Ben Olding Games

Ben Olding Games http://www.benoldinggames.co.uk/ Flash game design and development en Thu, 17 May 2012 10:38:20 EST 240 http://www.benoldinggames.co.uk/feed/logosmall.png Ben Olding Games http://www.benoldinggames.co.uk/ How 2011 Is going... http://www.benoldinggames.co.uk/benoldinggames.asp?SiteID=11&PageID=533&SectionID=0&BlogID=9 In January, I posted a blog about the previous year and also my plans for 2011. The plans for this year seemed to interest a few people, so I thought I might look back and see how what ive done so far matches up to my plans, and also talk about a few things that have happened...

Flash Gaming Summit

Since the last post, I've been to another one of these and was actually on one of the panels, which was a great honour. I also went to a few cool parties including one at the Kongregate office, the FGS VIP dinner and a Shanda games (parent of Mochi). It was great fun as always and met lots of the people from previous years, it now feels like meeting up with a bunch of old friends, but still feels like a privilege meeting up with so many high profile flash devs. I also met some new people:

Daniel Stradwick - Creator of Monsters Den and Dragon Age Legends. Really nice guy

Many people from mochi, including Justyn who I missed the previous year

Rob Donkin - creator of loads of great games (Pandas big adventure, Battle Beavers, Legend of the Golden Robot + other big titles

Dmitry Pavlenko from Iriysoft - Creator of the Massive Cursed Treasure game

Others - im sure there were more, but it was a while ago now

I also went to the GDC expo, which had some cool things on show, but really is another world for me and not all that relevant. I dont think I'll bother next time

Games

Out of the games i mentioned in the previous post, I havent started Dragon Fist 4, or Warlords: Heroes and Villains, but what I have been working on, some released, some not:

Warlords 2: Rise of Demons

The sequel to my biggest game so far! WL2 was sponsored by Armor Game, and has done pretty well with approximately 20 million plays. This of course is quite a small amount compared to "Warlords: Call to Arms", but I think there is more competitions now, and there are quite a few similar games available.

I am proud of this game, it was nice to be able to spend some money on voice actors, composed music, graphics etc, being pretty confident that I could get a sponsorship fee to cover it. I think the gameplay and strategy has much more depth to it than the first game, and I love all the little men climbing ladders and stuff.

There was a bit of a drama on Kongregate, because the game was sponsored by Armor Games and not Kongregate (the first one was). Also 3 of the 10 races were exclusive to Armor Games. Lots of people called me names, rated the game down and accused me of being disloyal. There was one comment that was something like "15 million plays, and this is how you repay us??" - This bothered me a bit because the game had 15 million plays on kongregate largely, due to the races in the first game also being locked to the sponsor's site (in that case kongregate). Where WL:CtoA went live on kongregate, I received loads of nasty comments about the game then, and the game was never highest rated on the site or anything (most played for a while), so if anything the game was driving players to kongregate, not the other way around. Yet lots of kongregate players seemed to feel that I belong to them and any business with other sites makes me somehow a traitor. This whole thing upset me and if anything makes me feel less inclined to favour kongregates users over any other site. Saying that though, I am still a fan of the portal and the staff that run it.

The Osiris Conflict

I made this game originally for an adobe competition to make a flash android game. I then improved it to release on the Blackberry PlayBook, after that I released it on the web, where it didn't do very well at all. Which was shame.

I'm not 100% sure why, it may be the graphics, or it may be the slow pace of the game, im not sure. I still feel its a good game and am proud of it,

I got a free playbook, free nexus one phone and some free adobe software for it, so not a complete waste of time. Als, its still selling ok on the PlayBook (well a few dollars a month)

Wheelchair Rugby

At the end of last year, I was approached by Channel 4 (big UK TV Company). They had acquired the rights to show the London 2012 paralympics and were interested in having a Wheelchair Rugby game made based on the Crunchball 3000 engine. After researching the sport I found that it is a very tactical, extreme, interesting sport which, in many ways, is quite similar to Crunchball. I have always fancied making another sports game, and this seemed like a good project, also of course it was quite an honour to be doing something to promote the sport as well as working for channel 4. So I took the project and have not regretted it.

