A comprehensive list of universal laws that apply to the art and science of video game design. Observe:

Law of Completion: Once you have built the final exe and test it, you will find out that you have overlooked one crucial element and have to fix and build it again.

Law of Inevitability: At least one feature you where really proud of will have to be cut from the final product.

Focus Rule: The more time you invest in a certain feature or level, the less your audience will notice it or care

Law of the LetsPlayer: After release, you will notice at least one LetsPlayer on youtube do something or try something in your game that you never, in a million years, would have even thought about or considered. This can have positive or negative side effects.

Schrödingers Loadingbar: An immobile loadingbar during build/test/play or installation actually means that the software is both: crashed and still running.The only way to find out is to use control/alt/delete which may or may not cause a crash that may or may not have been present before.

Law of Gathering: Whenever you think you have all the assets to tackle your new level/idea. You will find out that you miss that one crucial item/character/script.

Law of Futility: Attempts to rival AAA studios are not only futile, but also often attempted by people who know that they are futile.

Reviewer Theorem: No matter how easy your game is, some reviewer will complain about it being too difficult.

Law of the Playstation: No matter how good you think your art direction is, someone will compare your game to "playstation 2 graphics".

Scripters Law: The moment you have a script up and running, you'll find a better version either on the store or the forum.

Bambers Law: Lee will add a feature at the precise moment you have planned your game around its absence.

Law of Presentation: The probability of your project crashing increases with the amount of people in the room you wish to present it to.

Law of the Industry Standard: The more expensive a tool is, the less convenient is its interface.

Rule of Visual Fidelity: The closer your graphics are to contemporary standards, the more people will scrutinize them as they no longer identify them as "indie".
The Game Guru feature manifesto: The more important a feature is, the less people vote for its implementation

Law of similarity: No matter how unique or exotic your idea is...someone will say that it looks just like [insert well known title here]

Rule of Competence: the more able you are, the less epic and original are your ideas.

Law of Duration: Everything takes about three times longer than you think it does.

Twin Theorem: Even if you have 2 identical PC's with identical specs, drivers and OS, your software will still inexplicably crash on one of them.

Wolfs Law: Even if you finish your project to your best knowledge, you still have a 40% chance of not being able to get the full experience to run. If this occurs, you'll only be able to run half of your game or in worst cases only the first level.



-Wolf

Yup, been there

here's another one:

GG Forum Law: No matter how bad your WIP is, only Wolf has the chutzpah to really tell you the truth

It's funny 'cause it's true. In the days of Doom and the Sierra 'Quest' titles, no-one complained about graphics, even though they were terrible. Nowadays, no matter how graphically amazing a game is, there will be a chorus of complaints about the graphics.

I love how people over on Steam slate GG for it's graphics, saying it's dated and looks like something from the 80's. Yet I see WIP's that look like the graphics can rival some of the most modern games, granted GG does have it's issues (mainly in the performance and light mapping areas) but what they don't seem to realise down there is that graphics quality isn't always just down to the engine, it's all about how good your models are and how much effort you put into lighting them.

Eh! It was always like this. I guess the line between constructive criticism and bashing is too narrow for a lot of people to bother.
Back in FPSC days, we where harsh about our criticism on the german speaking forums where there was almost no real criticism on the TGC boards. People didn't like it, they just didn't post. I however belief that pointing out flaws and communicating them in a helpful way while a game is still in the W.i.P status can make a lot of difference. Now in GG times, there isn't that much posting going on in the work in progress boards to begin with, so even less criticism.

Actually: Why is that? Every triviality gets discussed to death on the product chat boards, yet most work in progress games apart from some advanced ones get barely any comments?



Internet, Internet Comments and people being jaded by the advances we made. I'm not that big on graphics myself and way more interested in art design. Extra animations on characters in old adventure games can still charm me just as much as all the pseudo-realism in a new battlefield game.



80s?? Are we at the 80s now? I remember them saying late 90s...but 80s? Ha

Well... I know where most of these comments come from. The early 3D games from the late 90s are also super cool and photorealistic in my memory. We remember them idealized. Whenever these comments came up here I linked to games from that period. People quickly forget how lowpoly, simplistic and flat games used to look. Especially with lighting, normalmapping and postprocessing being completely absent. I looked this up recently...in my memory, it looked nearly as good as a recent game from that genre.
Also people just drop a bunch of chars and props, hit test game and say "jupp! This is what game guru looks like".
I've been following this game here... and throughout its development, there where comments that insisted that this isnt unity, because "unity does not look this good".



