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Tierra Entertainment: Game Design Q&A
DIR By: Pam
Date: May 23, 2021, 9:18 am
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Josh Roberts — January 31, 2003
Adventure Gamers
HTML https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/17568
The anonymous game developers at Tierra Entertainment, who are
behind such high-profile adventure game remakes as King's Quest
VGA and the completely re-imagined King's Quest 2: Romancing the
Stones, have some advice for anyone setting out to create an
adventure game: Start small.
But if you, like the developers at Tierra themselves, just can't
seem reconcile that advice with your own game design ambitions,
then read on. Tierra's Anonymous Game Developer # 1 reveals what
she's learned about amateur game design, and what you'll need to
know before you start your own project.
What advice would you give people with no experience who are
just starting on the path to creating an adventure game? What is
the hardest thing about creating a game?
The truth is, everyone has a good idea. Everyone thinks they
have the next great plot, the next best-selling game. But an
idea is only worth so much. You need to actually have the
dedication to finish what you begin, and trust us, however much
work you think it takes, it will require a thousand times more
than that!
I would think it's natural to recommend starting small, but I
guess we didn't follow our own rule. We assumed King's Quest
would be a tiny game, since it was the earliest, and probably
most primitive, and it was already laid out for us in such an
orderly fashion, but boy were we wrong! No matter what game you
make, original or remake, putting together the artwork, music,
plot, etc. will only be 50% of the job.
Probably the easiest, most enjoyable part of making games is the
creative work, making artwork, animations, music, and scripting.
It seems like the hard work while you're making it. But, once
that's done, the true test comes. Can you sit with that game for
months, testing it, fixing bugs, playing it 10 times a day from
beginning to end to make sure it is all working properly? Can
you do it when the only thing you want to do is forget the
stupid game and throw your computer out the window?
Realize that if you want to make games and complete them, it's
not just about creativity, but also responsibility. It's about
working when you don't want to work, and doing things you don't
want to do. We got lucky with King's Quest. We were just too
naïve to understand that the game would be as long and
complicated as it was! But making it through to the end has
given us confidence to continue with more projects.
Also, fear is a big obstacle—both the fear of not being able to
make a game, and the fear of success. You always need to train
yourself to recognize this fear, and then form a mechanism for
overcoming it as well. For instance, if you are pacing around a
room when you could be working on your game, chances are, you're
subconsciously fearful of working any further. If you just force
yourself, with willpower, to sit down for those first few
minutes and start working, the momentum will push you through
the day and give you newfound confidence to help you throughout
your project.
Overall, I would recommend starting small enough to keep
motivated, but big enough to feel rewarded. Take it one step at
a time, be optimistic, and always remind yourself that you can
accomplish it. It helps to work with a close friend that is as
motivated as you, and try to stay away from large groups of team
members. It is VERY hard to run even a small team efficiently.
It's nearly impossible to do the same with a large group of
people who don't all have the same vision.
Don't be upset if you can't create a perfect game the first time
around. You'll get better with practice. And most importantly,
create a good time management plan and keep on schedule. Game
development needs to be like a river approaching a waterfall. If
you can do a lot of little things, and get them done, you will
gain momentum and go full force to the end. Be sure to give
yourself pep talks if you're feeling like you can't continue.
You can if you just push yourself. You are the only one you are
competing with, and nobody can stop you if you put your mind to
it.
Is there any part of the process that took more or less time to
complete than you anticipated?
YES! The background art took less time than we expected, and the
character dialogue pictures took very little time as well (they
only take about 15 minutes to draw, and under an hour to color
and animate). The character animations and scripting are what
take forever! Sprites are very tedious to make as well, and they
take a while to import into the game engine, and often have to
be touched up and then re-imported.
Scripting takes a long time because it consists of a lot of
going back and forth to get a certain "look" to your scene, and
if something doesn't look quite right, then it can take ANY
amount of time to fix. It could be minutes or it could be hours.
For King's Quest 2, I've scripted scenes that I thought would
take forever, in under an hour, and I've also scripted scenes
that I thought would be quick and easy, but have ended up taking
me a few days to perfect!
You have a very small group of people working on your games, and
yet already you've released two full games. What makes your team
so much more successful than most others?
It's a small team of dedicated members who all have the same
vision. It was actually only two of us who worked on King's
Quest, and now a few more members have joined the crew for
King's Quest 2. None of us are power hungry, and we all are
pretty accepting of constructive criticism. Yet, nobody dishes
out more criticism than needed. At many fan projects, half of
the time is spent complaining about how something isn't good
enough, and then it's touched up over and over again for weeks,
showing little improvement over the original picture!
In our team, if something really should be changed, we say it.
But, you would never hear something like, "I like green better
than red. Change that color." That's just a waste of time. If
somebody wants someone wearing green, they mention it beforehand
to prevent wasting time. Also, the age of most of our members is
much older than most other fan groups. I think this lends to the
maturity of our team, and also our ability to realistically
dedicate ourselves to the projects. We aren't just doing this
because we are bored, or because our friends will think it's
cool. We're doing this because we feel strongly about it.
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