What is this blog?

I'm a software developer specialized in videogames (you can access to my personal website from the menu). My name is Oscar (my nickname on the net is "Sertilou"), 

This blog is, more or less, an experiment. iGamesFactory (i of Ideas) is a blog where I'll write all the relfections and crazy ideas I have about videogames and the industry.

Most of the ideas are about how to use games to tell something, no only stories like a novel, but to share something. This new project for me starts with the idea that videogames can be more than just... games. Videogames have the potential to be the door to a new perspective.

Unfortunately, nowadays, and more everyday, people don't like thinking anymore. Cinema, music and literature are becoming every day more dumb, in my opinion. Lazy and talentless artists take most of the credit while real geniuses are completely underrated.

Precisely because of this, I believe in the importance of evolving, of training our minds, refining and culturising them, to be able not only to valorate such masterpieces, but also aspire to create them someday.

And that's it. This is a space to share my ideas, my reflections and contribute. Don't know if someone will read, but I'll leave it here for curious readers.

Recursive Thinking

Recursive thinking

What is recursive thinking? This is a teaching method based on solving one of the greatest problems of the curren education. Think of physics or maths, for example. Students are taught a lot of formulas and nature laws they don't understand, under the promise that someday they will. Because of this, many students lose their interest: they either don't understand or don't care.

    So, recursive thinking consist in, instead of begin by the reasoning, the "formula", the boring part, begin by showing "students" (players in our case) a practical case and example. There are two important points about this:

· We show players an experience, not a resaoning. We're not trying to make players understand something, but live (experience) something. So, in this part, emotion and excitement are more important than... intelligence or elegance.

· We're going to confuse players, that's precisely our intentions. At this moment, our intention isn't to give them something they know how to handle and play, rather the opposite. We want to intrigue them so they want to learn more.

    If we analyse it, we see that this method is completally opposite to our current education system. Students are given examples once they already have the theory and the formula, to apply it. But they should be given the examples also before getting the knowledge, so they felt intrigued, and challenged, and tried to think by themselves how to fix the problem, how to solve the puzzle.

    In physics, for example, students are given a lot of theory they don't understand, and later they will need to practically apply that knowledge to examples and exercises they don't fully understand either, to finally "imagine" or "extrapolate" how it works.

     Recursive thinking means doing that the opposite way: first show students (players) an easy common everyday case, something that even our grandmas would understand. Make them feel intrigued, interested, challenged, As if it were a game (the process of learning, I mean). Then, and only then, show them how to solve the problem, but not the formula directly. Show them, little by little, we can control and manage the situation, and change it, and forsee it, and then they will feel even more interested, they will want that kind of "power". And finally, teach them how to do it.

     Let's apply that to a game. A fighting game, for example. Instead of using the first fight as a tutorial and showing the use of each button, and then all the combos, to finally let the player actually play the game, make it the opposite way. Begin the game by showing the player a battle between two IAs, showing amazing combos and techniques, that will make the player feel interested for the game, because it looks cool!

    Then let the player play, but with more basic controls. Like letting him move freely, and make a combo just by clicking one key, something like that. Something soft. After that you let the player start playing the game, without "tutorials", just make them fight with some dumb-easy IA, very easy to defeat, so the player can test it, try it. Little by little the player will adapt to the game, will learn how it works and get more fun.

    That's totally opposite to make the player play a tutorial at the beginning, and then letting them play a game he still doesn't understand.

    So, to finish up, recursive thinking is about giving players experiences before knowledge, fun before "tutorials" and learn through testing and playing.

Project for beginners (Part 2)

Where to start from? (Part 2)

In the previous part, that you can read here, we commented some aspecto to take into account when starting a project as a beginner developer or a little indie company. We commented things like the genre and the platform.

    Now I want to talk, firstly, about technologies. A growing technology nowadays is multiplayer connections, rankings, social networks communication, etc. Notwithstanding we must consider some warnings: some want to run before learning how to walk. Beware what you can do and what you can't, and the cost of it. For example, don't even think of doing an mmo (multiplayer massive online game). Can sound pretty obvious, but you'll be surprised how many young inexpert developers try something like that.

