Platform game design

Rene sugar

I myself like board games and card games, including Bridge. Furthermore, my experience with computer games is minimal, but I have always enjoyed making games myself, including with basic and scratch. And when I also all kinds of Game Engines Discover, I thought it would be nice not to do this alone.

Why a platform game design?

Computer games are hot. And compusers and also HCC as a whole is struggling with the aging of the supporters and we would like to rejuvenate. With computer games we might be a bit more attractive for the youth. Moreover, it is also a fun way to let young people and (grand) parents work together on this hobby. Now I no longer belong to the youth, but we do have to involve the youth, so that we can take their perspective.

In the meantime there is already a platform game design that consists of five people. That seems very little and it is of course not enough to release the successor to Minecraft, but it is quite a good start.

It is therefore the intention that we as a platform help each other and learn from each other in making computer games. Think of demonstrating games, building games together or just figuring out technical challenges. For example, it is already a thing to play with two players asynchronously (for example Wordfeud), but it is really complicated to play (such as World of Warcraft) with a group of people at the same time in one game and to be interactively busy with each other. And that also without your own server, because it must remain in the Hobby atmosphere.

Maybe we want to publish a commercial game again, but then you also need a number of people who look at your legal and commercial aspects in addition to the entire team that makes the game.

What do you need?

Earlier I wrote in the software bus about which roles you need in a development team. I repeat them because this article now also appears in PC-Active. You can find an extensive explanation on Wikipedia: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer game development

It clearly states that you need a whole team and that there are also (important!) Roles that have nothing to do with the development itself. If I look at the current team now, I see that we have more roles than people. Fortunately, as a person you can play more than one role.

• Gaming designer: Creator of playing. For an original game you need someone with a very creative mind and who is also detailed enough to think out the rules of Ed. You want a balanced game with sufficient challenge and give the player the chance to win, but the player should not always be able to win too easily.
• Artist: Makes the graphic elements of the game, such as backgrounds, characters and effects. We already have one artist, but we can use more.
• Programmer: Writes the code, ensures that everything works correctly and that the game also responds smoothly to the interaction with the player (s). We have one programmer in the team; One programmer often works with various artists. Again, we can use more people, but one programmer can deliver a properly functioning game.
• Level designer: Uses the graphic elements of the artist to create the virtual world, as the game designer has come up with it. Is present in the team.
• Sound engineer: No game is complete without music and sound effects. Sound effects make it lively and can make a game or break: if there are explosions, you don’t want to hear beep. If it is your hobby to conjure up noises from your computer, feel welcome. Strengthen.
• Tester: Ensures that you learn something about the quality of the product. Testing is not the same as just playing the game: you are involved in all aspects of the product and you look for the limits to see if the game is functioning under all circumstances. Always handy if there are a few testers.

Now just practically

HCC and also compusers are national groups. If you all want to do something together, then it is nice if we can do as much as possible online and sometimes come together physically. HCC! Programming organizes online meetings six days a week (only Sunday), and the Friday evening is intended for programming games. Every last Friday of the month I can hijack part of this meeting to do something with this platform.

The first meeting is planned on January 31. We start at 8 p.m. Look for the right link
https://programming.hcc.nl/

What are we going to do then?

In the first instance, get to know what everyone can do, where the ambitions are and what we need extra. We start as a compuser platform, but access is open to all HCC members. So we are a group of members with an interest in making computer games and we exchange knowledge and experiences and deepen them.

During the HCC! Knowledge days (in 2025, they will take place on March 22 and October 4, note them in your agenda) and other meetings we can also present this through lectures and workshops. And we write articles for PC-Active.

I have fulfilled this role all the time and I can continue to do it, but if someone thinks he can do that better, that is of course possible. Here too, at least a backup is more than welcome.

After the introduction and the division of roles, we can then discuss which projects we want to pick up. HCC! Programming is of course already busy with some projects and we can join that, but we can also pick up our own projects.

What do we focus on?

At first we started to start games for the PC, but in some tools You can develop for multiple platforms. For example, we can also make our games suitable for the PC for use on an Android phone or tablet. Sometimes it can also be made suitable for Linux, Mac or iPhone with little effort. Nothing needs to be, but we mainly started for the Windows PC.

What do we work with?

With all the different roles you also need different tools for different applications. We do not want to impose or force tools here, but here and there we of course already work with various tools. At the moment the following programming languages ​​are already in use:

• Scratch
• C# (in combination with Unity)
• (Liberty) Basic

But other programming languages ​​also lend themselves to making games (although, for example, Cobol is less obvious).

We do not yet have artists directly in our midst. For the time being, Paint3D and within Unity with Pro Builder were signed. We have not developed sound effects ourselves so far, but within Scratch we have used the existing sounds.

In an earlier article I wrote about Nuclino as an option to work together on gaming design. The conclusion, however, was that the free version had too many limitations to be useful for us, so we still have to get started for a suitable one tool To find to work together. At least one has to Game Design Document can be shared and processed among themselves. SharePoint and teams could be suitable for this, but those are paid programs. For a club of hobbyists we naturally prefer to look for (almost) free.

Hopefully we will see you at our first meeting on January 31, 2025 at 8:00 PM; Look for the right link at https://programmers.hcc.nl/