background.

With 4GB of memory...I could put 100 really good GameMaker games on my PC.
Here is a TETRIS game made with GameMaker that only uses 5-10mb...
(Play HTML 5 GameMaker TETRIS HERE)
 
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TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
Making the game default to start in full screen with no warning and/or no option to change it until you're actually in the game. Thanks for messing up my window layout and especially any other programs I have open that respond to resolution changes by crashing. T_T
 

K12gamer

Member
Making the game default to start in full screen with no warning and/or no option to change it until you're actually in the game. Thanks for messing up my window layout and especially any other programs I have open that respond to resolution changes by crashing. T_T
Never thought about that...My games start in full screen...and I always wondered why some people opted to have their games start in half screen mode.
Will have to make some updates / changes to my games.

Here's another TETRIS style game (Crystal Crisis) that seems to have way too much stuff going on in the background. (Youtube Video)
It's 2GB. Maybe it's just me...because the game has gotten good reviews on Steam:

“Crystal Crisis is as intense as puzzle gaming gets and has sparked new life into a genre not known for surprises”
10/10 – Pure Nintendo
 
4 GB? Are they using .wav files for the music or is it an entire 3D world in the background? Seems like the average Unreal 4 game is 12 GB. I remember when the average Unity game was 1 - 4 GB in general.

Having played far too many indie games:
- Memory leaks
- Forget to destroy surfaces or any other things
- Having controller support everywhere but menus
- Using the Z key for things without realizing German keyboards have Z and Y transposed
- Spacebar + 2 arrow keys at once = spacebar + 1 arrow key
- Up for jump is bad, some keyboards have split arrow keys meaning they're half as tall, making it tougher or accidental to push up
- Games without a point, such as high score games without a high score or a longest time
- Games that the enemies take far too many hits, I'm talking 10 seconds of constant attacks when the enemies can't really damage you
- Games that let you soft lock or get trapped in an area to restart the level or the entire game.
- Games that let you hit escape to immediately exit the game without asking.
- Games without rewards. The next level is not a reward. Something special that only happens at the end is your reward. If levels are a reward, then it's ice cream on top of ice cream. Including rare things like random fireworks help reward a player.
- Games without a break with its intensity. There has to be some downtime to relax or its not intensity. Downtime keeps players in the game.
- One that Tetris 99 did. A god awful red background atop of green gameplay. Wow it looks ugly and the color blind players probably struggle to see anything.
- Lack of feedback. I'm slashing into an enemy... show me what's happening. This is a video game after all, not a screen shot.
- Using the wrong game engine for desired platforms.
- Dropped line of pixels or extra line of pixels due to resolution conflicts.
- Blurry graphics for a pixel art game caused by smoothing.
- Having crop on a texture page that shouldn't be so you see other images in a sprite. Say you have an enemy, but that enemy also shows a font due to the cropping.
- No key rebinds, is this a mistake? Letting the player have too many key rebinds. I've seen some people set their keys so they need 3 hands to play and then they complain about it.
- Not telling anyone their game exists and hoping the website / store will just do it for them because it's so good. Get 10,000 people thinking the same thing and where will your game be in those 10,000?
- Unskippable cut scenes. Even Half-Life 2 was guilty of this. Sure everything is done in engine... but it could have been skipable. Don't have easy skips, force the player to put in some effort to skip. This will prevent accidents.

Some of these can be argued they're mistakes or general oversights or laziness.
 
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Gamebot

Member
Making the game default to start in full screen with no warning and/or no option to change it until you're actually in the game. Thanks for messing up my window layout and especially any other programs I have open that respond to resolution changes by crashing. T_T
You mean the menu is in a window then hit play and BAM your in fullscreen ? or You simply don't like to start in fullscreen?

Trying to mask a basic Match 3 (or other) game by putting in a lot of half naked anime chicks.
Example: Kotodame (Youtube Video)
Your right didn't even notice the game...har har.
Actually it was the first thing I saw only because they put it on the left hand side.
These are the type of games I DONT play simply because of the distractions.