What is nice about this project is that its aim was mainly to promote the sport, so I havent had to put any ads in, or anything trying to get players to go to any website etc. Also having a budget for the game has allowed me to do things that normally I might not bother with due to cost. So as well as the players in the game, there is a referee and a match commentator.

I had some great music done by Future Motions on this, some 3D modelled player sprites and other graphics done by Vortix Games Studio and some great, street fighter style characters drawn by illustrator Is Yuniarto

On the channel 4's 'That Paralympic Blog' there is a video about the game, where I am interviewed and a Great Britain player plays the game! Very exciting for me.

Click to view Movie on YouTube

Starfighter: Infinity

Its nice that progress is finally being made on this huge project! It feels like it is coming together now. There are 50 ships in the game, 3D modelled by El and Nebula from the forum, and loads of weapons (loads more to come!).

There are a few new features including a skill tree that you can unlock as you progress to in turn unlcok other things. Support weapons - maybe weapons is the wrong term, but there are "weapons" that you can use to help your team mates. There do things like recharge their shields/energy, stealth them or give them other boosts. Which brings me onto modifiers: This is a new system in which different weapons can have different effects on what they hit, so while a weapon might do some damage, it might also temporarily slow down their firing rate, and other things like that.

I have made a website specifically for this game, which has its own blog, where hopefully I will post far more specific info about the game: check it here: [Click to View Link]

Achilles 2

The first Achilles was created as an experiment to see how quickly I could build a game, and it took me about 2 weeks. Sadly this is taking a bit longer, but is still progressing relatively quickly.

The graphics have been improved dramatically since the last game thanks to Marco from VortixGamesStudio and I have some great unique music made by Jacob Cartwright ( [Click to View Link] )

The original Achilles was pretty violent, one of the main ideas was the decapitation, and I think this sequel is even more extreme with lots of violent deaths. I'm sure some people will disapprove, but i hope not too much.

The combat system is still simple, but will have a bit more depth and complexity and will feature things like being able to stab enemies after they have been knocked to the floor. I hope to have some simple combos, but we will see how it goes... ]]> Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:51:54 EST Good Advice: Make your game fun http://www.benoldinggames.co.uk/benoldinggames.asp?SiteID=11&PageID=533&SectionID=0&BlogID=7

About a month ago, the Flash MindMeld went live. This was a project create by a developer called David Fox, where 60 people in the flash game industry (including yours truly) were asked to record a 60 second audio clip answering the question: "What makes or breaks a successful flash game?"

Have a look/listen here: [Click to View Link]

Stating the obvious?

Since then I have read a few blogs complaining that about 2 thirds of the people on there offered the advice "make the game fun", and that this was obvious advice. I have 2 things to say about that...

Usually this was part of another tip, and to elaborate on the 'fun' part would be very difficult given that there was only 60 seconds in which to speak

Maybe it wouldn't be said so much if people did think about 'fun' more when creating their games...

The advice I offered was to start working on the fun part of your game first, and to abandon if you can't make it fun within the first few hours.

One blogger compared this to asking a chef how he makes his food so good and him saying 'I make it delicious!'. Fair enough. But if chefs were like flash game devs, then lots of chefs wouldn't be making food taste nice, they would be spending lots of time on arranging the food on the plate, they would be thinking about what additives they need to make their food addictive, and how to make it so that customers were still hungry after so that they would buy more, they would trying to optimize the price so that customers would get a taste for free, then gradually increasing the price as customers come back for more. If then, the food tasted bad, then none of that would matter.

Its the same with flash devs, on game dev forums you often get people showing off their game that they have spent months and months on, often with impressive technical accomplishments and/or high levels of polish, which often impress developers, but they have failed to take a step back and think, will people enjoy this?

You rarely see on forums people asking "how do I make this fun?", you get people asking how they can get a game sponsored, or how to distribute a game effectively. Often when a game doesn't do to well, the developer will not even consider that their game isn't fun, they will blame everything around them and often the players. "Newgrounds players don't like anything without zombies in" is something I've heard said a few times, but I don't believe for a second.