     Even if we want to make a phone game (for android perhaps), we desire to include many features, such as 2-players matches, or a chat, or ranking, etc. What we need to understand is that, the most simple network feature already needs a server. A server isn't cheap, not at all.

    True, nowadays there are a lot of companies and software that support small software companies with that, holding the servers, hosting connections, etc. But it's still not cheap.

     Don't even think of muliplayer unless;

(1) - The player is the host (so you don't need a server)

(2) - You find a very good offer that you can afford at long-term.

(3) - You have already some experiences, successful projects and backup (investors, revenure, assurance)

Other developers also want to use new technologies, like VR (Virtual Reality 3D Glasses). That's partially ok, but once again, considering some aspects:

· To work with something new is always a risk. Before start working with a new device, I highly recommend to experiment a bit with it, make tests, start making simpler projects, before making a big project official and start working with something you don't even understand.

· You must be aware that, by using that device, you're narrowing your target. Many players won't spend money to buy those devices, or won't like them. So, yeah, making a game with new technologies can be both a strategy to gain or lose players.

    In conclusion: using new technologies can both be great or disastrous. Unlike the previous points we commented in part 1 of this article, it's not about being useful or harmful. Working with new technologies is always a risk. Precisely because of that, the result can be very good or very bad. Nevertheless, we must be aware of our capabilities, our resources, our time and our money and act wisely when taking decisions.

     Next point is the context of our company, involving our crew, the time we've been working, our experience, our resources, etc. We've been talking about what kind of games are better or worse to start making games. But that's not all of what we must consider. The idea of our game can be very affected by our context.

     Let me explain. Imagine you have a wonderful idea about a game, which is great for beginners. You just started your inde games company and you're making one of your first projects. Awesome. But now it turns out that for idea you need good drawing. For example, a visual novel with puzzles, characters, etc. But no one in your company is a wonderful cartoonist. Your company is formed just by programmers, a good modeler, a good musician... whatever. And even someone who can draw, but only one person and he's not precisely Leonardo da Vinci.

    Then you made an awful choice. You can't just pick an idea because it's exciting, thrilling, wonderful, if you haven't the power to develop it. So start by choosing an idea accordly with your roles. If you're more programmers than artists, make a game based in mechanics or hire an artist.

     Also, as I said before: your experience. Some start a company today and tomorrow they're planning on developing a very complex 3D game for pc with the best modeling and mechanics. Hey, hey, just stop there. You need experience, you need technique, you need resources, workers, revenure. You need a lot of things. So calm down.

We developers must accept at first to make... painful and simple games to survive and learn. It's the cylce of live.

     Time is also an important matter. Either you compromise with a client or an investor, or you need to pay your bills and taxes. So you don't have unlimited time to make a game. That's something you need to consider significantly when starting a project.

     Well, for now I think I said enough. The actual conclusion in these two articles is to have one's feet on the ground. Don't run too fast, consider everything and be wise in your choices.

Projects for beginners (Part 1)

Where to start from? (Part 1)

-- This article was becoming too long, so I splitted it into two parts --

   If you are an independent game developer or small company and you want to start making games, a tough decision is always what to do. What kind of game.

     Indeed it's a very important choice. It's not easy like having an idea and shaping it to reality. Many aspects matter, like the genre, the graphics, the mechanics, the story, the caracters, the topic... etc. And precisely that's what I want to talk about in this article, always of course from my modest opinion.

     When we start making games, often we feel excited: a lot of thrilling ideas come to our minds, and we start thinking about all of it: programming, modeling, animating, and we imagine our game already finished! Unfortunately that's not so beautiful as it sounds.

     Some games can be very hard to make, needing a lot of time, money, resources and experience / knowledge. Things we may not have. And for what, if we won't be able to compete with professional games? When deciding about work, the thing we do to eat and live, we need to leave the child aside and think wisely, taking many strategies into account.

    1 - Platforms

    As a beginner, choose always phone or pc, forget about consoles unless you have a backup: investors, companies to support you, etc. Consoles are very strict and require many expenses (like paying a license).

     So, phone or pc? Of course, phone is much cheaper and phone games are (usually) easier to make. Problems? A lot of competence, a lot of copies, a lot of "junk", and a lower income. Phone players are very... chaotic. The biggest stupidity can become viral and popular, while best masterpieces are ignored.