You know my old commodore 64/128 games had an 8 directional joystick and a fire / select / jump button. Even with that, I can recall just those simple buttons objects didn't always respond correctly. It took close to 1/2 to an extra second ahead of time to make any thing happen. It was all about game and timing. These days you hit a button people freak when something doesn't happen right then and there.

All though I can't think of any recent putting the up arrow as a down and down as up seemed to be a bit confusing.
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
You mean the menu is in a window then hit play and BAM your in fullscreen ? or You simply don't like to start in fullscreen?
I mean "give the player a choice whether to enter fullscreen at all".

On my previous build, anything that started in fullscreen caused my entire system to blackscreen and enter a state where the only escape is to pull the plug. No exact idea why, but probably some strange GPU incompatibility stuff because it stopped when I changed it to a different one.

On my current build, there are some programs that don't handle fullscreening gracefully and crash, depending on the exact fullscreen implementation (properly implemented borderless windowed fullscreen is fine, for example). Fullscreening also messes up my windows - anything that's docked to a corner expands to fill the height of the monitor it's on, and if the fullscreen resolution doesn't match my monitor's native resolution, all windows on my other two monitors are also moved from their original positions to account for the new, smaller resolution of the one monitor that has the game on it, which doesn't seem to get undone (or mess up even more) when I restore its resolution to the original.

It's not that I don't like it - it actively impedes my workflow.


Also, a new thing to add to the list:
Horrible, or lack of, configurable controls. I see this everywhere lately.

A recent example of this is Disgaea 5, which presents you with a plethora of key bind options - to the point where the list of key binds has a scroll bar, and there are four pages of it! Menus also display which controls do what on the current screen in the bottom right corner. What can possibly go wrong there?

The descriptions of what the binds do tends to be confusing (and in three instances, is plain wrong), and the listed controls don't always correspond to the full range of controls available. Some binds are also not configurable at all. This went to a point where I unknowingly bound character and cursor movement to the same keys that were, by default, bound to "scroll one page up/down" (always check for key bind conflicts, don't make the player figure them out!) and thought my game bugged out when I could no longer scroll around the stage select screen normally anymore. Would have been easier to figure out if this applied in all list-like menus, but nope, page scrolling only takes precedence over normal cursor movement on this single screen... item and character menus work fine.


Make every bind configurable.
Don't hard-bind anything.
Show the player which key does what on the current screen. (Show all the keys. No nasty surprise conflicts.)
Don't have multiple lines or scrolling text for the above.
Know how to control your own game. Verify the player's set controls and verify if it will cause any conflicts. Let them know if they bind Jump and Attack to the same key.
... and probably most importantly, don't make the player memorize 30 keys just so they can play a single game.
 
Trying to mask a basic Match 3 (or other) game by putting in a lot of half naked anime chicks.
Last I checked, games like HuniePop and Winged Cloud's schlock have sold gangbusters. Kotodama's mistake seems more to be half naked anime chicks instead of fully naked anime chicks.

Jokey answer aside, the puzzles really aren't the main attraction of those types of games, so (ironically) focusing too hard on the puzzle gameplay can actually be detrimental.
 

Bearman_18

Fruit Stand Deadbeat
Gotta say, this is a brilliant thread idea! I hope it lives. Even more than I hope that the "gambling company" thread dies...

...Or gets retitled as "post your opinions on gambling". Lol.


Anyway, making a game (especially an open ended game) to hand-holdy is always bad.
Cutscenes should be skippable, but not with a button you might try to use to pause.
 

K12gamer

Member
Gotta say, this is a brilliant thread idea! I hope it lives. Even more than I hope that the "gambling company" thread dies...

...Or gets retitled as "post your opinions on gambling". Lol.


Anyway, making a game (especially an open ended game) to hand-holdy is always bad.
Cutscenes should be skippable, but not with a button you might try to use to pause.
Yes...I too hate being forced to watch long cut-scenes...especially if you don't beat a level...and have to keep watching it over and over again.
I honestly try to skip all cut-scenes in most games I play...especially action games.

