There are thousands of useless courses online costing hundreds or thousands a year filled with information you could search for yourself. Then there's Tim giving A+ advice day after day with care and thought, all delivered wonderfully. I wish the world had many more Tim's.
Been watching your content for days now after coming across it. This is gold for us new indie devs who have no professional AAA experience - appreciate all the content Tim!!
It has long been my belief that mainstream game players are far more willing to navigate a complex game than they are typically given credit for, but it is key to introduce those complexities in a way that is approachable and doesn't feel like more trouble than it's worth.
I think Digital Extremes said they were worried that people wouldn't play Warframe because they would see all the complex systems in the game, and they knew their "new player experience" was not there. When the game was a success, they figured that if the game was fun in the first place people would look at the things they don't understand and just think there was even more to the game and that was good. If you see your game design as being you have to get to the top of the mountain before you can start having fun, then it is a real problem. Why are you so miserly with fun? Let the player do something fun the moment they hit new game, then promise more fun in the future.
I found it interesting that Fallout 3-NV had a starting level and then asked if you wanted to edit your character before continuing. The player will have the opportunity to experience their character build and settings and then change them without disturbing the continuity of the game. As a player I like it when more opportunity of choice is added to a game without it making it too convoluted.
Oblivion had that as well, though with both Fallout 3 and Oblivion it's more that you're stuck underground and the exit that takes you into the game world will have that pop up before you go through it. Also I know myself and many others do the trick of keeping a save right before that so on subsequent playthroughs, you have the option of skipping through the (often lengthy and boring once you've seen and played through it the millionth time) intro. Which really makes me wish vanilla Skyrim had that as well
@@austinglueck2554 Weirdly it doesn't in vanilla, so it's probably something that's so oftenly modded that you forget it's not part of the base game (Also sorry for the late response, RU-vid didn't send me a reply notification)
One addition to what Tim finishes saying at 8:30 is that NPCs also help define the player character based on how they react to them. Which is something that shows up in a lot of Black Isle and Obsidian games.
When you said you saw comments like "They don't do that anymore" about technical writing, it breaks my heart as a writer. So that's exactly why I'm unemployed! kkkkkrying
My Grandad passed this week. It made me want to pursue my passion/dream of game design because we only have so much time. I'm scouring all of your videos to help me with overarching concepts as I build my first game. Thank you for making these videos, Tim!
Your video content is absolutely golden. It's very rare to find people with quality information & experience in the games industry, especially for free from the internet. I currently do game dev as a pretty serious hobby and this content gives incredible encouragement 😁 Thanks for your work ✌
Timestamps for the Questions: 02:12 Is it easy to explain? 03:32 Can you tell an interesting story in that setting? 04:45 Is the setting reactive? 05:56 Can you come up with interesting quests to do in your world? 07:21 Do you have interesting characters in your world? 08:25 Is your setting evocative? 10:10 (Optional) How mainstream is your idea?
So I designed a ttrpg. It’s really short so it forced me to be really efficient and evocative with my world building. The biggest lesson I had to learn was to how to build the world around function. I had little space for “lore.” So most of my world building was done in the mechanics, in the gear choices and in the random tables. Essentially the point is that when world building think about how the world would be experienced through the players perspective. And how to express that world through the things the players regularly interface with.
I hate games where they just pile on hundreds of "choices" but the choices didn't matter. All the items boiled down to something like a single damage rating. You didn't feel the difference between an axe and a sword. One had more DPS so that's what you picked. There was no difference in play style.
Some of the rules I follow when creating setting, story, characters or mechanics: 1. Give yourself restrictions that force you to creatively think around the limitations you've set on yourself. 2. Avoid tropes and reused cliches (or at least as much as possible) in EVERYTHING: the characters, story, music, UI, etc. 3. Hook the user so that they're constantly chasing after a valuable reward or goal. This can be done in every vertical of the game. It must feel valuable. 4. Don't be afraid to discuss your ideas with others. You're doing yourself a disservice trying to protect your ideas.
