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Hello, from ThisIsMyBoomstick!

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Sat, 04/06/2013 - 21:32
ThisIsMyBoomstick
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Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart.

Hrm, anyway! You can clearly tell from where I got my name.
Anyway, I joined this forum because I am an aspiring game designer and creator.

I'm a 19 year old whose head is literally spilling over with ideas. I run them by friends and generally get positive feedback, so this excites me and makes me feel hopeful.

My only problem is that I lack the will to follow through with the rough creation of a project.
Why?

I'm not even sure where to start after I have an idea laid out that is playable. I'm literally a 19 year old college student with no experience under my belt with this kind of thing. I don't know how to acquire the assets, get a publisher or a producer or whatever the boardgame world's proper lingo is, get the project going, and finally and most importantly, get my ideas out into the public so other people can enjoy them too.

I just know that I want to make games. I was born to make games. I want to make all kinds of games. My dream used to be to own my very own videogaming company, or at least be one of the top designers in one. I've since set my eyes on the slightly more reasonable goal of simply owning my own gamer hobby store, but it hasn't quenched my thirst to make games.

Thus, I am here, pouring my soul out to you forum-goers, hoping to get recognized, gain some allies in the righteous quest to create a great boardgame, and enjoy life.

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Mon, 04/08/2013 - 09:25
#1
Dralius
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Q: What stops us from doing

Q: What stops us from doing what we want to do?
A: Self doubt.

Solution: Just do it.

Making a game is easy. Making a good game is difficult and making a great game is hard. You can certainly make a game and with work you can make it good and possibly great.

Start by writing your all your ideas for the game down. You’re not writing the rules yet just brainstorming and recording it so you don’t forget.

Next you’ll go over your notes and start thinking how exactly the players will interact with the game and each other. This is when you’ll start writing the rules. Don’t know how to write rules? Use other rules as examples.

Here is one of mine that has been edited by an award winning professional. http://www.miniongames.com/rules/Tahiti_Rules.pdf

And im sure you own games so find the ones with good rule books, the ones you get on the first read and use those as examples too.

Write the rules down and think about how it will work as your doing it. You’ll probably notice problems right away, fix em. Once you have a first draft play the game in your head to make sure it seems workable. If it does make a quick and dirty prototype. Don’t spend time making look good, you’re going to change it later.

Play it by yourself, this will give you full control on what’s happening. Since your actually simulating other player have them play differently. Allow one to make a dumb mistake, has that ruined the game for him? Play the jerk and see if you can mess the game up for everyone else. Hoard the money or other recourses, does this wreak the game. Change what you need and repeat until its working well. Then make a nicer but not expensive of time consuming prototype for testing with your friends, you’ll be changing this one too. There are plenty of more testing and refinement levels to come but I’ll stop here for now.

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Mon, 04/08/2013 - 09:53
#2
Orangebeard
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Welcome

ThisIsMyBoomstick wrote:
Shop Smart. Shop S-Mart.

Words of wisdom...

ThisIsMyBoomstick wrote:
My only problem is that I lack the will to follow through with the rough creation of a project. Why?

I suppose there could be many reasons, but I would guess it is hard to focus with a flood of ideas coming out of your imagination. I would suggest getting a notebook (or laptop, sketch pad, whatever works for you) and write down those ideas as they come out. Hopefully, this will allow you to "put them down" long enough to focus on one thing.

For rough creation of prototypes, just keep it rough; Is there any reason that a penny can't represent a troll better than a cast model? A hand drawn sketch of a gameboard will serve just as well as a full color printout for testing purposes.

The real key is to make your idea a tangile object as fast as possible. This will give you a focal point upon which your new ideas can be built.

ThisIsMyBoomstick wrote:
I don't know how to acquire the assets, get a publisher or a producer or whatever the boardgame world's proper lingo is, get the project going, and finally and most importantly, get my ideas out into the public so other people can enjoy them too.

In short...
Designers design games. They are responsible for concept, mechanics, theme, playability, re-playability and playtesting. The designer will give a publisher the rights to the game in exchange for a royalty or possibly an outright sale of the game design.

Publishers bring the games to market. They are responsible for finalizing the game rules, obtaining the art, look, feel and design of the game components, manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution. The publisher generally puts up all of the money to release the game so they will have final say in nearly everything. The publisher will likely contract out some of the above tasks.

Self-Publishers typically design and release their own games. The game may be released as a Print on Demand game, fully formatted box game, etc. You would be responsible for every aspect of bringing the game to market.

Finally, there are all manner of packaging facilties, manufacturers, distribution houses, funding sites, representation agents, etc. that may or may not be of any value to you. I guess the easiest way to say it is that if there something you don't want to deal with directly, then there is a company out there that will do it for you...at a cost of course :)

So which one of your ideas has seen the most work or progress so far?

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Mon, 04/08/2013 - 17:36
#3
ThisIsMyBoomstick
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I appreciate the comments

I appreciate the comments from both of you.

I will admit that there is a great deal of self-doubt involved, yes.
But I love games, and I have plenty of ideas (some generic and some not), and that's pretty much what keeps me confident that I CAN do it if I just put my back into it. I'm just not knowledgeable with this whole process of making games.

I commonly write my ideas down too. It's simply a matter of unifying everything and throwing rules into the mix for a playable game. All of the doubt and motivational lack, as I've said, stems from not knowing what to do after the basic game is done, but you guys have done a pretty good job of giving me a general idea. I suppose I should just worry about that when the time comes.

At this current moment in time, my most developed concept is a basic Fantasy game in which players can choose to be a Cleric, Warrior, Rogue, or Mage, and fight off multiple types of undead, though I avoided the generic zombies and no vampires.

I actually got a fair bit of inspiration out of Bungie's old RTS, Myth, but replace ranks of soldiers with standard Fantasy heroes.

If either of you would prefer to PM me, I'd be willing to discuss further.
Eventually when I get the game more fleshed out, I intend to make a new thread to discuss it.

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Mon, 04/08/2013 - 18:45
#4
seo
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Welcome to the forum! another

Welcome to the forum!

another good idea (it worked for me, at least), is to force yourself to take part, regularly, in the Game Design Showdown (GDS), a friendly contest held every month among members of the BGDF. You will find it on the main page.

The contest is not about producing a full game, but figuring out the basic shape and mechanics of a game under certain restrictions (among other things a word count limit of 800 to describe the game, and just one week to come up with the idea). Then, contestants (and whoever else willing to do it) will read all the entries and vote for their favorites, and once the most popular is declared as the winner everyone posts comments, questions and suggestions for all the entries. This whole process, month after month, makes for the best game design school you can ask for. And several games that were born as GDS entries have been published, so it might also help you with the whole "I want to be a professional game designer" plan. :)

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Mon, 04/08/2013 - 19:12
#5
ThisIsMyBoomstick
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That's actually really

That's actually really cool!

I'll be sure to check it out once I feel more at home here in the forum.

Thanks for the welcome as well. : )

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Mon, 04/08/2013 - 23:16
#6
Stormyknight1976
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Joined: 04/08/2012
Game design

What worked for me is that I researched and read my video game guide manuals when I was younger. I got ideas on how the game was laid out. Read the table of contents. Your ideas does not have to be that of a VG, but can be used in any game design. Oh and welcome to the forum

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