     Don't misunderstand, you can make great games for phone, but it requires more than passion for art. Most of successful games for phone need good marketing and communication, investors, advertisement and a monetization system.

    So just saying, if you're going to make a phone game, just don't stick just in making a game. You'll need more than that to differentiate from other ameteur developers.

    And what about PC? More or less the same, but with some differences. If you're success, PC games can result more profitable. A basic error nowadays: make games for pc not looking for pc. I mean, a lot of developers make games for pc and try to sell them, for example, through steam. But they make games that could be perfectly played in a phone or a portable console like a Nintendo. What's the problem with those games? They aren't taken very seriously.

      Why? Because there are a lot of developers making games like that. If you make a kind of game just because it's easy, you'll just be another among the crowd. Why is your game special if there are just 50 games more like yours.

     So the key about this: differentiate. Always. Now, there are two ways to differentiate:

- Visually: through good graphics or mechanics, for example. Something people can see in pictures or videos. The good thing about this is that, players feel like playing your games easily, just by watching a trailer or a gameplay, which is a good market strategy. Problem: you need resources and potency. Good modeling, good animating, good texturing, good music... and this means, money.

- Arguably: most of indie developers choose this way. Making a game with a good story or message. These kind of games usually get renown and a good community of gamers. In the previous case, it was the media the one who attracted players. Now it will be our own players, through social networks or even through word of mouth, who will announce our game.

     But, problems of this system: (1) at the beginning we'll need a good impulse to become known and gain players. As said before, we'll need marketing, investors, sharing through social networks, communicating.. 

     (2) Five-Ten years ago, this system would be awesome. Nowadays, the problem is that everyone does that, and there's (in my opinion) a saturation of this little indie games. Most of them great, right, but too many. You can play a game, telling you a beautiful deep interesting message, but there are 50 more games doing the same, and that makes these games stop being so special.

     You can still triumph, but you need to be much more original than before.

    2 - Genre

     What kind of genres should we consider as beginners, and which one we shouldn't? 

Let's divide this section in three parts:

- What genres are used nowadays as starters?

- What genres do I advice to use as starters?

- What genres do I NOT recommend to use as starters?

     So, what genres are used nowadays as starters? One of them is puzzles. You must know what it is, but just in case: games in which you must solve riddles, games or investigations to move on.

    Puzzles can be a very interesting and poweful tool, I admit it's a good strategy. Nevertheless, they can also be a two sided sword. First of all I would recommend including them as a part of our game, to combine them with the story and the rest of the game. The grand master of puzzles games is and will always be "Professor Layton" (it was a game for Nintendo DS, search it if you don't know it).

     One thing that Professor Layton did wonderfully was mixing the puzzles with the story, justifying them and making them comfortable, not unnecessary.

     But I've seen some games which use odd silly senseless riddles. For example I played a game in which you found a box with a 4 number combination locker. In another place of the game you found a four lines poem. In each one of the lines of the poem there was written a color. The combination of the locker was the order of those numbers in the rainbow. W-T-F??

   A lot of games make senseless mechanics, puzzles, games, riddles, or just make you walk from one side to the other of the game over and over again. You get to a door, you need a key. Guess where's the key: to the other extreme of the bloody map! And then you go back to the door, open it, and after that door there's: another bloody door!

     Sincerely, if you're going to do that... just don't. Don't make senseless games just to keep the player busy going around in circles, to finally watch the solution in YouTube. Merging mechanics with narrative is something we've already talked about in this blog, and I still expect to write some more articles about it.

Another genre very used is adventure. Most of times in 2D and/or including RPG features. What can I say about these? Personally, I don't like them, because of what I mentioned before. They are games I would have played ten-fiveteen years ago or I'd play now on nintendo or phone, but not pc. Nonetheless, these games usually get a good appreciation.

     These kind of games tend to choose one of these directions: RPG or story. I consider both of them very difficult to accomplish. Precisely this is a genre with real and astonishing masterpieces, and competing with that is... an impossible mission. You can make a good game to spend the afternoon, but if you want to make a good artwork, this genre requires a lot of effort, dedication and creativity.