So developers...

When making your game, think to yourself "Is this fun", when you add a feature think to yourself "Why am I adding this? does it make it more fun? if not then for what reason am I adding it?"

Get other people to try your game, I would recommend a range of people. They don't all have to like it, but if they don't then ponder why they don't and see if it is something you can solve. Don't just get other developers opinions as developers are impressed by different things to standard players.

So how do you make your game fun?

This is quite a wide ranging question and will vary from game to game, genre to genre, but I will do my best to offer some tips

The challenge in a game should be the game, not the controls

If controls are difficult to pick up, then players will get frustrated because they can't get the game to do what they want. Instant fun killer. As the developer you will have had loads of practice and therefore will find it difficult to assess how easy/hard your controls really are, so get so other people to try your game and watch how they get on.

If your game does have difficult controls, then there can sometimes be satisfaction in mastering them. 'Mirrors Edge' and 'Street Fighter 2' are both good examples of this. But in both of these games, if you haven't mastered the controls, then the game is still playable and you enjoy playing while you are learning.

Difficulty

If your game is too difficult then people will get frustrated (enraged sometimes!), if it's too easy then it gets boring. So it's important to spend time getting this right.

^ an average gamer

Start the game very easy - again remember that you will be well practised at your game, first time 10 year old players won't be!

Make the end of the game hard - this depends on the type of game, but usually if a player has reached the end of a game, they have decided they like it and have become good at it, therefore giving them a challenge at the end will be more satisfying for them and will make the game last longer.

Another tip is on easy levels, you can offer a harder route for those skilled enough. Like maybe in a racing game there could be a shortcut if you can make a difficult hidden jump. This give players a reason to come back.

Overall though, remember that the experience (the fun?) is more important than the challenge. Player need to feel like they've achieved something, but that doesn't mean that you can't help them if they are finding it hard, or challenge them more if they are finding it easy.

Satisfying gameplay

Identify what your players will be doing most often in your game, regardless of genre, and make sure that is satisfying e.g. if you are making and RPG game which has lots of fighting in, then make the fighting satisfying. At the same time, if you are making an RPG then make sure that the RPG stuff is also satisfying.

But how do you make the gameplay satisfying? Well that's probably a whole other blog post (or more), but I think the 2 main things for most game genres, are:

Making the player feel like they are progressing in some way at a reasonable rate, either through levels, or xp, or by getting better at the game.

Giving some audio/visual impact or some other impact on the game. e.g. if you are shooting things, then it just disappearing doesn't feel as good as if it explodes with a large bang, sending debris flying and knocking away all surrounding enemies.

The experience

So you've got a good core mechanic and the gameplay is satisfying, another thing to think about is the general experience of playing. Decide what 'feel' you would like your game to have, and then select some art, sound effects and music that fit the game. These things can create an enjoyable atmosphere and increase the enjoyment of the player, even though they usually won't realise. If you play "The company of Myself" (http://www.kongregate.com/games/2DArray/the-company-of-myself) then think about the atmosphere that they have created through use of the music and the story, then try playing on mute ignoring the story, maybe put on some upbeat techno. I then just becomes another puzzle platformer.

Side note: I have heard that a large number of players mute sounds and music before they've even started. Its hard to determine though that they mute as a matter of course, or because they mute because lots of music in flash games is low quality generic music. I still think its important even if only 40% of people have it on, because thats still potentially a lot of people and if they keep coming back then it will definitely be worth it. Music doesn't take too long to add if you get someone else to make it, or buy some royalty free, and can potentially have a huge impact on the player experience.

Some would describe all this as 'polish', but I'm not sure that term gets across how important and integral this is to the gameplay. If I get a fast car and polish it, it will look a bit nicer, but it won't change my driving experience much.

Replayability

This is more about allowing your players to get the most fun out of your game, rather than making it fun, but I will leave it in anyway...

If your players are enjoying your game, then its almost a shame for them to finish it and then leave because they are done, not because they have had enough. So its worth providing ways for them to continue to enjoy your game. But how do you do this?

