Question about my games previous to Dragon Spirit.

Hey everyone.

I've got a question about all of my games previous to Dragon Spirit.
I am perfectly willing now to admit that they sucked, especially
the graphics.
But perhaps some of them had some good ideas.

When I finish with Dragon Spirit, do you think I should go back
and rework some of them with better graphics and gameplay?
Are any of them worth reworking, or should I just move on to
something new?

If you would like to see a reworked version of any of my previous
games, then I am completely open to any suggestions you might
have.

Following is a list of them, and what sucked about them.

Robo Attack; Poor collision detection, graphics could have been
better, confusing wall concept.

Time Of The Dark; Truly horrid graphics, bad collision detection,
No story, weird gameplay concepts, Overall confusion.

Battle Pong; Probably the best of my previous games, it is actually
ok. Although some animations would be nice, and a slight improvement
to the graphics would be nice as well.

Duncans Target Practice; Very Humorous, although its really too
small to count as a whole game, and the graphics suck too.

Battery Man; Inconsistent graphics most of them suck, the concept
is cute, but the gameplay is really quite boring and not well thought
out, although out of all of my games this one probably has the
most potential.


As always, I look forward to your suggestions ^_^

WERDNA

Links?

i've written a few of my games over a few times, just for fun and a learning experience by trying things differently.

ultimately your going to have to decide yourself if you want to put time into redoing these games or starting with something new.

going by what you posted about your thoughts on your own games, there seems to be a bit of a pattern.

maybe you should work on:
learning how to create more appealing media (atleast for your own standards).

do some simple test projects to learn how to do better collision.

get more creative with game play ideas to make it more fun..

etc..

again this is just some thoughts going by what you've said, i havent played those games yet (too busy working on my own stuff) so i can't comment on whether i agree with your own critique or not.

most important though is to just have fun with it and enjoy doing it.

I'd suggest that you start a new game. I only played Time Of The Dark and Battery Man, but I don't see any way to improve. It's much easier if you do all the design first, before you even write a single line of code.

Only you know the answer, but I would say that it may be better just to move on and make something new and fresh putting your improved skills into that. Yeah and do some planning :-)

lol, your right, there IS a pattern!

Well from doing Dragon Spirit, I know that I can create good
graphics if I try hard, and put some effort into it.

I have gotten much better with collision, especially from doing my
little Platformer game Engine, P.U.K.I.


And as to starting a new game, that would certainly be nice, because
I have so many ideas for new games, but then what about my old
ones?
should I just let those go, and forget about them?
Or should I try to make them the games that they should have been,
and maybe I just didn't have the skills to do it then.

And as to links,
I removed those games from my site awhile ago, because I figured
they would do nothing but Kill my reputation.
Although if you have any interest in playing any of them, I would be
happy to re-upload them to my site temporarily.

Currently all thats on my site is Dragon Spirit, and Battle Pong,
and as I make more games I will add them to my site IF they get
good feedback.


Thanks for your replys,
http://hosted.filefront.com/werdnaworld

again only you can decide if its worth going back to those games or not.

realisticaly maybe you should just chalk them up as learning experiences and move on.

edit:
btw just a suggestion (not necessarily a good one) i say leave your old games up on your site and available. its always nice to see how someone has improved from game to game.

Ok, I think I'll probably just ditch them and move on.

And as to your suggestion, I actually think thats a pretty good idea.
My only concern is that people new to my games won't know which
ones are old, and which are new. And thus if they download one of
the old ones, they might think "Oh, this guy sucks, I won't download his games again!"

Once I finally get my own website set up, then I can just put all my
old games in their own spot, and the new ones in another and that
will work out just fine, but for now, I'll probably leave them off the
site, unless someone requests to play one.