     Another genre: simple mechanics (generalizing). What's this? Games which are only about a specific mechanic. For example: racing, throwing, shooting, or a platform game without any argument, story, or anything, just levels and levels of jumping and... more jumping.

       Sincerely... I don't like these either. For phone games it would be great, but on pc and by paying, I won't pay money just to be a spaceship shooting in the space. I need... more.

Another genre very famous lately are horror games. They are being ver successful, but I don't really like them. If people do, it's great, only two things to warn: (1) there a lot of horror games, too much, and they start to be tiring, (2) if you're gonna do an horror game, make it right. Because some are very very painful.

    There are obviously more genres, but this article is already taking too long, so I prefer to pass onto the next section.

What genres do I advice to use as starters? Well, there are indeed some genres I think there aren't very popular between indie companies and beginner developers.

However, before continuing, we must understand two things: first, that we don't try to compete with professional games, so even when I comment a game genre, we must always try to find a different, original, interesting point of view for that game, a way to turn that genre into something innovative, if we want to make ourselves a place in the market. And (2), that we shouldn't make a game just about those mechanics. Don't stick only in that genre, join different genres, mix the mechanics with a good story, good characters and so.

So, for example, strategy games (RTS). There aren't many strategy indie games. The first thinking about these is: "they're very tough to make". They are if we think of a classic professional RTS. We don't need to make a classic RTS. Precisely strategy games are a genre that has barely changed. We can always find a new interesting way to see things.

     For example... Chess battles, but with soldiers and monsters, or fighting wars with troops, but not necessarily with a full HD world map and high quality troop models. Maybe just with maps and icons.

     It's just a way to say that we can always find amazing ideas about strategy games with a low cost.

Or fighting games (like street fighter, mortal combat...). We don't need complicated graphics and animations. We can compensate that with changes in the mechanics (since this genre hasn't suffered many changes either) or with a good story. For example, a game I loved was "Injustice: gods among us", not precisely because of the fighting (because I'm not a big fan of this genre), but because of the story and cinematics.

How to make a fighting indie game, if we can animate or model like a pro? For example, a 2D fighting game, by turns, where player must press a combination of buttons and the caused damage depends on that, or with cards (cards are attacks, and the player can prepare his own deck...). Who knows? We can always innovate.

Beat'em up, which is a genre we're losing and that's a pity. It's a good model to tell stories. I'd like to see it again.

Stealth games, also very interesting.

And finally, genres I think shouldn't be chosen as a starter. 

Mostly, complex genres and the ones used by professional companies, such as sport games, shooters (FPS), RPG, complex adventure games, stories/novels in 3D, because they require good animations, dubbing, etc. Genres which are already very used and seen nowadays, as the mentioned horror games or chaotic puzzle games or spaceship games.

     To sum up. I recommend those genres which don't try to compete with biggest companies and those which aren't so seen nowadays. By this, we can both differentiate and innovate. And always, of course, trying to find an interesting point of view, mixing things (genres, mechanics, techniques) and trying to give our game a new perspective.

Game genres

About game genres

I've decided to give this article this so generic title precisely because I want to talk about different topics concerning game genres, not only one. So this article will be varied.

     Recently I was involved in a debate about the fighting game genre (such as Tekken, Street fighter, mortal combat, etc) and someone said that it's weird how this genre has barely changed along the years because indeed, although new technologies and systems have been adapted, such as 3D or physics, the main characteristics of this genre remain the same: side battle system, life bars, rounds, UI, combos, etc.

    But then I thought: if it was different, would we call it "the fighting genre" anyway? I mean, there are a lot of games (genres) including fighting, like adventures, action or rpg. But we don't call them fighting games. In fact, we recognise precisely fighting games by the aesthetics, by the visual aspect. And this makes me think that a large part of videogames and how they are valued or classified depends on the aspect, not the mechanics.

    We say that a fighting game belongs to the fighting genre precisely because of those characteristics previous commented: UI, lateral battle system, combos, K.O, rounds... And we call "evolution" of genres, of videogames and the industry even, the change of this aspects. But if we changed them, games wouldn't be the same game, actually.

