How To Fail At Game Ideas 

I've had that happen, A long time ago I thought of a really cool fictional device that one could wear on their hips with a harness, and it would shoot out cables with hooks or magnets on the end, allowing the user to quickly maneuver around through buildings or canyons. And then I watched Attack on Titan, and well, now everyone just gonna think I copied it if I ever put that in a story or game. lol

I believe that the best way to go around this is by executing the same idea in a very different manner. (Disclaimer: I have yet to publish a game.)

Not necessarily universal but we are less unique than we like to think and with 8 billion people on the planet the chance that nobody ever had or will have the same idea as we is just really really unlikely. The longer you wait with implementing your (hopefully) good idea the more likely it is somebody will come out with something similar.

But also do it well, you can still execute that idea miserably

@@ArtindiI love attack on titan

What is coincidence. I am watching it at 3.40 am!

@@Joyblasterand I, at 1:34 Am!

5:23 am for me !

4:03 am lol

1:08 AM for me

Thanks, and I feel like most of us are game dev noobs, I just pretend that I know stuff. ;)

ha ha. :)

That's how I did it. lol

@@Artindi me too !!

That’s my current plan lmao

That's kind of what I've fallen into. It's definitely intimidating to learn how little I really know, but in some ways the challenge and discovery of how to potentially do things is exciting.

lol, so this was kind of a refresher course then, :)

Thanks mate, hopefully it will be entertaining and helpful at the same time. :D

same. "sarcastic helpfulness" is one of my favourite genres of thing, but it's kinda hard to find.

id reccomend terrible writing advice, same vibe but for writing and with more running gags (love triangle)

@@candycaneannihalator2708 AS A TWA FAN I WAS ABOUT TO COMMENT THIS

​@candycaneannihalator2708 I'm pretty sure the only mentions the love triangle has gotten in the last year is tongue-in-cheek ways like in the filler video and reboots rebooted

If you do, please let me know too! ha ha

Wow, selling my failed ideas would be my dream job!

Thanks! And I like the quote, I'd never heard it before. :)

The story was fine in the first fnaf. It's in the sequels where things start to derail because they didn't know how to expand the plot.

I think to some extent we actually agree, there are stories that can successfully be made into games, and there are many successful games that are mainly story driven, I was only saying what I said because stories in and of themselves are extremely difficult to write and be successful with, let alone turn into a game. So yes, it is a perfectly viable way to make a game, or even be inspired for the mechanics of a game, but it's very difficult so I included it here to encourage inspired young game devs towards a more likely way to succeed. Plus it's one of the cliché's of people who want to make a game and never do: "Oh I have this great story idea, man, I should make it into a game!" proceeds to only talk about plot points in their story. But I'm also making fun of how interactive novels are not games, which means if someone makes one, (which is perfectly fine) then on a definitional level, yes, they've failed to make a game. So I think we mostly agree. :)

Thanks? lol (I'm not sure if this is a complement... I'm so confused! ha ha) :)

Exactly, sometimes success is just knowing what you need to avoid.

As a Game Design major dropout, I'd say that knowing what makes you fail is far, far more precious than knowing what could make you succeed.

Consider porting it to mobile if you ever do

Yeah, games are a great medium for telling stories, but if that is the main goal then the game is probably going to suck.

You are correct. And yeah, mostly general, but also for indie devs in particular its much more difficult to market a good story than a good mechanic. But yeah, some of the best stories can be told through a video game. :)

Thanks, and yeah, my mind is being blown right now. O.o

Actually.... yeah, I don't consider interactive novels as games definitionally. :)

@@Artindi I definitely respect that view xD tbf there are visual novels balanced with gameplay elements like Digimon Survive or Persona 5 which do it better or worse. But then again there's a balance.

Why thank you kind sir. :)

It's cause my thumbnails suck. But meh, hopefully the content will shine through.

Possibly, sometimes it can be hard to tell early on. Good point. 👍

I also sarcastically remark about how incredibly unique the main mechanic of celeste is. ;) The main point is that if you are going to do something, even if it's a boring something like a double jump, you might as well do it as best you can. And if you can do it better than anyone else ever has, I mean, even better. :)

​@@Artindi Ah, I get ya

Come back to us.... it's never too late... :(

Actually, that sounds intriguing, I be down to play it! :)

I appreciate the feed back. And yes, there are games and will be games that are based on story first. I was mostly commenting on this because of how frequently I see young game devs wishing to tell the epic story they have in mind and with this being their main goal they fail to translate their story properly to the format. they fail to realize that when making a game, the story is supplementary, and the people who are good at making games, can make the story feel central even though it's supplementary.

@@Artindi Thanks for the reply! I think this is complex topic considering how varied games are across genres. You’re right, though. When making a video game, the gameplay is the priority. Games are a medium for storytelling, though, and I feel some potential is lost when that isn’t utilized at least a little bit. Maybe it’s three little lines of dialogue and the rest left up to your imagination. If you want to go for more than that, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

@@Zyckro I agree, some of the best stories I've ever heard come from video games, as long as people can do it right it can be an incredible experience. :)

Glad to hear, just try not to not avoid the opposite of what was not instructed, as that would prevent the not inverted negative end with a not negative result.

@@Artindi 🤯

Just make a clone so you can say you've made something. It will inspire you to do it again but with your own great ideas. :)

You are right, I was mostly directing that towards the indie developers who may have a hard time getting their game to stand out with story alone. In general it's much harder to convince a potential player that the story is good than it is to show them a new and interesting mechanic. Even Portal did this, marketing for the first game was all about the mechanics, then marketing for the second game was all about the story. But of course, rules are ment to be broken, and any game can become successful if done right. :) thanks for the great comment!

Countless shovelware vn's available that don't stand out at all from one another say otherwise...

@@shinobuoshino5066 I'm not 100% sure what you're referring to, but I do want to add to the conversation thus far by pointing out that VNs are definitionally not games, so if the intended product is a visual novel, the process by which it is made will of course be story focused instead of mechanics focused, as any good VN should be.

@@Artindi in narration sense, they're games, where core and pretty much the only mechanic is choice, affecting how the story plays out. While they get a lot of flak for not having gameplay, they're one of the few genres where player choice actually matters as you get scenes that aren't possible to see in any other playthrough. Also I'm referring to category of vn's that currently flood the internet because anyone can make them, if you want "good" vn whatever it is you want from interactive fiction, it will take some time to find.

Ha ha. :)

Not at first, I wanted to do a tutorial that pointed out what not to do, and I had heard that a different game dev content maker had already done it but I still wanted to do my own take on it. As I figured out the details though I started to realize the similarities between this and terrible writing advice, so I imbraiced it, and took inspiration in the sarcastic yet helpful feel, but hopefully still in my own way.

@@Artindi It shows, in a good way! Would have loved to see some kind of shout-out to them (I'm a sucker for that kind of thing), but more importantly I'm looking forward to seeing more of this series. :D

It's not? oh wait, I mean, yeah, it's not. ;)

yeah if/else statements are just coding in a nutshell

There are cases, depending on the language and implementation, where if/else is actually the best option and there's really no more optimal way to do it. I learned this the hard way a week ago.

@@KlausWulfenbach tbh i don't know a lot of ways to do a lot of stuff so i mostly just use if statements xD

some do it well, but most just kinda suck. lol

What a waist of 6 words

@@Artindi is that some kind American measurement for length?

@@AugustRx The number of words in a sentence? I mean, it's a pretty universal way to measure the length of a sentence.

@@Artindi Using words to measure one's waist? what font size is that exactly

@@AugustRx what are you talking about?