-Wolf

"Rule of Competence: the more able you are, the less epic and original are your ideas. "

This resonates with me

And yes the WIP boards are very quiet on this forum, so often to get feedback or comments people post to 'product chat' (also as Lee only seems to visit chat and if you want to see if there is even a slightest possibility of getting a little extra feature added to the main release goals to help a WIP, that's the place to post? Maybe it's just me who thinks this )

"Rule of Competence: the more able you are, the less epic and original are your ideas. "

I am still trying to figure this one out, what if you got epic and original ideas but unable to implement them without ability?

Or maybe your saying that with ability comes an understanding that 'epic' and 'original' ideas are not so feasible?

Whatever....to me originality and ability together seem to be the mainstay of some of the better games produced in any engine. One without the other and you got a recipe for disaster or at the very least something boring. All power to the dreamers who struggle to gain the path and the knowledge to implement 'epic-ness' into their designs.

This is the gap that GameGuru promises to bridge but as I am sure you know those who have been around longer are more likely to produce something than a complete beginner no matter how epic their vision....why? ....they have the ability after years of use and learning and still cling to the dream of producing a game to be proud of. This threads OP is actually a really good example of this

Amendment*
"Rule of Competence: the more able you are, the less epic and original your ideas may seem to you. "

you got it : i'm at this point. awful. great text btw.

Glad this got a few chuckles!

@cybernescence:

Hmm! No! I think so too. The actual projects get way less attention than they did on past forums I have been to. I also never understood why the more promising projects on here never get featured in the news, but atrocious youtube clickbait is. Oh well!! You're working on a tremendously interesting game, cyber, regardless of how much posts you get on here!!

@rolfy:

Exactly! I think everyone starts in game design with these grand ideas ....and end up making a jump and run or a corridor shooter.
The more skills we gather and learn what is possible the less huge our ideas get. Gamers think that if they where to make games, they'd make this grandiose game that they have in their head. Moviegoers think that if they'd be making movies, those would be groundbreaking masterpieces. ...because we all have this kaleidoscope of limitless ideas and fantasy in our skull. But actually birthing any of it is tremendously hard. Especially in game design where time, money and technical understanding are huge necessities. Game guru certainly promises to ease this up.

I even experience this in writing, a seemingly limitless artform. Altough I write in my native language, I often don't have the necessary vocabulary to get the images in my mind across and have to settle for something more simple and relate able.

Even once we can make huge and respectable projects, aren't they but a shade of what we envisioned in our mind?



Thank you!



-Wolf

There will always be someone who says that this is not possible in real life.

So, what's about superman, batman, spiderman, and so on?
Man can not fly in real life, but we all take for good, and we accept it, then why a game has to be different?
A game like a movie are in most cases the mere fiction, and has nothing to do with real life, or at least should not have it, it's one of the things I like about the games.

If a game should be strictly as real life, then what we want the games. Just my thoughts.

@ Wolf
Very accurate reflections.

3com

I will just call mine a retro styled game ....
That way I can get away with a lot

Looks Dated ..Couch Cough ... Reeetro !!

Crashed on me ....... That's a feature randomly generated for authenticity

Ai Not great ..... Yep kept the original feel of AI back then

Takes ages to load .... Yes I'm emulating Cassette ... Pretty cool eh

Well done then ....Nice Job

yh people expect a lot from games nowadays so it's best not to listen too closely to criticism.

but it also goes both ways, as i said above people expect a lot and some even expect you to rival AAA titles with an indie game

one thing people who don't or have never looked into making games etc will never know is how long it takes to make a game.
just think it takes an AAA title at least a year with a full team working fulltime to make a repeat game (think Fifa, CoD etc) and however many more years to make a really unique game...

Amazing Graphics don't make a game ( although it does help )
I still happily play old C64, Amiga games simply for their Gameplay and there are some really cool playable games on steam that don't really have graphics to shout about

they sure don't, my most played games of all time are the final fantasy series or DOTA, neither of which are low graphics (for their time and style) but are far from focused on great graphics.
but great graphics are much easier to sell in a video/picture(s) than anything else

But sometimes, if you are very lucky and insane enough, you end up standing in a GOTY award ceremony and the PR guy from Bethesda or Frictional congratulates you because you have beaten them this time.

"I don't believe in no-win scenarios."

- James Tiberius Kirk

"Takes ages to load .... Yes I'm emulating Cassette ... Pretty cool eh" LOL!

Thanks man I needed that today, but most of those complainers would be shocked to find out most "aaa" companies who administer stuff like let's say real life health benefits are really using tech from the 80s-early 90s. Imagine dying in the ER because the nurse couldn't remember their DOS commands