2. Avoid tropes and cliches Only to tie back to #1. It's just to force you to explore other things in the beginning. In subsequent review/edit, if something works WAY better with a cliche... it's better to use a cliche than an awkward/bad "kinda-original" idea. Game of Throne is full of cliche. Fallout is also full of cliche. Being fearful of cliche is ironically a cliche among young creatives.
@@alexfrank5331 I was going to point that out! You worded it really well. I see so many creators allergic to tropes and cliches that it easily hurts them, especially those that go too far down the "It must be completely different from everything that's out there" rabbit hole but simultaneously are creating something in a certain genre or whatever where it's extremely difficult if not impossible to create the stories they want to make without having those elements in them. Also you don't need to reinvent the wheel, I've seen some good series that are VERY trope-y but they use them to such great effect and execute them so well that you can't imagine those series without them. Plus I just wanna mention how Postfu said #2 applied to everything, not only writing related subjects. Yeah there's certainly generic music and UI out there but I feel as though it'd be much harder to avoid their equivalents of cliches and tropes, especially since these can quickly get in the way of the user experience if done incorrectly. Additionally, to add onto #3, I don't think it necessarily needs to be a promise of a reward or whatever, but instead the general advice of hooking your players by giving them good reasons and incentives. Maybe it is as simple and game-y as "I want to do this quest because you can get a cool sword that does lots of damage" but I find that the best reasons for completing objectives comes from getting your players engaged with what's going on and attached to _something_ Whether it's a plot beat, part of the setting, a particular character, a certain mechanic, or what have you, so long as it keeps your players coming back for more. Though be careful with your players getting attached to _something_ that's going to end up neglected as time goes on
Hey TC. Would you be up to make a video about specific types of design documentation? Example: -A quest design doc. -Mechanic doc -Pitch doc -Level design -Dialogue -Characters -Etc Looking for structure, tips, layout and etc.
About the appeal of exploring a post-post apocalypse touches on something that's similar to the appeal of horror, in seeing the familiar become unfamiliar. There's something uncanny about seeing the world that we know change terribly. It also invokes awe, both in the positive awesome and negative awful. Like, the world of Silent Hill is a hellscape set in a mundane resort town, something that I recognize but also find unknown, even horrifying, and yet, I cannot wait to explore it.
There's also that distinction between a setting that's good for a type of game and a setting that's good for a story, at least for me. Like there are settings that might work well for literature but their game space might be more limited, especially if player choice flexibility is key to the design. Making homebrew settings in RPGs I make sure to remember that players may not WANT to participate in the things I find the most interesting, so I have to have enough connective tissue to let it bear the weight of their decisions. Sort of wonder what the Dark Souls pitch would have been :)
I just discovered these videos and I am very grateful that they are here. I have picked up an old project I started in the 80s - a C64 assembly RPG and am at the point that I need to flesh out the setting. I feel like I am in a bit of a trap where I always define the story arc and thereby, the setting, by looking at an arc I want the players to experience rather than a concrete story. These videos are helping change my mindset!
Hey, Timothy! I've really loved the Fallout series. I've actually taken the New Vegas scripts and turned it into a tabletop game for practicing French. The branching dialogue trees and the complexity of the story makes it ideal for having players read and have to understand what they're being presented with to make decisions. It's a really engaging way to help learn a language. I really appreciate your work on the series. You helped make possible one of the best unintentional language learning tools in existence. Thank you! :D
@@mikeandmike6169 Thank you very much! I'm not sure how I could share photos, but I'd be happy to do so. I've created game pieces as the other players in the course progress through the game. They're in Primm right now, so I haven't made much beyond Nipton. I got a platinum chip, bottlecaps, NCR currency and a stand-in for Legion currency from Etsy and just print off paper standees for characters. Type up the French-translated version of the game and create some dialogue cards, and you've got an immersive and engaging world that demands an understanding of French in order to make decisions. :D
These concepts are so complex to articulate and I'd find it hard to articulate them as well as you have. Thank you for all these amazing videos, I'm learning a tonne by watching them all.
this is extremely helpful and informative!! I really appreciate you mentioning both the creative part but also legibility from outside perspectives, its so helpful for those who think they have an idea but aren't too sure how to go about making something out of it!!
these videos have been valuable beyond measure. I'll take those questions into consideration, the next time I set out to develop a new setting. Thank you.
