The Game Developer's Exam
polycounter lvl 18
Inspired by the excellent Fantasy Novelist's Exam and some joking around in #md, I figured we could get together a list of similarly soul-searching questions that any serious game developer would have to ask themselves. Here's what we've come up with so far:
- Have you ever worked on a game thats been canceled? twice?
- Is your game set in a postapocalyptic world?
- Is your game an MMO?
- Do you pitch your game as "GTA meets _____" ?
- Is your game best described as GTA without most of the fun?
- Have you worked for EA?
- Have you been screwed by EA?
- Reread the previous question and answer truthfully.
- Is your game a thinly veiled tech demo?
- Is your game a remake of a game that came out 10 years ago?
- Are you remaking said game just for brand recognition?
- Are you making a game with a title that ends in a number?
please, contribute your own questions
- Have you ever worked on a game thats been canceled? twice?
- Is your game set in a postapocalyptic world?
- Is your game an MMO?
- Do you pitch your game as "GTA meets _____" ?
- Is your game best described as GTA without most of the fun?
- Have you worked for EA?
- Have you been screwed by EA?
- Reread the previous question and answer truthfully.
- Is your game a thinly veiled tech demo?
- Is your game a remake of a game that came out 10 years ago?
- Are you remaking said game just for brand recognition?
- Are you making a game with a title that ends in a number?
please, contribute your own questions
Replies
- Do you ever find yourself thinking, 'It's ok, sex sells.'?
- Have you ever actually felt bad that your female protagonist isn't wearing more armor?
did said series only have one direct sequel that was met with lukewarm reaction?
has a game in said series, several numbers back recently produced 2 prequels, one movie, one sequel game to the movie, a mobile phone game and a tech demo remake of the intro to the original game even though the original had 60+hrs of gameplay but still you feel you did not finish telling the tale?
is your main male villian more effeminate than your female lead?
does your game start off with the hero being a bit of an ass but by the end becomes a caring world saving hero?
does your game have multiple playable characters but only allow you to play 3 at a time leaving 3/4 of your party at their base level?
does your main hero spend the entire game NOT SPEAKING?
does he mime his intents?
does quite effeminate lead hero get asked for sex by the massivly endowed barely of age president's daughter, but turns her down further enhancing his ambiguity?
do your female characters wear skirts?
is there a weapon with zoom feature in the game?
are there un-level places where you can use said weapon to look up said skirt?
do you texture panties on said females because you know your target audience are perverts?
are your villians more like escaped mental patients than highly trained soldiers in an elite military unit?
Snake, do you think love can blossom, even on a battlefield?
Snake? SNAKE?! SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!?
- Is your game a sci-fi first person shooter pitting man against aliens?
- Is your game a World War I or II shooter?
- In your games, does a villian reveal to the player his 'true' form?
- Does your game feature historically accurate giant crab monsters?
;(
Is your game still using command line codes to change game play or control variables?
Could a description of your main character be boiled down to "space marine?"
Does you game involve hijacking cars, killing pedestrians, etc.
Do you:
- Stop patching a game that still has major bugs in order to make a sequel?
- Decide that since Counterstrike is popular you should make an exact clone of it?
- Decide that for any other game?
- Try to make an RTS when all you ever do in a game is build defenses and rush for the super units?
- Promise that your game will allow the player to do anything he wants, every choice influences the world but in the end the game only allows the player to look good or evil and get a different ending movie?
- Write into your public "dev diary" how the AI characters in your game do so many things you didn't expect yet in the final game all they seem to do is run straight at the player and die?
- Think that placing savepoints one or two hours of gameplay apart is necessary to make the game challenging?
- Make a game series that's in the double digits now and all games feature almost the same story?
- Consider random enounters a good way to add more play time to your game?
- Assume the player won't notice if you just paste the same room a few times in a row in an FPS?
- Realize bloom is "next-gen" and the more you add of it the better your game looks?
- Think an RTS wouldn't be fun if the player could select more than 12 units at the same time or queue more than 6 production orders?
- Invest more and more money into copy protection systems yet your game still seems to be available for download on day 0?
- Think those hundreds of complaints about the game not running because the copy protection is borked are only the pirates?
- Consider requiring an internet connection to install your singleplayer game?
- Really think the pirates will be the ones inconvenienced by your "unbreakable" copy protection?
- Want to make an MMORPG even though your company is just a startup?
- Does your game feature crates?
- Barrels? Preferrably exploding and conveniently placed between a few enemies?
- Sewers, especially if it's the official game of a movie that doesn't involve sewers?
- Barrels? Preferrably exploding and conveniently placed between a few enemies?
[/ QUOTE ]
wtf thats the best bit of playing a game! KA-Boom!
edit: is your game based on playing darts?
Do badgers drop coin and maybe a leather jerkin?
Does the overuse of specualar maps make your world look plastic.
Does your game have elves?
Does your game have trolls?
do your monsters socialize behind special secret walls,, sometimes even in special secret walls that are behind other special secret walls.
ninja cyborgs? awesome idea? or incredibly awesome idea?
do we want to slap your games "hero" and tell him to stop being a whiney bitch.
Does installing the game require the user to restart?
- Do you think that adding one more crate will help ballance a level visually and in game play?
- Do you ever allow the player to collect most of the good items? But before they can use them, club them over the back of the head, lock them in some kind of jail and force them to start over?
- Or just not place the needed pieces the ubber item needs to function, in the current level?
- Do you give the player the really cool weapons at the end of the game, with way too little ammo to actually make using it worth it?
- Do you intendo to turn the player of your game into a female dog?
Do badgers drop coin and maybe a leather jerkin?
[/ QUOTE ]
This one made me laugh out loud
- is your elite Space Marine unable to do something as basic as hold a flashlight and pistol at the same time?
- do the batteries of the flashlight have a shorter lifetime than a lit match?
- has your game been in development for half the life of most of the artists working on the game?
Did Ben Mathis work on your game? OH SNAP!!!!
[/ QUOTE ]
If not, doomed to failure!
does your mulit-level multi-building super secret military/research/secret base have a single restroom facility for the hundreds of employees/gaurds?
does the player have to kill an enemy to gain access to a required item in said restroom?
is the restroom the site of major occurence (new strong enemy or character interaction scene)?
is the restroom enemy free but contains health items?
is the only time you are in a restroom at the begining of the game?
is there blood all over the restroom walls?
is there a secret passage in the restroom?
do the urinals have motion activated flushing, have working sinks/hand driers/toilet seats to enhance the immersion in the game world?
does your game feature characters with bowel/incontinence problems?
are these problems a family trait?
can you kill enemies while they take a pee?
ar there pin up girl posters on the back of the stall doors?
and finally, is your portable game one that players take with them to the restroom instead of a newspaper/magazine?
Is your game likely to offend the delicate sensibilities of one or more groups? If not, why not?
Is your game avatar customizable enough to accommodate every known ethnic group (or subgroup), gender, religion (or lack of religion), cult, sexual preference and trendy fashion sense?
Have you ensured that all your villains are causcasian males so as not to infer that members of any other group or class could be villains?
Oh come on, that's not even a question! Jack Thompson would be offended by Tetris.