Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

This week, we're going to look at what makes a good villain. So, what does make the bad guy or girl of our story a compelling Villain? Is it enough to simply have a character do evil things for the sake of being evil? In the vast majority of cases, no. The best villain is the one who blurs that line between good and evil, between right and wrong.

It's easy to have a character simply be evil and do evil things but that creates a very flat character. The best villain is one who truly believes they are the hero and that what they are doing no matter how evil it may appear to others is in their eyes the right thing to do.

A villain who has real motivation in their actions become more relatable. No matter how evil this character may seem, try looking at the world from their point of view. The best villains are the ones that make you question your own morality and make you pause even for just a second to think maybe they're right.

We often times try to create a villain by making them a social outcast that is hated by all and we even give them a mask to remove that human element of looking at a person and now seeing a faceless evil. While it's important to give the villain a motivation and a backstory you can understand and even empathize with, it's more important to realize that a great villain can have very likable qualities. They can love and be loved by others and command a high level of respect.

One of my all time favorite villains is Darth Vader. Simply because you can't outright say he's the bad guy. His actions often may appear truly evil but he honestly feels he is doing the right thing. His loss and feelings of betrayal are what drives him all the while the true evil pull at these emotional strings to keep him on the dark side and pull him back when he questions his actions. It's not the moments he commits his most evil acts that make him a great villain but rather when we see the human side to him. He wants Luke to join the dark side not because he wants to make him evil but because he clearly wants to protect him and feels this is the only way to do so. When we see him struggle with his own morality, we see the very real and relatable side of him.

Another great way to make a villain feel more real is when they are actually quite similar to the protagonist. When they share some of the same characteristics it can make you question if maybe you're the one who's the bad guy. It's important to never treat your villain as a lesser of the main character. When writing the villain you have to make him an equal to that of the main character. The villain should be intelligent, persuasive and driven.

My advice for writing a good villain would be to play out the role as if it was you. Think back on times where people really disagreed with you on something you believed was right and try to understand why that was. Right and wrong is never that black and white and when you learn how to grey that line in writing characters, you'll be able to write a good villain. Keep in mind their motivation, beliefs, qualities and why you like them despite them being the villain. It's good to note that while redemption is a great thing to have in a villain, not all villains should find redemption. I think it's a very powerful moment when you have a villain on the brink of redemption and then they turn away from it and in doing so become evil.

We'll I hope this has been an interesting read for you and as always, fee free to get in touch if you have any thoughts.

Until next time!

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

This week, I want to talk a little bit about the importance of change. More specifically, the importance of change in your work.

Something I've come to find as I've been trying out some new projects outside my comfort zone is, you'd be surprised at how much you might enjoy the thing you were afraid to try. Also, you'd be surprised at how fast you can improve at it.

In my case, I've primarily worked on 3D games and focused on game design and level design. While I've animated some rigs in Blender and Maya in the past, my experience of 3D modelling and animation was not that strong. Now, my last and current project are taking me outside of my comfort zone again because they're 2D projects and I have to do all the art and animation using a Wacom tablet. 

So, although I'm outside of my comfort zone, I've made some games that never would have existed if I stayed in my safe space. It also allows me to be more creative and a lot more original with ideas. You'd be amazed at what you can come up with when you allow yourself to try new ways of making games. The other upside to changing how you make things is that you'll learn more skills and as a whole become a better creator.

My advice for this week would be simply to start slowly pushing yourself out of your creative comfort zone and start trying to think of new projects you wouldn't normally consider to be your thing. I'm willing to bet that you'll find it exciting and motivating to push yourself and it'll result in you being far more creative in any project and you'll learn some new skills that will improve your future projects.

​Until next time!

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

Welcome to a new series instalment to the blog called, "How I Made" in which I will talk a little about how I made certain aspects of some of my previous games.

To kick off the series, I'll be talking about how I made, Fading Light.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, Fading Light was part of a series of short horror games I made at Eyesodic Games. The game sees you lost in a deep, dark cave, in search of a way out.

The Game starts off with you in an open area of the cave after you just fell from an upper section of the cave. You soon notice the ​skeletal remains of someone who has come before you and didn't fair so well. You can interact with the remains and some notes that are next to it.

Making the remains interactive is done by adding an invisible collider over the remains that runs a scripts that when pressed on, ​displays some spoken text from the player.

The notes are handled in almost the same way. The note objects seen in the game, when pressed on run a scripts that displays an texture canvas on screen and I ten overlay the desired text in a handwritten font to give the impression of a note left by someone in the cave.

The flickering light of your lantern is done by having a single point light set as a child of the player object and then through a script, I create a variation in light color and set a flicker interval that I can tweak.