What you say about game design, narrative and world-building is 101 tenfold that peeps really need to listen and write down to make interesting games. I totally agree with you. That elevator pitch is so important.
With what you were saying about mainstream considerations, I've always thought of it as 'complexity vs. accessibility'. A complex game is not necessarily a deep game and vice versa, but complexity increases the time and investment required to learn the game. Accessibility means it's easy to pick up and play with little or no investment. You can have accessibility and depth coexist, as long as you as you say, "lower the slope". I think a lot of big RPGs in recent years really struggle with that notion the most. A great example of all sides of this is the Elder Scrolls series. Skyrim, which ditched a lot of its deeper mechanics and simplified others. It's accessibility was great, and created many new fans of the series, but it's often looked down upon by many as being too shallow or dumbed down, especially by fans of Morrowind and Oblivion. Once you get a feel for the game, there's nothing left to learn or master. Without depth of mechanics, it relies on the rest of the game to hold your attention, be it story content or challenging combat. On the other hand you have Morrowind; unforgiving, unstable, unbalanced... almost begging you to break the game's mechanics through deep knowledge and exploits of its systems. But it rewards those who do with an experience unlike any other to this day. Not an easy game for casual players to enjoy, but still highly regarded by fans and players who like to take the time to learn the mechanics of a game. I believe a great game should strive for both accessibility and depth, and it's one of the reasons I became a fan of your and Troika/Obsidian's works, as they tend to strike a good balance.
Yeah as much as I love Morrowind it isn't that accesible to new RPG players, which restricted the audience and potential sales. I can see why Bethesda leaned towards accessiblity with Oblivion and Skyrim. While lacking mechanical/lore depth, at least those games got new people to play RPGs. I would never have played Morrowind or isometric RPGs had I not played Oblivion first which helped ease me into the RPG genre.
Professor of gaming, obtained professorship by making the best games I've ever played. It is an honour and pure value listening to your thought process.
2:53 Reminiscent of a great Star Trek legend. Roddenberry had to present it to the studios as "Wagon Train to the Stars," but in the end only Lucille Ball believed in it enough to give it a chance. Must be surreal for the artists and developers actually working on a project to have to liken it to something that already exists to invoke an image in the minds of others who aren't at all familiar with it.
I started watching this channel for the sake of interesting details about Fallout. But unexpectedly, it was pleasant for me to find just a storehouse of information that is interesting and useful to me. Of course, I'm not a programmer, not a game designer, not a game developer, but I'm a GM who comes up with stories, settings, quests, NPCs, and therefore I'm just glad that I can learn from the best in this business. I was looking for gold, but I found gold and diamonds. Thank you!
Me and my girlfriend watch your daily video every day. It's like a small thing we look forward to. I just hope you never run out of topics. Cheers and thanks for all your uploads
Had no idea you did RU-vid videos. Games like the original Fallout titles are some of my all time favorites and I never have a hard time convincing myself to replay those every few years or so. Just recently played through New Vegas last year on my Steam Deck and had a blast. Might need to go back to the Og games soon. Peace and love Tim ✌️
As someone who has been toying with a game setting in the back of my mind for the last couple of years, writing thoughts and ideas in a text document as they come to me, slowly building and building (probably a mess), the questions you proposed seem obvious in hindsight but aren't something I had really considered until this video. So thank you, this is wonderful. On the subject of who games are made for, I find the idea of Arcanum being made without much regard for it's potential audience really fascinating as someone who loves that game to death. I also find the fact it wasn't made with an audience in mind to actually be a commonality among games that stick with me, or are games that I generally adore. There's just something about a game coming directly from the mind of an individual, or individuals that you can really feel permeate through every aspect the game, and it leaves a lasting impression, regardless of any flaws. Where as other games that are probably made to be generally accessible or to be fairly sound business decisions may not have anything wrong with them and are perfectly fine and fun games that you enjoy playing through well enough, but you find yourself 8 months later going "What was that game called again?" It's something I think about a lot when trying any new game, some games feel just fine to play, but somehow there is no semblance of soul.
