What drives you to make games?

I’m sure all of us have felt it….
You write, and you draw, and you edit….You debug, you check for every error.

You do whatever it is that your part is in this project…and eventually you reach some kind of wall. You’re bored of this project, the massive amounts of caffeine you have ingested to get this far have worn off, something happens…

So what is it that drove you to this point? Is it money? A sense of accomplishment? The joy of creating something that you never could before?

I know it’s not a literal question, syntax, or some problem, but I’m pretty sure this is relevant to the programmers…

I usually “try” to create games because it really is fun and it gives me something to do. While although making money from it is nice I really do it because of the joy. What about you Varilian?

I want to make games, because I see so many games around me that are terrible. All of them good ideas with poor execution, begging to have someone with the right skills to come along and fix them.

I agree with Draco. Most games are terrible and as I make games professionally, I am able to change games and create programs that people like to play and want to enjoy. Of the 20,815 games that are on this site I bet only ~100 are actually good games that people can keep coming back to and play properly.

Originally posted by Vexthil:

I agree with Draco. Most games are terrible and as I make games professionally, I am able to change games and create programs that people like to play and want to enjoy. Of the 20,815 games that are on this site I bet only ~100 are actually good games that people can keep coming back to and play properly.

There are more than that, probably 500, as there has been a near constant stream of good material since I joined this site, which was over two years ago.

Uh…

Well, mostly because…
- I have control over what the endproduct is going to be, and I know that if there is a bug, when and how it will be fixed.
- I can add extra features directly into what I’m building instead of “Oh, I wish it had…”
- The fans are a great source of encouragement if you ever feel down (sadly, they won’t make my homework)

And, of course, because I love solving the programming puzzles. Someone should make a game out of that (but it’s rather hard to explain how it feels, or to come up with an idea that embodies that concept…)

Curiosity. The challenge of making something new. I imagine I will also feel a sense of accomplishment if I ever actually complete a game.

Originally posted by Draco18s:

I want to make games, because I see so many games around me that are terrible. All of them good ideas with poor execution, begging to have someone with the right skills to come along and fix them.

I looked at your profile and have to agree.

Originally posted by SuperMarioJump:

Originally posted by Draco18s:

I want to make games, because I see so many games around me that are terrible. All of them good ideas with poor execution, begging to have someone with the right skills to come along and fix them.

I looked at your profile and have to agree.

Keep in mind, half the stuff I’ve uploaded are failures, ones I am well aware of. Two of those three were group projects, one of which the group decided not to take my advice and built it on their own (post deadline). The other was my first foray into AS3, which was actually pretty successful, considering. The third failure was my second game, where I tried to combine two types of games and it worked reasonably well (hittest errors aside) and then was taking too much community feedback from Kongregate users, and was unable to satisfy the demands while still having the game I’d been trying for.

I really like telling my friends “hey I made a video game and a bajillion people played it” and “oh and I got paid for it too”.
But theres also an unending flow of ideas from my brain that I write down, all of which would otherwise be doomed to stay forever in a papery grave were it not for my game making.
(all the cool ideas I haven’t made yet :P)
Also, my main game is a game I personally greatly enjoy playing myself. I had the high score for a while too. (Its sorta cool to play the half-finished games on my computer, knowing that I’m the only one with that joy)
Also its a really good feeling to solve a tricky problem.

- I can add extra features directly into what I’m building instead of “Oh, I wish it had…”

possibly the best thing about making games!

And, of course, because I love solving the programming puzzles. Someone should make a game out of that (but it’s rather hard to explain how it feels, or to come up with an idea that embodies that concept…)

Have you played KOHCTPYKTOP: Engineer of the People? Theres a really similar feeling for solving puzzles in that game.

Never understood that game…

But theres also an unending flow of ideas from my brain that I write down, all of which would otherwise be doomed to stay forever in a papery grave were it not for my game making.

Shame that most of my ideas are far beyond my means to make them.

First, Hi Varilian!

Well a lot of good reasons here. I have a few. And yes I know Mario that the games I have uploaded are not the greatest either (Done in AS2 which I learned first).

The game I am making now (And some of you have helped with some of my questions, thanks!) is my first in AS3 and I am working super hard on it to give it that polish my other games don’t have.

On to my reasons:

I always consider myself very creative and used to draw and try to invent a lot of things which always ended up in the papery grave Lazer talks about. In school I started with engineering and found programming. I really liked it because it’s an inexpensive hobby and I get to make things. Of course I turned to games instead of applications because like many I thought wouldn’t it be cool if you could do this or that.

When I hit a wall I usually go on hiatus or start a new game. I have a lot to get back to lol.

I think my main reasons are the joy of creating something and the sense of accomplishment. I want to be able to make things that people enjoy, that make them happy.

I am of course trying to get into the money making business, right now just trying to make enough to cover expenses such as Flash :$

I’m curious to know why you all chose Flash as opposed to anything else and why web based over client based. I started my programming in Java, those are what the classes are in. I tried learning by myself C++ first and got some basics down. I knew that to start by myself I needed to do everything and while I can draw decently I was dreading the art work using Java. That coupled with the fact that I felt it was easier to make a living off web based games led to me using Flash which I discovered after having found Kongregate.

My main reason for flash is that it provided both an interface for easily creating / managing graphical elements to a game (so its not the best, but at least its there) as well as the code aspect.

I didn’t want to start down on the lowest level of a “real” programming language and have to build upwards just to get to a GUI that I could then add things to to make a game (I do not want to have to manage my own frame buffer, THANK YOU VERY MUCH, TORQUE).