Another thing I don't like in games...small hard to read menues all over the screen...example:
 
People adding tons of stuff to their games while ignoring the fact that their base gameplay is boring, unpolished, or broken is something I see a lot with indie devs. It’s like they think if they just keep adding to the pile of features, their game will get good suddenly.

Everyone who feels they even might be guilty of this, please ask yourself the following:

-What’s the point of adding hours of content if nobody is going to want to play for more than two minutes? Which would you rather own: 1kg of gold, or 1,000kg of dog 💩💩💩💩?

Answer honestly, and keep it in mind - our audiences feel the same way. :p
 

K12gamer

Member
People adding tons of stuff to their games while ignoring the fact that their base gameplay is boring, unpolished, or broken is something I see a lot with indie devs. It’s like they think if they just keep adding to the pile of features, their game will get good suddenly.

Everyone who feels they even might be guilty of this, please ask yourself the following:

-What’s the point of adding hours of content if nobody is going to want to play for more than two minutes? Which would you rather own: 1kg of gold, or 1,000kg of dog ****?

Answer honestly, and keep it in mind - our audiences feel the same way. :p
On a related note: Having a game with 100 levels...but making the level 1 boss so hard...99% of players never get past it.
Also...Putting a save point really far away from a difficult boss...forcing you to practically replay an entire level every time the boss kills you.
 

pixeltroid

Member
- Boring the player with long cutscenes / dialogue sequences when all he wants to do is get into the game.
- Making the game very difficult without extra lives and save points at necessary places. This doesn't make the game challenging for the player, it simply frustrates him causing him to give up.
 

K12gamer

Member
Having game ads that pop up every 10 seconds.

Game ads that block parts of the screen making the game unplayable.

Inappropriate adult ads in kids games.

Note: In some cases developers don't have control over the type of ad that appears in their game

 
Blocking off essential features / plot points because of your plans to add them back in as future DLC. You're not tricking me into purchasing the "true" ending to a game I just bought. You're stopping me from buying the base game in the first place. If you want to add something new to your already good, already COMPLETE game at some point down the line, that's one thing. Gating off content is something else.
 
On a related note: Having a game with 100 levels...but making the level 1 boss so hard...99% of players never get past it.
Also...Putting a save point really far away from a difficult boss...forcing you to practically replay an entire level every time the boss kills you.
- Making the game very difficult without extra lives and save points at necessary places. This doesn't make the game challenging for the player, it simply frustrates him causing him to give up.
I feel like these depend on the game/audience. The Souls series does really well (and is fantastic, imo), and one of its main selling points is how hard and unforgiving it is. Some gamers are masochists, hahah.
I think the caveat here is that the better a game is, the more it can get away with "punishing" its players. If a game is already mediocre/not very fun, nobody is going to want to fight through it just to see more mediocre stuff. The Souls games do well with their high difficulty levels because the games are very well made and fun, I think.

Blocking off essential features / plot points because of your plans to add them back in as future DLC. You're not tricking me into purchasing the "true" ending to a game I just bought. You're stopping me from buying the base game in the first place. If you want to add something new to your already good, already COMPLETE game at some point down the line, that's one thing. Gating off content is something else.
I mostly agree with you, because I hate when games get sold piecemeal. I'd much rather just pay more for a game upfront than feel like I'm being nickel-and-dimed.
On the other hand, if a game is good, my pragmatic view is "is this game and its DLC worth $80 to me?" If the answer is yes, then I go ahead and buy and enjoy it, even though I'd rather have just paid $80 in the first place. There's no functional difference in the end. Hell, if Breath of the Wild 2 came out with a $120 price tag, I'd say "holy 💩💩💩💩, Nintendo's gone mad with power!" And then I'd get my wallet out and buy it two seconds later, hahah. A $60 cap on a game's price is completely arbitrary to me...there are plenty of $60 games out there that aren't worth playing even for free, and there are some games out there I'd sell my car to play. Just depends on the game!
 

curato

Member
There was a Mythbusters episode related to this. It turns out that you can 'polish a turd and make it shine'.
I actually didn't like that episode because they didn't really prove that they took you can't polish a turd and turned it into you can't polish sh*t and so they could compress into a concrete like ball to polish it. it really isn't a turd anymore after you crush a ton of it into a ball.
 
