Better Than the Worst:
A Newbie’s
Guide to Sidestepping Ridicule
The 2008 Revival
Introduction
A Feature by Jeremy Bursey (Pepsi
Ranger)
Prologue:
A cloud drifted over Allan’s house, blocking the last vestige
of sunshine. The silver lining faded away, numbing the edges into
darkness. Blades of grass groaned from the absence of life. Silence
overtook his yard. It was a funeral without mourners.
He stood in the driveway, reaching out. He couldn’t take it.
His chest heaved. A tear dripped from his eye.
His parents took his cat away for the last time.
“He’s old,” they said, assuring him it
was better for the cat. “This will free him of
suffering.”
Allan didn’t want to hear it. He loved his cat, the mangy
little beast. Just because it was eighteen, full of fleas, and never
left its litter box didn’t mean it couldn’t live
another day. He wanted to protest. But then his parents always had the
right of way in these matters. They never listened to reason.
“You still have your little brother,” they said,
just before they left. “You can always put him in the litter
box.”
It was tempting, but not the offer he wanted. Allan abandoned his front
yard, opting instead to bury his sorrows under his pillow. His fluffy,
inedible marshmallow comforted him many nights before.
Tonight it was needed.
Dinner came and gone, twilight, crickets—he stared at the
ceiling through it all. His cat would be peeing in the litter box right
now, if it were still alive. He wanted to suffocate himself.
Sometime later, a faint glow in the corner of the room lifted him from
his trance. Breaking his gaze from the ceiling, he saw it: his computer
monitor knocking the Windows logo around like a Ping-Pong ball. He
rolled out of bed.
When he nudged the mouse, the logo ceased. The picture of a character
he saw on Adult Swim popped into view, threatening him with a lightning
bolt from his eyes. Just above the character’s spiky hair, an
icon for Internet Explorer caught Allan’s attention. He
double-clicked it.
After surfing the Internet for awhile, finding three pieces of junk
mail in his email folder—a credit card offer, something from
the Army, and an advertisement for male enhancement—he
rejected ten Friend Requests from wannabe prostitutes on MySpace
(except the one he kinda liked). Then he clicked over to IGN for the
latest game information. As he read the review for the latest Final
Fantasy, he thought, out loud, “I wish I could make my own
RPG. That might get my mind off of Doormat.”
“Try the OHRRPGCE,” said a voice from his ceiling.
“What?”
Allan looked up toward his glowing galaxy stickers to see the image of
his cat Doormat looking back. It hovered like the ghostly visage of
Yoda speaking to Luke at the end of the Star Wars Anthology.
“At Hamster Republic dotcom,” said Doormat,
“you can find the key to your heart’s
desire.” Allan’s spirit lifted; he didn’t know his dead cat
could talk.
After spinning the words in his head, he took the cat’s
advice. He typed “hamsterrepublic” into Google and
found a list of links that all lead to the same place: a place where a
talking hamster greeted him.
“This is too weird,” he said. He explored the site
anyway.
Three buttons down he found the funny word that his cat told him to
try. Clicking on it, he transported to a different place, a place where
a game engine was under development. Apparently, it was designed
specially for RPGs. His cat was a genius, he thought.
Two months later, Allan finished his game. He actually lost interest in
it—he still thought about his cat a lot—but wanted
to release what he had. It turned out the game engine produced a
community of users who liked RPGs and he wanted to become one of its
members. He finalized his story—a smiley face finds a sword
jammed in a rock, a square rock, actually, and goes on a journey to
defeat the devil-faced smiley—and uploaded his game to a
sister site called Castle Paradox (under the name
“Doormat”). It was there that he became a member of
the “OHR Community,” as it was called, and started
bragging about how awesome his game The Adventures of Doormat was.
Two weeks after that, he dismissed himself from the community after its
members blasted him for making such a horrible game. He went back to
his fluffy, inedible marshmallow for counsel.
There was nothing wrong with his game, he thought. It had graphics.
Sound. The main character could walk three out of four directions. It
didn’t make sense. Now he was a laughingstock. His cat would
be ashamed. Where did he go wrong? Didn’t they like stories
about smiley faces and slimes? Didn’t they shun vowels there?
He did everything right, he thought.
Well, he did forget to make interiors for his shops. And his first boss
had thirty thousand hit points. But it was a game! They had to like it
because it had a cool MS Paint inspired title screen. And it was
easy—the hero could walk through walls, for crying out loud!
What more could they want?
Allan cried himself to sleep. He didn’t know what to do. In
the space of two months he lost his favorite cat, became ostracized in
a community of strangers that he’d never meet in real life,
and had to eat a lot of beets. It was horrible. Now he had to find
other ways to entertain himself—like going out in public. If
only he hadn’t been so ignorant.
Introduction:
Does this story sound familiar? Minus the dead cat and serious
psychological flaws, it sounds a bit like our average first game
experience, right? Maybe too much like our first experience? After
reading PH’s review on Hamburgerman RPG for the January 2008
issue of HamsterSpeak, I thought, “why are people still
making this garbage?” There are so many articles and message
board comments that explain how to avoid this. Plenty of them teach how
to make better RPGs. So why are new game designers still releasing
crappy games?
Seven years ago (in February 2001, specifically) I wrote a series of
articles for Operation: OHR called “Better Than the Worst: A
Newbie’s Guide to Sidestepping Ridicule” addressing
this very problem. In four parts I tried to show a newbie (as a newbie)
what it took to bring his game up to releasable standards. Within a
month the articles were forgotten—an occurrence evident from
the immediate surfacing of more crap games—then lost in a
pile of unrelated features. Within a flash their chance for helping
newbies vanished.
After reading that Hamburgerman RPG (and Dummy the Happyface) review,
however, I saw the trend for horrible games was out of control and
decided it was time to revive those old articles. And though what
defined community standards then still defines it today, I think
it’s worth a shot to see if anything can change.
So here they are, out of the attic, dusted off, and updated for 2008
relevance: all four parts of the “Better Than the
Worst” saga, re-released with a new coat of paint, and
they’re coming with additions.
That’s right, it’s now double in size. Four
articles are now eight and I’m even throwing in an appendix
to share personal experiences. I hope with all the examples of low
standards, that annoying phrase “I was too lazy to do such
and such” (my pet peeve), and the general ridicule that
follows the end result—three things that plague this
community—that maybe emerging game designers will finally
give quality a second chance. If not, then I guess our generation is in
need of help.
Lastly, I realize the trend with HamsterSpeak is to release multi-part
articles one piece at a time, but I don’t think
that’s helpful here, to be honest. I figure by the time the
reader gets to Part Eight, the first six will already be forgotten and
the seventh a faded memory. So I’m releasing them all at once
to keep the whole thing fresh. I apologize in advance if
that’s overwhelming to you, but that’s the way it
is. Hopefully, they’ll be of help.
Series Overview:
If you think there is too much to ingest in one sitting, maybe I can
help you figure out what’s most interesting to you for now.
The topics covered in each part include:
Part One: Spending quality time in the design phase.
Part Two: Researching the engine; creating a practice file; preparing
the story.
Part Three: Tying loose threads; polishing the little things;
questioning publicity.
Part Four: Experimenting with resources.
Part Five: Addressing laziness; putting heart into the game; ignoring
plans.
Part Six: Using cut scenes; using sound effects.
Part Seven: Playtesting; using Bugzilla.
Part Eight: Revising the game; advertising.
Appendix: Simple ways to think outside the box.
So there you go. Enjoy.