Achievements - This is one of the easiest (cheapest?) way of adding extra replayability. Players can play through again trying to tick these off. If they have had enough then they don't have to. It's important that these are all actually achievable and that you are rewarding people for doing well at the game. Dying 5 times is just a ridiculous way to play the game. Also be careful that these don't unintentionally become the focus of the game, and also bear in mind that they are a good way of ruining any atmosphere/immersion in your game

Different characters/races - These can provide the player with a reason to play the game through again several times, especially if you have a different story ending for each. A good example is streetfighter 2. Finishing with 1 character doesn't take all that long, but having 8 characters means it still fun to play through 8 different times.

Different Difficulty Levels - This is similar to having different races, but can be less appealing as the game will probably be the same but harder, this can be good for hardcore fans

Never Ending Game - Some games you can get away with not having an end ever, and then players can keep playing until they get bored. But you have to weigh up whether your game has enough in it for this, open world games and MMORPGs are good for this approach

Level Editor - The player has run out of levels, why not let them add some content to your game, if they can share them easily then your game could have potentially infinite hand crafted levels.

Multiplayer Mode - Multiplayer action takes a longer time to get boring, provided the players have the freedom to do lots of different things. Bear in mind though that multiplayer flash games require maintenance and can be very stressful, particularly if distributing the game. So you may increase fun for others, but you may not have fun yourself!

Final Note

This is just a list of things that I have come up with, which I think are important. Fun is very subjective. What I think is important though is that you find your game fun (at elast for the first few months of development!). If you don't enjoy it, then how can you expect others to? This is why I think its best to make games you are passionate about rather than trying to second guess what the general player likes.

If you have any other idea about what makes a game 'fun', or if you disagree with anything I have said, pelase let me know in the comments below! ]]> Sat, 12 Mar 2011 07:27:17 EST Thoughts on 2010 and plans for 2011 http://www.benoldinggames.co.uk/benoldinggames.asp?SiteID=11&PageID=533&SectionID=0&BlogID=6

2010

2010 was my second year as a full time flash game developer and rather than just just scaping by like i did in 2009, it actually went quite well...

Flash Gaming Summit

In march I attended the flash gaming summit in San Franciso, where the best bit for me is meeting other devs.

People I met:

FlashGameLicense: I've had many dealings with FGL now, particularly with Adam, Chris and Luke. Its great to actually meet them and see what they are like in person, also its inspiring to chat with them about what the future may hold. Website here: [Click to View Link]

Casual Collective (Paul and David): 2 great guys, having a half hour chat with them is more valuable to me than all the talks at the conference. Website: [Click to View Link]

Dan from Armor Games: He is such a smiley, generous person. It's really nice to see someone who still views making flash games as fn rather than just a way to make money. Armor Games actually held their own seperate event, which was a party followed by bowling! Great fun. Website: [Click to View Link]

Lars and Alex from King.com/FunFlow: Really nice people. This was before we were about to release Async Racing. Exciting times! FunFlow: [Click to View Link]

Greg from Kongregate is one of the funniest people in flash imo. I still laugh at his suggestion for a sequel to Hero interactive's game 'Paint the fence': 'Paint the fence 2: Watching it dry' + the look on Jared's face. Website: [Click to View Link]

Con Artist: Great guy and not a hint of smugness about his massive success. Website: [Click to View Link]

Jared from Hero Interactive: Very cheerful bloke, great fun to be around. Website: [Click to View Link]

Weasel: This was just before steambirds was a big hit. He's very good at bowling and made fun of my accent. Website: [Click to View Link]

Tasselfoot: Even better at bowling! Website: [Click to View Link]

Brad Bourne: Had seen him the year before, but hadn't been brave enough to talk to him. Did so this year, and didnt regret it. Website: [Click to View Link]

Zeebarf and Steve from Clickshake: I knew I recognised the name Zeebarf... then Steve pointed to a picture of Remus on his t-shirt... *slaps head*. Very cheerful guys I hope they are there this year. Apologies Steve if you have an alias, but I couldn't remember it. Website: [Click to View Link]

