Better Than the Worst:
A Newbie’s Guide to Sidestepping Ridicule
The 2008 Revival
Part Two

By Jeremy Bursey (Pepsi Ranger)

In Part One I talked about the importance of being patient, to keep a game hidden in its unfinished stage to save your reputation from the bonds of laughter (when your game’s not supposed to be a comedy). What I didn’t talk about, however, was that sooner or later, if you want the public to see your game, you’re gonna have to release it.

So what separates readiness from ridicule? When is it polished enough to warrant a safe release? I can’t speak for your own game’s readiness, but there are some things to consider when trying to make it better:

Lesson #2: Do Some Research.

“What?” you may ask. “Research? Are you brain-damaged? This is draw, paste and post time—an outlet for our creative juices. This is a lousy video game, not a term paper.” Yes, this is all very true, but is your goal to mess around or to make a game? If you just want to mess around, then feel free. I know there’s a lot of fun in that, too. If anything, making an OHR game can be like washing a car: it’s not something you really planned to do when you woke up this morning, but since you’re bored, you may as well draw some ugly pictures and make them talk in Pig-Latin. Of course, if that’s your goal, do you really want to release your “doodle pad” for the world to see? Probably not. So if you care about releasing something, you might want to make sure you have knowledge about what you’re doing.

Now, Lesson #2 doesn’t deal with researching content for your game. Though you can start reading books about how knights ate their steak back in the 16th Century if you really want, it’s not the important thing right now. What’s important is learning the engine design to its fullest. I’m not suggesting you should be on your way to making the plotscripting model of the ages, or the best looking thing since Alicia Keys, but at least get an idea of how to do things effectively. This means reading everything available from the tutorials, to the message boards, to other people’s plotscripts. The more stuff you put into your head, the more it’ll show in your game.

Of course, just as faith works with action, so does knowledge with experience. This means you should be willing to practice what you learn as you learn it, which brings us to

Lesson #3: Create Your Own Practice File.

That’s right. If you want to make better stuff, you have to devote time to practice it. The practice file can be the base of your future game if you want, but it’ll ultimately take less work if you start from scratch with a clue in your head. So if you want to start on a better foot, make a file that’s exclusively designed for learning the tricks of the OHR. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for tricks when making your game, since you’ll discover more interesting things about the engine when you make the story you want. But you should at least practice the basics on a file you don’t care about. This is merely a suggestive lesson, granted, and may not work for everyone (some people learn better when they learn the tricks on a project they care about). But whether practice is done on a trash file or the one that counts, be sure to remember Lesson #1 before thinking the practice session is over.

“Okay, so what if I’ve done all the practice I’m going to do? Can I release my game now?” That’s both a good question and a stupid one. You can release your game now if you want, but do you really want one of the hardcore reviewers tearing it up and spitting you out? Most likely not, so maybe it’s time to write something down.

Lesson #4: There is No Shame in Preplanning.

Odds are, if you want to make a game in the first place, then you probably have a concept in your head. For some authors, an idea is all that’s needed to transform nothing into a great piece of work. These authors are called prodigies and are a small, but gifted group.

Many people, however, can’t dream of turning a one-sentence idea into an entire trilogy of games, much less make them awesome, nor can they even keep their thoughts organized. This is where preplanning comes in handy.

Like Lesson #3, the preplanning phase is merely an option—not required to make a newbie into a genius. However, if a story is meant to have the right kind of continuity and internal variation, then planning ahead is a good way to start.

(Pay close attention to the specifics I outline here, because there’s a great contradiction to the preplanning rule later in the series, and I don’t want you to get confused.)

“But what’s so important about that? Doesn’t a game just need graphics, sound and battles?” you may ask. Well, if you’re asking that, you may as well stop reading because this isn’t helping you. For those who are still reading, then you know the obvious reason is “no.” Why? Because stick figures are considered graphics, “Mary Had a Little Lamb” is considered music, and game show games don’t have battles. The idea of preplanning is to figure out how to make your game work.

Okay, now this is the time to incorporate real research into the lesson phase. Naturally, if we’re to have an immersive game, then we need to have depth to the immersing content. If your hero is a police officer, for example, it might be smart to find out the monthly arrest quota for a given department. If that’s asking for too much, then at least investigate whether such a quota exists. It may be useless in the long run, but who’s to say the information won’t become important at some obscure moment? Maybe it can become a powerful catalyst for your story. Example:

Frederick Harris—police officer by day, convenience store clerk by night—gets ready for his patrol of the department store district of Major Metropolis City. As he sets out, his chief informs him that his arrest quota is five below par for the month. If he’s to get a raise, he must haul in at least five perpetrators before the end of his shift. Thus, his quest begins.

So what happens next? Perhaps research will tell you that patrol cars are painted a certain color for a reason. What’s that reason? Maybe Frederick Harris—police officer by day, convenience store clerk by night—discovers the answer after busting his first criminal. But why would a criminal know the history of painting police cars? Maybe that criminal is a shady cop. Ooh, now there’s a story brewing.

So what did we just learn from that two-paragraph example? We learned that not only is research important in the area of preplanning, but so is character development. How so? The answer is simple: without a strong character, you can never have a good story.

Think about it: did Barney the Purple Dinosaur ever have a good story? I doubt it. Did Luke Skywalker have a good story? Heck yeah. How are Luke and Barney different from each other? It’s a simple matter of substance. If your character doesn’t have an interesting life or interesting things interrupting his life, or a personality to act on his so-called life, then why should anyone want to follow his antics? It’s all a matter of researching a subject (if only a little bit), and writing something down when you think you have something.

The same goes for plot development. Though I don’t encourage the creation of plot before character, since plot happens as a result of character (if Adam and Eve didn’t ignore the commandment to stay away from the forbidden fruit, there wouldn’t be any stories of good versus evil to tell), there’s still a point when plot must have direction. It’s one thing to have Frederick Harris—cop by day, clerk by night—leave the office for his patrol, but another to have him dismantle an entire underground criminal syndicate before he goes home for the night. How does Fred get from Point A to Point Z in one smooth motion? Perhaps a chart would be effective.

“A chart? Is this some sort of business meeting?” you may ask. I hope you’re not asking that, but if you are, here’s where a chart comes in handy: A world has personality and statistics, so maybe your game can, too.

When creating a game world, you create a potential travel plan for your character to follow. That’s great and all, but what happens when your character walks the world? Do the places he visits have their own mysteries? Do they have varying idiosyncrasies? Are the people he interacts with going to sell him fake watches? What’s the average demographic for each area? A chart is a good way to keep an overall perspective of what’s going on and serves as a reference while the game is in development. This way, your character never gets lost in a rapidly dismantling story, nor does he force the player to realize he or she is wasting his precious time going through the same nonsense everywhere.

So now that we have a few guidelines to build from, maybe we can take our game designs more seriously. But how seriously should we take them? We still don’t know the best time to release our game. We still don’t know what justifies a finished product. Well, Part Three should help with these issues.

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