Very helpful info. here, Tim! Whatever can help a dev team understand and visualize a high level pitch seems key. Do you think the same is said for quest design? Or can we all expect another video on quest creation in the future?
Really useful questions, wow. I can definitely see how they apply, even in older games like Star Control II and Chrono Trigger. I’m curious how you might recommend indie devs to navigate them, especially reactivity - even with my smaller game concept (DBZ, planet Namek co-op scramble), having to script out a combinatorial explosion of dynamic situations sounds daunting.
Watching your videos has been very insightful and for that, I am deeply thankful for all that, Tim. As someone who is still learning the ropes to eventually make games, I have this passion project action roleplaying game that I'm in what I refer to as pre-pre-production (due to currently working on it's design doc and eventually prototype as a solo dev, when the game's scope requires a larger team to best execute it), I have the setting in mind that answers most of the questions properly but I think I'm having issues with a couple of those questions. Let me elaborate on what I mean by how this setting answers those questions: 1. Is it easy to explain? See, I don't know if "Fallout (New Vegas) meets Super Mario Galaxy in a solar system that's a mix between the UK, Japan and Brazil inhabited by robots" counts as that since it is a mouthful to repeat all that. But if I shorten it to "FNV + SMG" I fear that a lot of the unique appeal of the setting alluded to by the longer description gets lost, or at least the shorter description may lead folks to find the other details to be too surprising for the pitched shorter explanation. 2. Can you tell an interesting story in that setting? I think so, this highly dynamic world allows to tell the story that asks, what does it take to destroy the power structures that make us miserable, or put simply, how do you undertake a social revolution. Within this thematic core it explores different aspects of it such as the role of violence, how discrimination undermines social struggles, and the dangers of cult-like social dynamics among others. 3. Is the setting reactive? Very much so. In the main questline, with one of the main factions, the union you can do anything from coordinating solidarity strikes all over the star system to usher a general strike to sabotaging the union, having the more conservative factions within it to take the lead to, of course, killing them all. If you rack up enough negative reputation with the corporation or the state, (the two other main factions) the cops will arrest you and send you to the prison planet in which depending on how you leave prison could either mean, each time requires a different escape route, to having to bribe the warden to let you go, to the prison being covertly lead by the prisoners, in which case you can just leave. 4. Can you come up with interesting quests to do in your world? Absolutely, from unveiling the mystery of a murdered investigative journalist to determining the fate of the last shogunate (your boss) and his remaining army to being the catalyst in the uprising within the prison planet, and those are just the side quests; as the main quest is a civil war waged between the radical union, the state ruled by a king regent who's personality program is based on Jimmy Hoffa's and a foreign media corporate empire with its branding focused on the divine. So there is sure to be a lot of interesting things to do in this world. 5. Do you have interesting characters in your world? Hopefully the following characters count as such; like the prime minister who despite being a charismatic former samurai with a heart of gold, is as disappointing policy wise as most progressive politicians can ever muster to be; or the shrouded marquis of halberds in the council of lords who moonlights as a union boom mic operator or an elderly former businessman who heals squatters and the destitute. 6. Is your setting evocative? Much like the first question, I don't know. Is a world which rather than being defined by some sort of collapse of civilization, it is one in which its dystopian contradictions ceaselessly compound upon itself an evocative setting? In the specific combination of things intended for this setting, I'd imagine that there is this aspect of the unknown in there with maybe the oppressive horrors that are, well, evocative of the overwhelming oppressiveness of our own world; so maybe that could serve as this element of the scary brings people in. 7.(Optional) How mainstream is your idea? I mainly care about this because I want this game to have a larger reach, but I don't know to what extent it would be mainstream. On the one hand, it is broadly a space future dystopia, rather similar to be honest with The Outer Worlds, but the specifics of it are rather different; it is still a capitalist hellscape in space, but the government and unions are relevant forces in the world for instance, some intensifying the dystopia while others counterbalancing it; and the alien fungal biology brings to the world a certain fantastical uncertainty to that reality. I understand if this takes too much time to give any specific responses but either way, I hope the best for you, Tim.
two of my favourite game & narrative settings particularly in the Fallout series are the Sierra Madre (villa) and The Island from Dead Money & Far Harbor respectfully. Both, despite being fairly short manage to completely out class the base games they were stitched onto.
