Posted on 1 September 1998

The following text was written by Alan Wong :

This has eluded many of us for a long time. What makes a good game? I started to think how we can all come together to create the elusive good game when I was responding to an Article here at ticalc.org. From writing my response, it hit me. Why not write a whole article devoted to the good game, and so I also thought of ways to quickly make good games, which introduced me to the engine, which we do not have as of yet. Sure we have side scrollers, but their coding is different, since they are not made in the same way. Then I thought, what do we need to make these engines, and here comes talent, time, and ideas. And then finally, I thought once more what we need, and I could not believe I missed this in my initial thought, but it is the most important part, fun. Making an equation, I came up with this:

Calculators + Engines + Talent + Time + Ideas + FUN = Good Games

To an extent, this is important. I did not include sound and graphics since the TI calcs are not very good in those areas, and they are not as important as the other parts of the equation. There are some good graphics out there, but in making an actual game, the graphics should be toned down a bit for playability (1 fps for a game is not that good), and sound is basically out of the question (I would look kinda stupid wearing headphones attached to my calc, non?). I also have ideas about these two, but first, lets look at my initial spark of light on the subject, caused by the comment. In the following paragraphs in italics, is my comment to Why Big Assembly Coding Projects Are Possible by Gerard Imbert. Read if you haven't read it, since I will base my later ideas on this.

Well, now that you've seen my opinion, I would like to expand greatly (read, greatly, meaning large amounts of text). The title of this was "Calculators + Engines + Talent + Time + Ideas + FUN = Good Games" (I shortened it afterwards), and basically, this equation is right. First, you have your calculators (an obvious ingredient), but what comes after are the more taxing elements, all leading up to the final product (hopefully). But why am I writing this? Well, everyone wants good games, and I'm going to give you my opinion as unbiased as I can. Let's start with the engine.

In the comment in italics, I said that it would help the beginners start and also help many game projects to get started, and that is right. But most importantly, this engine will give us one thing lacking (IMHO) in the calc world now, speed. A good game is few and far between, and by creating flexible engine types, we can role out good games after several weeks to one or two months of work. Note, I said good, since a game can be a technical feat, but still quote unquote "suck". Anyway, this engine should allow lots of games to be completed in short amounts of time, which lets us have more games to take to class and show off to friends (hehe). This since the production of the game will (read very carefully) be based basically on art, level and sprite design, and making it fun, instead of making it work.

The next several things can be put into a clump. Talent, time, and ideas are important, but can be put together. Talent is needed, since a good engine can still churn out bad games. Here's an example. Say we have a mario / sqrxz type engine. One person puts a lot of time to make good sprites and levels, and these levels are challenging (like in sqrxz *cough*praise*cough*). And another person makes a game with this non animated sprite and a flat level with a couple enemies, and one can finish it in a couple seconds. You tell me which is fun (which is talked about later). Next, time is the essence. No one has enough of this. But with the engine out of the way, more time can be spent making the game itself and making it fun, instead of making it work through tedious testing. Finally, ideas are important. Would you rather play a game with its own world and interact in it like a real world (The Legend of Zelda 64: Ocarina of Time, by Nintendo), or a game that is like an interactive movie with slick cg (Final Fantasy 7 and 8, by Square), or would you rather choose a game that was thrown together with no good idea at all, more like a jumble of what a game could have been (too many games to mention, but one is ET on the Atari). Anyway, what I'm getting at is that ideas are important too. Let's try to stop copying, and try to improve games. If you think I'm contradicting myself, I'm not. Even if we use the same engines, we can still improve games in many ways (which I will get to later).

Now for the biggest chunk of the good game factor. I would personally put it at 99% of the good game factor, but some may give it slightly less, but no matter what, this will make or break a game. This is the fun in a game. With out this, why even play the game? Just dump it for more space on your calc, or use it as a door stop or Frisbee. In the most recent issue of Nintendo Power, Volume 111, they interview one of the best in the video game industry. He is Shigeru Miyamoto, and he recently won the Hall of Fame award in a new awards program for the video game industry, The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. In the interview, he explained one way he makes games fun. This is to balance a game with 70% objectives and 30% surprises. Also in the interview, he says he wants to create a miniature world in a game, much like what he is doing with Zelda 64 (coming out November 23 this year by the way), and also that he stresses actual interactive action and immersion (another words, fun) into the game rather than the cg movies, fmv movies, plot, story, etc. since the latter only adds to this action and immersion. He wants us to play a game rather than watch a movie. If all this sounds a little too advanced for our little wimpy calculator compared to the Sony PlayStation, Nintendo64, and the upcoming Sega DreamCast, it might be. But fun is fun, and if we could some how get the fun into a game (and this may come in many forms, who knew dropping blocks was fun?) then we could have the ultimate achievement, the good game.

Now the equate for this is the good game. These can come in many forms, and here is a quick list of games that sold well for consoles - Zelda, Mario, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Castlevania, and many more. These are classics in many of our minds, but what makes them good? Good question, but there is no answer. The things in the equation are only quick overviews of my opinion, but there are so many other things, such as graphics and sound (maybe not for the calcs). These add to the immersion. As long as you keep in mind what games are for you should have no problem churning out good games. And this you is to all of you (and me), since working together is one way to make good games, since you have many opinions on good games, rather than just one. Any way, the thing about games is to make them fun. We play games to be entertained. This is why fun is so important. If you keep in mind what makes your day, and what makes our days, then you have one part of the many parts of good games. Then lets think of other possibilities, like our natural tendencies (bloody games seem to get more attention - Mortal Kombat). All in all, anyone should be able to make a good game.

If you remember back to the beginning of this article, I mentioned graphics and sound are not as important as the rest of the parts. This is true, graphics and sound only add to the fun. But here is a radical idea (just like the engines idea). Why can't we have several groups of people concentrate on one aspect of the game? I can't program, and I don't expect myself to be good enough to make a good game for a while, but I can do computer art effectively. So why not have some people just make graphics as good as the calc can handle, and the other people make sound effects (if needed). Then we can have archives of sprites and graphics for use with the engines just to speed the process along a bit. I'm not saying that making a Frankenstien game (put pieces together) is the way to go, but with this graphics library and engines library, we can concentrate on the fun of the game, not the technical stuff.

This concludes my huge article on what a good is game is and some ideas on getting to this dream on the calc even with such a somewhat limited backing (face it, not everyone on the planet has one, and not everyone that has one even has a clue how these games are made or even knows they exist). Here now is a list of what I think are possible games that can be made on the calc and still be fun (some mentioned in the above italics):

• Final Fantasy (give us some ports PLEASE!!)
• Pocket Monsters (Pokemon - really really good game, huge backing in Japan)
• Castlevania (no one gets bored of a hack and slash or whip game, just make new levels and bingo, instant new game)
• First Person Perspective (maybe we can get a multiplayer action going on now, lets make a 4 port connector for 4 people in the same game - hint hint hint hint)
• Simple Board Games (I'm tired of finding that second player, why not add an AI? Don't make the Space Odyssey one though..)
• Puzzle Games (sure fire way to get us through classes, but just make new types, not clones of Tetris)
• And finally, something that might not be even possible, but at least someone can prove me wrong... A type of Mario 64 game.
• And maybe a slide show movie and etext books on the calc can help a bit.

Anyway, have fun programming and making games, and I really hope you all consider these ideas (since it took me forever to write, but hey, I got stuff to get off my chest). Feel free to respond and add other pieces to the good game puzzle. And finally (real this time), nothing is impossible, it just seems that way until someone achieves the impossible.