Emily Greer from Kongregate: Only saw briefly this time, but she is very nice. Website: [Click to View Link]

JackSmack - Very friendly. Website: [Click to View Link]

Gregory Weir - More cheerful in real life than you would guess by his twitter! Website: [Click to View Link]

BoMToons - Had a good chat about British/American stereotypes. Website: [Click to View Link]

Ryan from UntoldEntertainment - Saw him for about 5 seconds in a crowded room. But he seemed nice. Website: [Click to View Link]

People I didn't meet but would like to this year (if they are there)

Sean Cooper: Bit of a hero of mine, I didn't know what I would say to him, so got a bit scared. Will have to think of an intelligent question. Website: [Click to View Link]

Justin Wong from Mochi: I exchanged a few emails with him last year, and he has been very helpful with some great advice. Would be nice to shake his hand. Website: [Click to View Link]

Tom from greyhound games: Worked with him to good success, would be nice to meet. Website: [Click to View Link]

Undefined: We've swapped a few emails about games in general and also iPhone games (get Protector here: [Click to View Link] ). It would be great to meet in person, although I don't know if he will be going. Website: [Click to View Link]

Async Racing

Async Racing was the first game I released last year, and in some ways it was very pleasing and in other ways it was disappointing.

For those that haven't seen it, it's a top down racing game where all the opponents are "ghost cars" of previous players, but rather than just racing against the best laps, you get a handful of other players of a similar skill level. Meaning you get the feel of a real-time multiplayer race (to an extent at least!) but without the lag etc that you would normally get. You can also race the record holders and challenge player on facebook via the FunFlow facebook app.

I am very proud of this game and I feel that the concept was a good one and I executed it pretty well, but after having lots of server issues early on I don't feel it got quite the launch I was hoping it would get. I also feel I spent far too much time on it and put far too many features into it - this was due to not really having a clear vision of what I was going to use the game for. At the time I thought I was keeping my options open, but I think in future with projects like this I will try to partner with someone early on so that they can give me some technical support and I can aim the game towards their needs and leave out unnecessary features.

Async racing was also an attempt at microtransactions, where I offered police cars, novelty horns and other things for players to show off for a small amount or money. This has earned some money, but it is about 1/4 of the money earned through the in game advertising. This confirms advice that I have heard that players are more likely to buy things that would actually effect their performance in game. Maybe I would have made more money if players could have bought handling modifiers etc for their car.

I would like to thank FunFlow for their support with this game, they have been really great.

Also thanks to VortixGamesStudio for some excellent artwork and also to Future Motions for some amazing music.

Play on Facebook here: [Click to View Link]
Or on asyncracing.com here: [Click to View Link]

Warlords: Call to Arms - on the iPhone

I was approached by Tom from greyhound games in 2009 about porting Warlords to the iPhone in exchange for a share of the profits. I was originally reluctant to share my source code, I don't know why... maybe just because Warlords was my biggest hit so far and i was afraid he might beat me to the sequel, or maybe because it is really untidy! But I figured it was worth a try, but didn't really expect too much. Tom did an excellent port which runs at a better frame rate than the flash version and has a clever "tweening" engine to fill in the frames inbetween the frames in my original animations. The game took off well and it was nice to see that the old game still had appeal! It's now had over 500k downloads and I am very pleased that I let him do it! Sadly it doesn't equal $500k.... But its paid the bills for a while

Get it for the iPod/iPhone here: [Click to View Link]
or for the iPad here: [Click to View Link]

Warlords 2: Rise of Demons

I had a lot of fun making this game. Because of the success of Warlords: Call to Arms (>100 million plays), I could be confident that this game could earn a fair bit, so I could spent a fair bit on lots of assets for the game, which wouldn't necessarily add value, but would make the game cooler. This included having a cast of voice actors, having some music specially composed and having a whole load of shiny graphics. I also enjoyed adding lots more units with some good fighting animations, which I always enjoy doing.