L

Lonewolff

Guest
I actually didn't like that episode because they didn't really prove that they took you can't polish a turd and turned it into you can't polish sh*t and so they could compress into a concrete like ball to polish it. it really isn't a turd anymore after you crush a ton of it into a ball.
How do you figure? It is still 100% turd with no additional additives.

Kinda like GMS2. It is the same turd as GMS1 in a prettier package. :D
 
I mostly agree with you, because I hate when games get sold piecemeal. I'd much rather just pay more for a game upfront than feel like I'm being nickel-and-dimed.
On the other hand, if a game is good, my pragmatic view is "is this game and its DLC worth $80 to me?" If the answer is yes, then I go ahead and buy and enjoy it, even though I'd rather have just paid $80 in the first place.
I'm with you on that. For example, CD Projekt Red could have charged $60 dollars for each piece of Witcher 3 DLC it put out, and it would have been worth it. But the Witcher 3 had an amazing story that was actually started and finished on the disc I bought, and the DLC was a continuation rather than an attempt to fill deliberately created plot holes. There weren't chunks of the story missing that they expected me to pay more for.

That being said, if a game is marketed as "episodic" up front, that's a different animal. And if the Final Fantasy VII remake ends up costing me upwards of $180 or more by the time all of its episodes come out, so be it.
 
M

MeerFX

Guest
I think resource management is not being taken seriously often nowadays. With computers having lots of RAM and storage some developers may take the easy route and fill their game with huge uncompressed files (audio and graphics for example). I often see basic games taking a huge amount of storage space and i just wonder why it has to be that big for what it has to offer. It is mostly pure laziness.
 
S

Sam (Deleted User)

Guest
Games that are so low quality that they don't feel immersive or better in fullscreen.

If you genuinely like a game, you will want to set aside hours playing it without multitasking or having any ugly distractions around it, giving it your full attention. If a game isn't fun enough for anyone to want to play it like this in full screen mode, you probably messed up somewhere.
 
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I dont know if this is a flaw, but in Minecraft 1.6.4 ( version that I still use ) has this graphic video effect where when you zoom in/out away while flying over a field of crops you planted. It produces this moire affect that rotates around as you zoom in and out. If you plant large fields of wheat, potatoes, or carrots, you can see this affect - it does not depend on the resource pack your using. I wonder if its only a video affect caused by the video driver that Oracles' Java has, that Mojang uses.

Here are two examples of screen shots I took long ago, in a world that I still play with :

The moire effect is noticed by the dark ripples that are streaming out from the center of the wheat crops

moire1.png

In this second picture the moire effect is curving a grid around the inside center of a potato patch that I am growing, and it rotates as I
zoom in/out while flying above it ( just like the wheat crop )....

moire2.png

This effect can easily be reproduced on minecraft if you have it - but how does it happen!?

I would like to know what causes it and can it happen on GMS with my own art work?
 
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Yal

🐧 *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
Another reason to not default to fullscreen and lack windowing options: it messes with a lot of streaming programs (fullscreen capture might capture literal screen pxiels, which uses up a lot more resources than a smaller region, and it becomes impossible for them to see their controls, chat, etc without constantly alt-tabbing), so you could lose out on streamers playing your game (because of technical issues during screening), or they might not screen the game and then thousands of people sees them struggle with technical issues, moving everybody think your game sucks!


Super big issue people do all the time: a boring first level. People give up easily these days, there's more fun stuff to dig into. Don't give people an excuse to do that with your FIRST IMPRESSION. Make the first level be flashy, cool, memorable, and make it late in development when all the cool mechanics you've made throughout the project works so you can use the best ones for the intro level. Players hate boring tutorials anyway, just teach them the bare minimum and lower the difficulty if you still think it's too struggly.
 
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