    Am I making my point clear? The conclusion is that what games are depends significantly on how they look like and how you introduce them. Those are fixed points. Shooters are recognised by a first person camera with a gun, a cross, ammo, etc. Can we make a shooter game with a 3rd person camera? We could, but many would then classify it as an adventure game. Racing games have a circuit, laps, 4-8 players... Try to change that, and it won't be a racing game anymore.

     And this drives me to the next topic I wanted to talk about: merging genres. When games started back at 70's-80's, they were mostly basic mechanics, not even genres. We can still see that in android games which are usually more basic.

     Nowadays, many of those mechanics are inserted in a larger and more complex game, being just a little part of it.

     Partially, this reminds me of life evolution in Eath (or at least the theory about it). Theorically in a primitive Earth, some components joined (water, primitive gases, electricity (thunders), extreme temperatures) and a basic nutrient was created in water: protein. That wasn't even alive! Through pass of time, those proteins mixed and evolved, forming eventually a cell. Just that. Then cells joined and formed organisms, then microscopic living beings, then fished... etc etc etc and here we are, humans! Humans formed clans, villages, towns, cities and metropolis. So, what I mean is that, all of what you can see nowadays started with a damn protein. Simple things can mix and join to form very complex and amazing things.

     In games, mechanics turned into genres. But since some time ago, even genres have started to mix into... new "multi-genres". For example, what is an adventure game? Adventure can include a lot of things: fighting, shooting, rpg, story (like a novel), strategy, puzzles... and just as a part of it.

     What I mean with all of this is that, to make the industry evolve and innovate, make it all grow, we mustn't stuck in our current genres. Thinking of platform games, shooter games or fighting games is, nowadays, very primitive and basic. We need to stretch our sight to a larger scale. We need to see what we now consider the whole only a part. The same way that nowadays, the mere action of shooting isn't enough to make a game but back in the 70's-80's many developers made games just about shooting, now we need to see what we call a game a tiny part of it.

     A good way to accomplish it is mixing genres and characteristics from them, like I described with adventure games. In fact, adventure games are my favourite precisely because i think they're an evolution. But be careful! We must not do it without thinking because we risk to make something... bittersweet. Our genres must combine well, intermix with sense.

Turn freedom into creativity

Is creativity the secret?

Did you know about Will Wright? Creator of the Sims and Simcity? When he first published SimCity (SimCity is previous to the Sims) he founded with his associate, Jeff Braun, a little indie company called Maxis. With SimCity he won millions and turned that little company to a big one. Later, the Sims became the most ever selled game on pc. He triumphed twice in a very short time, damn that's hard!

     How did he do it? Nowadays is a common debate wether games are better or not by giving players some freedom. For example, open world games have extended significantly. Or stories with choices, although most of times these are controlled to end the same way regardless of your choices.

    However, in some cases freedom didn't help to make a game better or avoiding the critics. And sometimes it even contributed to make a game worse. But here's the thing: in my opinion the game industry always understood it wrong. It's not about "freedom", but "creativity", and this means power.

    Recently I was involved in a discussion precisely about construction and simulation games. Why do people like them so much? And the predominant argument was that people like being god. And that's right, people like being god, having power over things, creating and destroying, deciding.

     Nonetheless, freedom isn't directly that. Freedom is the absence of control, the absence of rules, guides, paths and subordination. And that's where things change, because people (most of them, of us) likes power but they can't stand by their own.

    What does that mean? We people like being creative and imaginative, as far as we are guided and controlled. Sad, right, but that's it. Not all of us have it in us to lead, and most of people prefer to be commanded because it's easier not having to think. It's precisely how the army command line works: commanders think so soldiers only have to execute. But that doesn't mean that once you give orders, you can't let executers experiment, be original or creative.

    In fact, that's what happens. You need to tell people "what to do" but let them decide "how to do it". Think of students or workers. If you tell them what to do, but you give them freedom to try something new, to innovate, to be original, they feel more motivated and excited. However, if you let them to decide what to do, or give them "voluntary work" or let them choose, most of times they don't do anything or are slower and doubtful, and eventually they feel unmotivated because they don't completely understand why they do what they do.

     When we are given orders, we don't have to think why we're doing what we're doing, and we can focus on doing it and we have a reason to do it: we were commanded to. But if you are the one deciding, you take a choice at one moment and you must keep feeling motivated to comply it.