Overall I feel that the game is doing well. It's not doing as well as WL: CtoA, but then that was a hard target to reach! Armor Games have been a great sponsors here, not just with money, but also have helped promote the game well and put me in contact with quite a few other sites and also have remained really positive and supportive which makes the whole process much more fun!

Thanks to VortixGamesStudio for some excellent artwork and also to Jon Adamich for some amazing music.

Play it here: [Click to View Link]

2011

I suspect a lot of game devs say this and never achieve it, but I would really like to release more games this year. Rather than focussing on 2 or 3 epic games, I would find it much more fun to experiment quickly with different ideas. This is always a challenge though.

Games I want to make this year (but please note that they probably won't all get done!):

Starfigher 3 (SFDG2)

"Starfighter: Disputed Galaxy" was my first attempt at an MMORPG, although I didnt really set out thinking that's what it would be. It was a great game that I was really proud of, and still would be, except it became too hard work trying to fight off all the hackers, when a hacker deleted every single user account and broke the game I decided I couldn't take it anymore and disabled the multiplayer and took down all the leaderboards.

SFDG had/has a very loyal following, among the most loyal of any of my games, and although it hasnt had nearly as many plays as many of my other games, I want to do it for the starfighter fans. Also, SFDG wasn't particularly user friendly, and I have learned loads about security and games in general since then, so I would like to have another go. I have already started this game and you can see some initial footage here:

Click to view Movie on YouTube

Because of the following for this game, there are some talented people on the forum with some great ideas, and also a couple of talented 3D artists who have already between them modelled all of the old SFDG ships which is going to help the new game look really good. Thanks EL and Nebula

The Osiris Conflict

This is a relatively quick game which I made for a mobile games competition. It was rather rushed for the competition and I don't feel it was quite ready for general release. Hopefully it will be soon.

TOC is a turn based isometric strategy game in a similar style to some old games like Jagged Alliance and UFO: Enemy Unknown. Although it is much simpler than either of those. If it does well maybe I will do a sequel with some more advanced features.

Dragon Fist 4

This is quite an ambitious project, but it has been 5 years since dragon fist 3. DF3 was before I had any stats programs to count plays etc, but judging by emails I still get, it was very popular with a loyal fanbase.

Doing fighting animations is something I enjoy most in flash games, and the DF series is where I get to do it the most!

I have been experimenting with a new engine, which should perform faster than DF3 and make it easier for me to add more animations along with some special slow motion effects.

plus, I like the idea of selling additional characters for players to use.

Warlords: Heroes and Villains

Warlords: Heroes is one of my favourite games of mine (they are all my favourites!), I enjoyed doing some story writing and creating the different characters. Since getting some shiney new graphics for Warlords 2, I have been keen to make a new version of W:H, but with maybe 3 or 4 extra 'episodes'

Achilles 2

Achilles has been out for 3 years now and is my second biggest game sicne records began! It has had 48 million plays, which I think is due to its simple over-the-top violent action. Which I find very satisfying. I have some new ideas for a sequel, which I hope would retain the feel of the original, but add some more fun!

Thanks

Many thanks to the following:

Beta testers - Thanks to the following who have been very helpful testing my games before release: Wurmish, Grainsalt, Caesar, Darth Sirov, Miyan Bagaoshi, Didit, Plodder, Frozenqube, Evil-ish, Moo12321, silVer, Orb370, Warlords Undead, Daniel Imber, Teh Werd, amoignem, SomeDude, Nebula, frukfisk, blood18, M5000, ty07, !Catonator!, Dokug, FlapperMK, R_J_H, Connect, Podsy

Other forum members that have had good suggestions and been supportive

FlashGameLicense - Thanks for helping me to make a living once again this year, and thanks for your support. I have been difficult at times I know.

FunFlow and Armor Games - Thanks to both of you for being great to work with this year

Tom from Greyhound Games - Thanks for your excellent port of warlords to iPhone, it has been a really great and unexpected experience. I hope we can do another game in the not so distant future!
My wife Alex who is always supportive and ready to discuss ideas. Also for taking care of the book keeping.

]]> Mon, 10 Jan 2011 06:16:03 EST