Based on your words, I recently read Lord of Light. Even as an avid sci-fi reader it surprised me, especially the quasi-Indian setting and the way Zelazny uses all its tropes and mythology in a world of the far future. It also felt as if he wanted to make a sequel. But, speaking of target audience and its needs, I wonder how popular it proved, since I don't think I've ever seen it on any of the sci-fi top lists.
Hit the nail on the head. My initial playthrough of Edgewater gave me such a different vibe than my friend had while we were playing Outer Worlds side by side.
Talking about Lord of Light starting as fantasy and ending up sci-fi, you might enjoy J. Negrete's Zemal books. It's Spanish, not sure if it's translated in English, but it's awesome. The first book sounds really magical and by the end you know how much of that magic was actually tech.
I would appreciate counter-examples to the questions. In particular, what kind of setting you would consider too complex to describe for it to be a good video-game setting.
Thank you for doing these wonderful videos for us. You may want to give your voice a few days of rest though. All youtubers eventually learn that with all the recording and re-recording, your voice isn't the endless resource you assume it to be. 😀
Please give us a video on the changes of the Arkanum, the game is wonderful but so much feel incomplete, would be very illuminating knowing more about its production to fill in the gaps.
The primary thing about Fallout was the profound sense of ISOLATION. A sullen place amplified by its atmospheric music (eg, Desert, The Glow, The Caves). Yet out there in the wasteland there is still plenty of things to discover, and some areas where there's nothing except dangerous random encounters.
Pure, straight to the point - 1:30 - 2:00 Unfortunately too many think too much of themselves, completely detached from reality, living in illusions. Egocentrism along with solipsism. Jailed in a cage of consciousness. Sad, but true.
I would love to hear you talk at length about fallout new Vegas? What’s your opinion of it? To many it’s the closest to the original isometric fallout we’ve had out of the modern selection. What’s your opinion of Josh Sawyer and the other devs and where they took your story
I really need to pick up Lord of Light! Based on what you're saying about it, Tim, I think you'd really like Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series (if you haven't read it already). The style its written in also adds a lot to the mystery, and its largely debated what even happened in the series by fans to this day.
I've heard you mention that Outer Worlds was Fallout meets Firefly in a few videos now, and one of the things I've noticed is that Outer Worlds asked an important question that I remember was only hinted at in Firefly, the question being "Can alien ecosystems sustain human life?". I had a discussion with a friend some months back when that came up, and it made me think back on that story and how most sci-fi space exploration series assume that all planetary ecosystems are set up just like Earth's ecosystem, and that most people tend to assume that to be the case. In reality a totally alien ecosystem would most likely not be able to sustain human life, as even on our own planet there are variations that can create problems if a person goes from one side of the planet to the other. That's one of the things I like about proper rpg's, as they can ask questions that make you think about a certain topic in a different way.
Thanks for the videos! Great stories! Could you do a video about how does a ''bad'' game get developed? People are quick to say things like ''Devs were lazy'', but what are the background mechanics that actually bring about a bad game? Do the people working on the game realize it's bad as they're working on it? How is it that there can be huge budget games, with experienced people working on it, and a big company behind them to support the work, but in the end the game is ''bad''. (Just to throw out a random example: Anthem)
Disco Elysium and Fallout both have excellent evocative settings. What other games have settings like that- settings you really want to make a character for and get invested in.
Unrelated but your Fallout 2 video just hit 100k views, your first o_O. Not that I didn't like it, but I didn't expect it to be this popular. Your channel's been around 1 month and already has 27k subs. Kind of impressive. Well-deserved imo
About books having no choice: This funnily reminded me of some books I read as a kid that had you make decisions and jump to certain pages/skip pages when it was time to make them. Iirc you were a detective trying to solve a crime.😄
You might love the Coldfire Trilogy books. Starts as a scifi, turns quickly into a fantasy that you almost forget it was a scifi first chapter. VERY evocative.
