Game Making Rules, round 2

I wrote an entry for the first Manifesto Jam eight years ago which you can find here. This is both a separate piece and an addendum. This one doesn't cover anything the first did, and that one was made for other people to be able to read and use.

You might get some use out of this, but this one's for me.


Players Should Be Allowed To Leave - Games take an age to get through a lot of the time. People have a lot of places that their time needs to go. People shouldn't feel bad for leaving before reaching the ending. If they're coming back after a long time, let there be some form of journal or replayable level they can go back to and go "oh right, THIS is what I was up to". And quit with the live service "we need our concurrent players/player retention numbers to look good so here's Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Special Event, This Week Only, Daily Special, Limited Time Banner, Refreshed Shop" bullshit. Are you making a game or a failing meal delivery service?

Players Are Going To Stay - People crave mastery. There are people playing old games and speedrunning them to the point that they're trying to shave off milliseconds. Someone is playing something for the literal hundredth time today; maybe for improving at it, maybe for the fun of it, maybe some secret third thing. There's also plenty of people that are discovering a game that's been out for years for the first time today. I'm not saying you need to future proof your game, but don't be afraid to not add post-game content or New Game Plus modes. People will play.

Developers Should Be Allowed To Leave - Not every game needs to be a fucking forever game. If I update a game three years after v1.0 was released, don't tell me "wow, thought this was a dead game". It's not dead, it's finished! I decided to replay it and wanted to make changes because I could! If it makes you want to give the game a second look or playthrough great, but I didn't do it for you! Let me make other shit! Let us leave!

Developers Should Be Allowed To Stay - In case this does somehow change in the future, the year I'm writing this is 2026 AD and people are being let go from game development companies at an unprecedented rate. The companies want to automate and want their ongoing costs to be lower so their value looks higher to investors. Fantastic experts are being told that they should go indie rather than work for a company, which is much like telling an arm bone to plant itself and grow into a body because you saw someone do that with a tree branch into a tree. We're losing some of the best and brightest as they go into other fields because this industry doesn't pay well, takes a lot of time and effort, many projects don't even see the light of day, and even success is met with layoffs. If people want to stay, there should be things in place to allow them to.

Let The Players Have Pride - Respect people's intelligence. I know that Streamer Brain™ is a thing and you want to cater to the lower attention spans people have and so you advertise on whatever 10 second clip service is currently operational and legal in your country. But there's plenty of people that watch 2+ hour deep dives into things or full stream VODs or binge watch whole seasons of shows. There are people who play games the same way. By all means put the yellow paint and be thorough with your tutorialization, but don't be afraid to have enough information that I'll want to make a spreadsheet to track it all, or to keep the information vague enough that tracking it myself's a necessity. I did that in graph paper notebooks in the 90's, and I'll do it again without hesitation. The new generation's not so far removed or different, older people just report on them like they do out of fear and cowardice.

Have Some Pride Yourself - I am seeing many games that show a growing amount of compromise. Letting the player skip important dialogue or turn it off entirely in settings, an autobattle mode to cut down on manual grinding, games that say the best and most moral thing you can do is turn this off and leave. If it's not a story worth telling why the fuck are you telling it?! If it's not an experience worth having then take it a step further! Really dig into the why, or get into something even worse, or push the player to see what more they'll tolerate! But stand for something, anything! Draw a line in the sand, dig in your heels, and prove that where you are and where they are are a place that deserves to exist!

If You Want To Automate What You Make, Leave - People don't want to hear what someone couldn't be bothered to say. They likewise don't want to play something you couldn't be bothered to make. If you want to make something with machinery that's ultimately a disposable experience after it's been in contact with a person for a few minutes, get into the paper plate or water balloon business. This business is for people who care, and care too much.

The Next Person To Ask How One Of My Games Is Supposed To Make Money Dies - I occasionally show my games at events and a regular comment I get is "So... how does this make money?". Games don't make money much like gambling doesn't; a few people win big, but the average balance across all the tickets is deep in the red. I don't make games to make money. That wasn't the deal. The deal was that if I make games, then I'm doing work that doesn't make me want to jump off an overpass like my office job in 2012 did. The making is what keeps me alive, and far more alive than I was before. Money's convenient, but if you're asking about how one of my games is supposed to be profitable you're already two steps behind me and what I'm doing.

Rest And Regenerate, Then Fight - When I started making games I was homeless for three years, lived in a shithole for two years where I had a futon and desk and spent most of my time in a 6x6 foot area, and was homeless another year after that. What I was making at that time wasn't as good as what I make now, not just by virtue of skill but because I'm eating cooked food and sleeping in a bed eight hours a day. I don't know how long I'll be in this position, but I'm in better health at 37 than I was at 27, and it reflects in everything I do. Eat and sleep well, and if you can't then that's a priority to fix.

BUT FIGHT GODDAMMIT - Everything is in service of action. Gather strength. Ready yourself. But do not overprepare or take caution in the name of fear. A battle standard planted behind your own lines in cowardice falls fast. Advance. One foot in front of the other. If you can't run, march, or walk, or crawl, or scream loud enough to make your enemies falter so you have time to get up. But fight!