   And there's where many game developers fail. By giving "freedom" to their players, what they do is letting them decide what to do in their game. Careful, don't confuse this with, for example, open world games where you have multiple goals (main mission, secondary missions, collectionables) and player decides where to go. Actually, in those situations you are telling the player what to do. You only give him choices, but that doesn't mean he's deciding what to do, only the order to do it.

     An example of the kind of game I'm describing is, perhaps, "no man's sky". If you don't know it, it's a recent game (2016) which generates planets procedurally to make a whole endless galaxy to explore. The game was announced and players got excited, but I knew from the beginning that it would be a total failure, and it was. Besides that the game is really boring because you have nothing to do, since it's procedural there is no story or plot, the players has freedom to do whatever he wants. Developers give him a galaxy and let the player run free through it.

     And when players start playing, they don't know what to do. They explore, play a little, and they still don't know what to do.

    Would it be different if there was a story? It depends. If there is a main story or at least you tell the player where to go to advance with it (giving orders) it could work. But if you insert secondary random missions along the game (which would be more probable for a procedural game) and you don't tell the player what to do and you only expect him to go one after another completing those missions... I say it would have been a disastrous failure anyway.

     A game can have a lot of content, but if you don't tell players what to do and guide them through your game, they eventually lose passion for it. It may be interesting to decide once or twice what to do, but a game in which you must be constantly deciding what to do can result very tiring and boring.

    Conclusion of this article:

        Freedom = decide what to do

        Creativity = decide how to do what you have to do.

        Players like creativity, not freedom. They can say the opposite, but at the end of the day their true nature reveals.

                                         "He who cannot obey himself, will be commanded" -Friedrich Nietzsche

Chaos: distortion of dimensions

Distorting time and space

Recently I watched a quite famous movie, a bit old already, but I hadn't seen it yet: Memento. For those who haven't watched it yet, it's about a man with a condition: due to a blow to the head he can't create new memories, so after a while he forgets everything.

     The movie begings at the end of the story. Then it goes back until the last time when he forgot, and tells us what happened. Then it goes back again until the time before when he forgot everything and tells what happened until what we already know. It's complicated to explain, but let's say that the movie tells us the story from the end to the beginning. The interesting part is that, as the protagonist can't remember anything, he doesn't know what happened either. Better watch the movie to understand.

     The point of all of this is, that that movie was a (relative) success because it broke the common structure used to tell stories, same as other movies like Pulp Fiction. And I think it's very interesting doing that. I mean, we all have the same structures and systems and organizations to tell our stories. Sometimes someone makes a little change, right, but we don't really "break" it.

    Like Nietzsche said "not even the bravest of us is brave enough to face what he already knows". There are a lot of things we take for granted and we don't dear to question.

    It can be very interesting, for example, playing the different chapters in a game in an anachronistic order. Figuring things out through the chapters, like traveling in time. Or same with space. We can tell a story, with different characters in different places.

   Or maybe with "quantum physics". Quantum physics is, to sum up, "what could happen". What about letting players play (live) possible futures or outcomes to later take a decision. Things like that.

   The point is that, we do not always need to repeat the same order and structure to tell a story. We can have several protagonists, we can have even different versions of the same characters, we can radically change the place, or time, or context, or style of our game.

    And that's also interesting. Style. We always take for granted that a game must have a specific common style. And true, when a game hasn't a defined specific style, most of times it turns out to be ugly and uncomfortable. If it's made without any sense. But with design and strategy, accompanied by narrative and story, it can be very shocking (in the good sense) to change the style of our game.

    Also as a tool to confuse the player and make a psychotic game. The conclusion of this article is to challenge you, a game developer and designer I guess, to defy the stablished rules even beyond the unstablished rules. I mean, as I said, it's relatively easy to "break the rules", but once we do we can see that we've left yet many other rules and structures. To say so, we think we're breaking the house and we're just cracking the wall.

    So here's an advice: once you defy the rules. Take what you've got as a result, and defy that too. Do not try to think always logically and with sense. Be crazy, be senseless, lose your head, do something radical. I'm not saying that a game will be successful for that, just that it's an interesting way to experiment.