Originally posted by Draco18s:

But theres also an unending flow of ideas from my brain that I write down, all of which would otherwise be doomed to stay forever in a papery grave were it not for my game making.

Shame that most of my ideas are far beyond my means to make them.

I have the coolest idea, which I feel comfortable sharing because it would take an investment past that of an ordinary independent dev and is stranger than what most groups would consider reasonable.

An infinite grid, where people playing the game are spawned onto. These players can do a variety of things to the grid: digging trenches and building walls, setting up complex traps with switches turning on/off circuits of electricty that lead to dangerous contraptions, building structures, I wrote down a ton of things. Basically an MMO sandbox.
The interesting part is that it is persistent, so if you (for example) build a massive wall one day, if you come back a few days later it would still be there. But you would probably see a big hole in it from someone else digging through it, or see it exapanded into an entire fortress. You could set up a system of traps that would automatically slay anyone who tries to approach. If you made it well enough, you could come back to it a week later and look at the pile of corpses (or, more likely, some danger signs posted).

I have no idea how to make an MMO… and that idea sounds awfully boring if you were the only person wandering around. The persistent factor lets it be fun even when theres just a couple of people playing at at time.
This idea is probably never going to happen :( unless I suddenly come into a ton of money to buy a server… or something.

I’m curious to know why you all chose Flash as opposed to anything else and why web based over client based.

When you see a interesting looking game that someone linked to, if its browser based I’ll try it. If it requires a download, I won’t.

Originally posted by LazerBomb:

I have the coolest idea, which I feel comfortable sharing because it would take an investment past that of an ordinary independent dev and is stranger than what most groups would consider reasonable.

….Have you played Dwarf Fortress?

Originally posted by ldstrumpet:

I usually “try” to create games because it really is fun and it gives me something to do. While although making money from it is nice I really do it because of the joy. What about you Varilian?

Sorry about the time it took to reply. 1am has seemed to be my ‘sit down and browse’ time.
But all matters aside, I kind of answered that in my own post.

I don’t have a game published, but I really don’t feel like I’ve ever ‘completed’ a game. I’ve finished of ‘projects’ but I’ve never actually come down to the point where I felt like it was worth submitting to Kongregate.

Programming for me is a bit of a challenge… I was always good at seeing the ‘big picture’ when presented with a problem, so it’s fun trying to get all my classes and objects to agree with eachother.

Also, it’s a great feeling to actually finish something. When I compile it, and there’s no errors, and everything works as it should…It’s amazing. I actually feel like I have accomplished something. I created this with a purpose, and it does just that.

Originally posted by Draco18s:

But theres also an unending flow of ideas from my brain that I write down, all of which would otherwise be doomed to stay forever in a papery grave were it not for my game making.

Shame that most of my ideas are far beyond my means to make them.

I know exactly what you mean…Not even a year into flash, and I had an amazing idea for an isometric RTS game… So I learned drawing in 3/4 and isometric, then I learned A* pathfinding…And I realized how much there was to an idea I thought was so simple…So I changed my mind, and decided to start smaller…

@KMAE, who I will not quote so I don’t make this post any longer than it already is… It’s actually funny you should mention that… Ever since I was a kid, I was always interested in programming, especially games. I started with in-the-box game makers (RPG toolkit, game studio, etc.) But as I practiced, I realized that most of my ideas could never come with these kits…

So I moved on, bouncing around languages. I’ve tried everything from QBasic to C++ when it comes to a programming language. When I finally got to learning C++, and started a few programs, it bothered me that I could never reach a ‘visual’ product. There was never something that I could look at (in terms of a GUI, a game, etc) that I could feel accomplished with.

About the time I graduated from high school, I found flash…I downloaded the trial, and played with it. It was exactly what I needed, considering not only did I always get a visual product, it combined programming with ‘visual’ objects. Literal OOP. xD

Originally posted by Draco18s:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH, TORQUE).

lol i’ve used torque before myself. I can honestly say i was glad to see the back of it.

On re-thinking the question, I have decided to change my answer: It’s the chicks. Definitely the chicks.

Originally posted by johnwinkelman:

On re-thinking the question, I have decided to change my answer: It’s the chicks. Definitely the chicks.

… Where do you get little chickens from programming then?

Originally posted by Draco18s:

Originally posted by LazerBomb:

I have the coolest idea, which I feel comfortable sharing because it would take an investment past that of an ordinary independent dev and is stranger than what most groups would consider reasonable.

….Have you played Dwarf Fortress?

Dude. You’ve shouted me “DF = Win”. Its the first shout I have.

the simple reason I program games is for the end product. Looking at something and knowing “I made this” if a great feeling. Most of my projects never appear online though, simply because it has been done before or because I don’t think other people will like them (example of the latter is my only game on kong)

for example right now I’m working on my own version of snake. Right now I would never upload it because so far it has been done before, but I keep adding stuff till it’s original.

Originally posted by LazerBomb:

Dude. You’ve shouted me “DF = Win”. Its the first shout I have.

Doesn’t mean I remember. :D

I recently started programming in Java with NetBeans.
A whole new world has opened up for me, and I think I would need to update my answer here.

I managed to build some tiny text-rpg game which pulls areas and monsters from a database (in 2 days of fumbling around and googling stuff), and I have to say…
Adding new stuff during runtime is even better.
Not “Oh wait, I wish there were some more enemies, so let’s open the editor…”, but "I wish there were… " and before I’m finished muttering, I’m already done.
So it’s definitely being able to shape the world/application to whatever I want.