It's not long until you realize you are not alone in the depths of the cave. To introduce the player to the enemy, I wanted a section where you get a glimpse at the monster where you don't see much but the monster is also no threat at this point. I do this by leading the player down a long narrow section of the cave and as you come to the end, I disable the movement for just a moment and spawn the monster at an invisible cube and he pathfinds just out of sight and disappears. This particular monster is not running the same AI script as the others will so, he won't attack the player. 

Now, there's a section where in order to progress the story, there needs to be a cave in and this only occurs when you interact with a second set of remains. So, this is handled by having a variable checking to see if the player has interacted with that particular object and once you do the variable updates and next time you pass through that variable check, the cave in sfx is triggered and the way forward in unlocked.

Just when you've gotten used to your trusty lantern and think you've found a way out, I plunge you into complete darkness. So how do I handle when I take away your source of light? Much like the way I check for the cave in above. There is a variable checking if the player has interacted with the pick axe and as soon as you interact with it, that variable updates and the point light object is disabled on the player object.

And finally, that ending scene. Again, much like everything so far, the final event in the game is handled through a simple variable check. As you stumble through the darkness in search of a new light source, the game is checking to see if you've interacted with the firewood. As soon as the player lights that firewood, the variable updates and the player movement is limited and using more invisible cubes, I spawn in multiple monsters that converge on the player ending the players life and with that the game.

So, as you can see, there's nothing too complicated involved in the making of Fading Light but it all comes together to make a nice short polished game. I hope you've enjoyed the first of this new series in which I'll talk about how I made some of my previous games. If you'd like to see me explain something in more detail, please feel free to comment or get in touch. If you want to check out Fading Light, you can find more information and links to download it for free here.

​Until next time!

Hey there, Gamers and Game Makers!

Today, I'm going to talk about an area that tends to be a sore spot for some folks. The race to the bottom with game prices and how we as game developers are no longer valuing our work properly.

"Why are some of your games paid?" This was the subject line of an email I received recently. Upon seeing this, my first concern was that it's someone who purchased one of my games and didn't like it and perhaps wanted a refund. No. In fact, this person had purchased one of my games and really enjoyed it. The said the story was one of the best they had experienced in a small indie game in along time.

"Why are some of your games paid?" ​

Curious as to why this person, who really enjoyed the game they had purchased felt it strange that the game cost money, I asked their opinion on this. I should also point out the game in question costs $1.20. 

Now the interesting thing is they had no answer beyond "Indie Games should be free" Now, this is where you start to open up a real can of worms. While not everyone feels this way, It's undeniable that a large number of gamers now come to expect certain games to be free. Depending on who you ask, the reason for why this is will vary. Who do I think is to blame for some gamers expecting games to be free? Well, me.

When I say I'm to blame, I mean any Game Developer who undervalues their work and either releases it for free or undercharges for it. But why do so many Game Developers do this now? and why is it becoming the norm? This comes down to a number of reasons.

Competition:
There are a lot of games out there now with more and more being released each year. With so much to choose from, sometimes the easiest way to stand out to a gamer browsing through the new releases section of a marketplace is to appeal to their wallet. A game that costs something like $1-2 or even be completely free will stand out that little bit more to a gamer. While this may work in the short term, it's ultimately ruining developers long term.

Never Ending Sales:
I've seen it so many times. A game will release and withing a week or two it's already on sale 50% off. Now, I've been guilty of doing this myself because I felt the pressure of people will only but a game when it's on sale. Now, why did I feel that pressure? Because I've been that gamer who has only bought games when they've been on sale. With STEAM and Humble among others running sales on games so frequently with up to 90% off of a game, it's hard to not just wait that short amount of time to get the game for practically nothing.

Free To Play:
Now, the Free To Play model won't apply to all Game Developers. It'll depend on the type of game you're making. That said, it's hard to deny that because some games run purely on a Free To Play business model that it makes it harder for other developers to charge for their games because not every gamer understands that not all games fit this model. So, you're left with those "Your game should be free like X game" comments. I'm personally not a fan of the Free To Play model. Primarily because it's used so much to exploit players. That said, there are some games that use it very well and fairly.

We Don't Value Our Work:
This is the most important thing wrong with why games are expected to be free. We as game Developers have allowed ourselves to devalue our work in the hopes of getting people to actually play our games. Out of all the games I've made, the vast majority are free. I have gotten lots of people playing them but you can't make a living that way. And by charging low prices for other games, I'm contributing to the problem. The solution for this problem is pretty simple. We need to just take a hard look at the effort we're putting into the games we make and value those games accordingly. When more developers start respecting their own work and the value of it, we'll slowly start to see things improve.

While this post certainly doesn't cover all the areas that impact this topic, I hope this has given some food for thought. If you care to share your opinion on the matter, please leave a comment below or feel free to get in touch.

​Until next time!