I'd be really interested to hear more about the choices that went into making the Outer Worlds. That's a game where I'd really like to know about the behind-the-scenes situation. Like, how much creative freedom did you have within the "Fallout Meets Firefly" premise? Were there ideas that were nixed because they fell outside that premise? What aspects were affected by the need to make the game more broadly appealing. (Personally, I felt that some of the choice-and-consequence aspects of the game felt more simplified - there was often an obvious best-of-both-worlds option to be taken - and the Board were so obviously the bad guys that I was never able to bring myself to side with them on any of my playthroughs, and those seem like the sorts of things that would have been done to appeal to a wider audience.) Also cut content. You've been pretty open about cutting quite a lot from the game, and I'd love to hear about it. (Also, I adore TOW, my complaints are minor things against how much I overall loved that game. Can't wait to see more of TOW2.)
It's funny because with The Outer Worlds I never really had a full view of the setting even after playing it for a bit. I would have said something "Pulp sci fi corporate satire in space". If they'd stuck to the aesthetics of "Fallout meets Firefly" stronger I'd have been a lot more excited to dive into that, there's a lot more of a clear fantasy to build a character around instead of feeling like you're skipping through character creation to play around and find out what world you're even playing in. I can understand however that since Fallout and Firefly are already really close in aesthetics that the project felt the need to diverge from them to stand out.
I enjoyed the outer worlds setting but I enjoyed it a lot more after reading and learning the setting is based on an alternate reality where the business trusts were never broken up under Roosevelt and corporate culture took over. They probably explain this in the game but I still missed it
Tim, have you read The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe? If you like fantasy that becomes Sci-Fi then those books are exactly that. Likewise, have you ever given The Age of Decadence a try? It's got a similar vibe
It can also be argued that the person who hikes up the mountain can appreciate the journey and the view a lot more then the person who took a vehicle and got dropped off there.
Fun Fact in Fallout 1 I never figured out how to enable a quest for saving the missing/abducted brotherhood of steel member. I always just sorta stumbled on him at that Church in the Hub with those dudes cocked and loaded, didn't have a clue about what it was only that they clearly meant business. Then I go over to the BOS bunker and without a clue - hey you're accepted.
How well did you get along with Chris Avellone? He's always been my MvP video game writer, but I was wondering how he was to work with. I've heard he has very high standards and part of why the stuff he is involved in tends to do well is because he will criticize things which don't fit or which fit oddly.
I actually had fantasy about pillars game having similar gamplay to dragon's dogma, also the game is like japanese/eastern devs take on skyrim. Fun thing they were inspired by western games in the first place, i think lead designer is a japanese dnd nerd.
I always feel like these games are like little simulations of reality; letting us know more about ourselves and our own world through contrast/similarity.
Hi Tim, would Bethesda ever consider taking Fallout back to its isometric roots given the success of a game like Disco Elysium? For classic Fallout fans we've been secretly hoping for another top down Fallout game for more than two decades
Not from any of the big studios. I think this is partly, as you can hear Tim say, they made Fallout for themselves, with no concern of the target audience. A moderately large studio, nowadays, wouldn't really take a risk like that. You gotta have to look at the indies. Kenshi is somewhat close, but it lacks the more focused narrative.
I still think a post nuclear pirate setting is something not yet explored enough. Waterworld was a hit and even the Fallout manual hints at citys or people on floating houses out on the seas I think it can bring best of both worlds like a top down vessel/party management but landing somewhere allows you to explore it in first person. Also procgen could help make the coastal areas more interesting to explore while handcrafted locations here and there help support a feeling of diversity and it being alive rather than all procgen. Because again I feel its something thats either overused or underutilized. Either a game feels repetetive because it uses so much procgen or it feels small/empty because there is only a couple really nice locations with nothing inbetween. Unfortunally I have zero useful experience in software so thats something that will forever cook in my mind because I will never be able to make it but by putting it out here its at least not forgotten haha