Thanks for your help everyone,

WERDNA ^_^

Have your new game on the main page, and then have an "Old Games" page which lists your old games. People will then be unlikely to go looking for the "old games" until they've tried the new one. Human nature being what it is.

on my site (not available atm as the host is gone and i need to find another good free host) i had a games page setup and listed the games in alphabetical order with a date of when i put them up and a link to their own personal pages. as i haven't spent too much time in webdesign it wasn't perfect, but it wasn't too bad either and it was definately better then my first attempt lol.

as far as worrying about if someones gonna like any of your games or not, i say don't worry about it. thats bound to happen from time to time, but you have to take the good with the bad.

as far as making games go my motto is that first and foremost, i make games for me, i make the type of games that i enjoy playing and how i like to play them. the way i see it is as long as i'm happy with them then thats good enough for me, if others enjoy my games then thats great because its a nice feeling when others appreciate your work, and if i can make some money off of some of the games i make then hey even better.

now i realize that that is probably a pretty bad motto to have and i wouldn't suggest it for anyone else to go by,especially if they're trying to make money. but as long as i'm having fun and enjoy making the games then it works for me.

on a side note i am always open to oppinions/critiques/suggestions/feed back in general so if someone offers good advice on a game i'm working on and i'm capable of doing it then i usually do.

on another side note on checking out old games, over the many years that i have been a member of this community i remember checking out alot of games some good some not so good, but then go back and check out newer stuff from some of those same people from time to time and ended up seeing alot of great work. for me atleast because i've been here for a very long time (although silent for the most part) it's really nice to watch how the other members progress and seeing them go from making ok games to making really good games. and then theres other members who just make really cool things all along.

I have many times considered going back and expanding on Tovaria, a game I made a couple years back... but when going back, I realize the code has an awful structure and is completely devoid of For loops. It would require a complete tear down and rebuild. At that point I'd rather just make a new game... so I keep Tovaria for what it is; an account of my abilities (at the time) and a memory of a great time coding.

What I do is I post everything I've ever made on my website... Dungeons of Fear is my 'flagship' product, and was the first game I've ever made.

Most of the games are not very good, but in putting them up on a website it serves as sort of a museum of my progress... and also helps me remember the fun I've had working on those games, regardless of their public reception. The reason I love Dungeons of Fear so much is not because of its merit as a game, but because I had a blast making it, and worked very hard and was very proud of it.

I always say coding is for fun... that's why I don't worry about what the public sees in my site or the games on it... I had a blast doing them and every time I look at the site I feel happy.

I can see improvement in my games as they progress through time, and now I'm on to bigger and better things. But will always keep dunegonsoffear.com and everything on it because of the reasons I've stated. Plus, slippery slope is pretty damn fun :)

There's my two cents... hope it helps.

If I were you, WERDNA, I'd consign your old games to the drawer of history and concentrate on improving your skills further. In fact, whilst your Dragon Spirit remake showed a marked graphical improvement over your previous games, I'd add it to the drawer too.

Try to make each game better than the last, and don't go public until you've made something genuinely worthy (but feel free to share them with us, of course). Think of your past work as birth pains. You don't want to share them with people.

Wow, thanks everyone for your responses!

Ok, I've decided that I'll just leave my old games as they are, and
just move on to better, and more ambitious games ^_^

And I'll still leave my old games off of my site for now, until I can get
around to making a custom site.


And as to what you said JustLuke, I completly agree with you.
EXCEPT for one thing.
'whilst your Dragon Spirit remake showed a marked graphical improvement over your previous games, I'd add it to the drawer too.'

I certainly appreciate the marked graphical improvement comment,
although why add it to the drawer?
Its not even done yet!

I am still continuing work on Dragon Spirit, and fully intend to complete
it.

Then I'll get to work on one of two nice little RPGs I have planned,
but I don't want to just leave Dragon Spirit in a state of imcompletion.
Sure its not the best space shooter ever, but I at least find it fun, and
would like to have a completed game to show off instead of a bunch
of imcomplete demos.

Anyways, thanks for the advice ^_^

WERDNA

Doh! Sorry, for some reason I thought that you'd completed it. Okay, scratch all that Dragon Spirit/drawer nonsense. :)

LOL