Learning to make polished games

[Paul-Andre]

People say it pretty often. You have to make finished, polished games to deal with publishers.

I have also seen this trend to make small, simple games, with well refined graphics. Like mini-games.

Of course, there are a few big complex games, and they are the ones that people love the most.

I have made a few games, but I must say what they lack is nice graphics and polish.

Now, considering that I'm pretty new to making html5 games, how will I learn to make "finished and polished" games?

Should I too make a lot of somewhat boring mini-games and clones before I become good at making "finished and polished" games?

I have noticed that making elements unrelated to the game take much more time and code to build.

I'm not even talking about the graphics. I have started to study Inkscape as people advised. Didn't use it for any game yet.

I have a few dream projects at prototype stages, but I'm not sure if I should if I should work on them, since I am scared to somehow break them.

What should I do? Do you recommend making any kind of game (for myself at least) to make me better at polishing and graphics?

[remvst]

Making the core mechanics of a game often takes me less than a day, but then I spend a long time on balancing the difficulty, trying to make it fun, listening to some friends criticisms, adding small graphic details... and that's what I consider to be polishing.

 

This could help you:

(that's just one aspect of the polishing though)

[benny!]

remvst ... cool video. thanks for sharing!

[logicking]

In my opinion you have to "feel it"

The best games are usually pretty polished.

Take a look at Angry Birds, Cut the rope, Where's my water etc

Those games are simple but yet very polished.

You have to make games that you really like to play by yourself, if you feel something can be done better then go for it until you liked it bored with it )

[Evan Burchard]

That video is awesome.  This is the article they mention in the video: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2438/how_to_prototype_a_game_in_under_7_.php

 

The article says a lot about process, working with constraints, and the value of short time frames. "Juice" is defined on the 3rd page of the article

 

Another take on quality is just learning to not get discouraged when there is a gap between what you can appreciate and what you can do. Ira Glass talks about this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY

 

Unsquare is pretty rad by the way.

[remvst]

remvst ... cool video. thanks for sharing!

Thought everyone would know the video. It helped me a lot when polishing my games.

 

Btw, you should polish the thread title first

[Paul-Andre]

Yeah. Bounciness. I heard about it. I saw that video before. Particles and tweening are definitely on my check-list for the next game. Now, I just need to find (or make) some particle engine. I'll use TweenJs for the tweening.

 

Particles and stuff are nice, but what else is needed to achieve polish? What I've seen in most games is a nice stylized UI. Is that just like part of the art? How to make a nice ui for a game that is abstract? I am making this Fill-it type game, so yeah.

 

I have also came across the quote from Ira Glass before before. I think at the 1 game per mouth site. It is really inspiring.

 

Oh, also, do you recommend using an engine/framework? I am trying to use easelJs now... I'll probably try Phaser once there will be a documentation.

[remvst]

I often try to study the player's behaviour too, when showing a beta version. It helps me see what's wrong (why don't they undertsand they should do that, why are they playing like this...) and balance the game (because when you're creating a game, players don't have the same level as you do)

[Mailas]

Making the core mechanics of a game often takes me less than a day, but then I spend a long time on balancing the difficulty, trying to make it fun, listening to some friends criticisms, adding small graphic details... and that's what I consider to be polishing.

 

This could help you:

(that's just one aspect of the polishing though)

I remember this video.

It's truly inspiring to let average game developers know that even the simplest games can be "juiced" up to look utmost professional.

[Morgondag]

Study UI Design, interactive design and of other games.
You will notice a lot of small details. 

Often the simples function has layers on top of it just for the visual quest and interactive feedback.
Look at graphic design and web design in general. 

Don't think you need to make casual games just to get better.
Just start out and make a functional game, and when you have that, spend time with it, improve, make new artwork, add animations, effects, soundesign, stick to your art concept.
In theory this is easy its time consuming, and you need to find a art-style complementing your gamedesign.

for example for our game RymdResa, if you check the screens on indiedb http://www.indiedb.com/games/rymdresa/ its rather rough. stuff works. 
And the current polish(not finish yet) version it have a much deeper design.

Thats the way we try to design games anyway.
Design iteration over core mechanics and improve from there.

So you can spend the rest of your life improving your game if you wan't to ;-)

[SamBaylus]

When that video game out, I was so happy that someone was able to articulate such an important and understated aspect in game development.

 

When I make a game, I want EVERYTHING about my game to be fun; Even the less interesting things. I want my players to want to touch everything, to explore everything. To click everything, just to see what happens. I want a reaction for every action.

 

Good stuff.

[SilentxxBunny]

Making the core mechanics of a game often takes me less than a day, but then I spend a long time on balancing the difficulty, trying to make it fun, listening to some friends criticisms, adding small graphic details... and that's what I consider to be polishing.

 

This could help you:

(that's just one aspect of the polishing though)

 

Very informative.  Thank you very much for sharing this!

[Hutto]

That's a great video.