Hello, I have a few questions that I am sure are pretty noob for existing developers but I am having trouble getting answers to etc.
(Note: I tend to type paragraph long run-on sentences sorry…)
(Note2: I know there are a lot of questions but this is stuff I would prefer to know sooner rather than later so any help I can get will be helpful. Constructive Criticism is very welcome ^^)
(Note3: The questions have been summarized at the top to hopefully allow me to get better directed answers and a basic outline of what I am thinking about would be found below those.)
Experience to help better answer questions:
Coding: (I have done several small like arcade game tutorials and occasionally messing around in Unity trying to learn how to do something and am now taking a C# class at college to help better understand the structure of C# not the way/classes etc work in Unity experience unfortunately though.)
Art: Blender/Gimp basic understanding usage
Summary of Questions:
Q1: Playmaker to C# difficulty?
Q1.5: Playmaker version of C# regions to clean up ‘code’?
Q2: Singleplayer game working to multiplayer integration working difficulty?
Q2.5:Would recording (in excel 4 ex) where certain lines (by lines I mean names of comments to search for as line# change as you code) are that would be needed to sync data across multiplayer help adapt from single to multi easier/quicker & without a hole in your wall?
Q3:Is there a program (free please) to create big brainstorm/tree diagrams using simple key words with all detail showing up after you click the tree cell thing?
Q4: Game future development after learning lots of new things without redesign possible?
Q5: Parent class optimization from the get go or later in development?
Q6: Graphics design how much and when?
Q7: How much of a priority is optimization (core game or optimization focus)?
Q8: Game security how much is enough to be effective but not distracting from development?
Q9: Endless development vs bad first impression (incomplete game)?
Q10: Unity assets purchase or build thy self (esp since build thy self would give me unity knowledge and easier bug fixing/avoidance as the assets would be specialized vs generalized)
Q10.33: Is buying assets from the store development efficient if you know you want it done differently in the final game?
Q10.67: Is changing core mechanics a bad idea after game publishing?
Q11: Multiplayer host vs dedicated? (There is very little information from people that host multiplayer games what approach they took and why and what capital investment was/is required for ex one game might have 10 developers who each setup a dedicated server at their house allowing high bandwidth at consumer level cost whereas another might pay $450 a month for bandwidth idk that is why I am asking what are the pros/cons/cost of each?)
Q12: Game Monetization F2P,pay for game, ads (pros/cons of each)?
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My current idea is largely based around a space-rts game and I want to work in a very modular way where I can throw together a quick concept system for everything in a week or so basically a prototype game and then go through and expand the features and flexibility of each system and I am wondering how much hurt I will go through if I use an add-on like Playmaker (visual scripting) to do this prototyping and feature expansion phase and then go back through and put everything to code don’t get me wrong I love Playmaker with what I have done with it so far but it gets complicated quickly and I wish they had a folder systems to categorize stuff in your states like you would with regions in C# for instance I can in C# create a region called turret tracking and put all my turret trig math angle calculation code into it that takes me like 10 playmaker code blocks and then minimize it and put a note to myself in a word application that I have a code region responsible for turret tracking in whatever.cs vs. in Playmaker the same state/method whatever that does 10 things with 90 blocks instead of seeing 10 blocks and 8 folders I have to mess with the full 90 blocks which is the only thing I hate about Playmaker so far is there a fix for this or just have to deal with it.
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I have heard several times an expression along the lines of “developing a multiplayer game after the singleplayer game is finished is actually creating the multiplayer half way through your games development” or something like that.
- is this meaning that the half is referring to pretty much having to re create your entire game? and if so is their any good practice to develop a game that makes it easier to develop a multiplayer/skirmish mode later for example I was thinking of creating an excel sheet with a multiplayerobject0001 object commented out in the script where a certain thing would need to be synced over the net with excel telling me that it is in the playerSpaceShip.cs script so that once the core game is finished I could go through the list and use the find command to figure out where multiplayer features need to be added?
- I want to start planning my game but I am finding it hard to lay out how everything “should in theory” work together and give myself lots of detail so that further down the line I can understand what in the world I was thinking and can work without fear of forgetting my super idea or having to look through a 150 page word document for what features my spaceship or whatever should have.
- What I think I am looking for is a giant tree chart diagram program so the top would be like gamelaunch connected to singleplayer/multiplayer/options/exit etc with those having dozens to hundreds of attached things listed by name and simple to search through and have it so that when I click on it I can see more details about that idea etc does anyone know a good pref. free program that can do this? I have tried in office etc but in 5 minutes of note typing the tree is too big for the page.
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Can a project really become too cluttered? By this I mean I am using this project to learn Unity and I am going to be learning how to get one thing to work after another and hopefully learn a lot is my project in the end going to be so bad as to warrant re-building? I am asking this out of curiosity because on one hand if you design something and later learn more about how things work couldn’t you just re-design that part of code and be better off; however on the other hand you have things potentially being so interconnected that changing a part of code to be better requires re-typing of dozens of other lines of code in various projects?
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How much would you recommend to build parent classes to allow for easier recoding? Should I do it from the get go or should I prototype my game and features then write parent classes? (By parent classes I mean for ex: a fighter class that I could build that would allow it to accept orders have cost movement speed etc then create a fighter with a script that would have a bunch of values at the top “health, speed, turn, cost, etc” and then use code like FighterClassParent.Movement(shipSpeed); which would do things such as make a pretty rts style movement ray to the mouse cursor and then on click move my fighter their doing in route attacks and avoiding obstacles without x200 lines of code per fighter?)
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Graphics design when/where and for what? I know that designing cool art assets for your game is very distracting from my ‘limited exposure’ but at which point does it become needed? I mean I would hate to design my game then import by ship and tell it to move forward and the top of the ship goes forward and the engines are on top and I have to decide should I mirror/rotate all my art assets are try to adapt the game code?
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Optimization should this be something I try to do continuously or should I get the core game working then do optimization? On one hand you don’t want to test alpha your game as it lags a bit but on the other hand the optimizations or lack thereof could tell you early on how much you can add to the game. For example, if after all core features are done with no optimizations and I can do 500 ship battles with quick detailed ships I could plan on creating a lot more detail assets then optimize the game and still have 500 ship battles with better assets.
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How much focus should I put on game security such as protecting game assets etc? I have read from some places that before you publish a game you should create a business and pay a lawyer to cover you and create EULA etc is that really needed or cost effective esp. for a first game likely to have temporary assets upon release?
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First impressions are certainly everything in life but how important are they for an early release alpha game, are people forgiving or instant judgment of such games? For instance if I release a game with all core features working to a good ability and basic assets will people shy away from the game later based on its name even if I improve the graphics, sound fx, etc later on? Basically, when is it good to decide I need feedback before I am to invested vs I need to make the game worthy of being sold at gamestop/steam etc 1 week after alpha/beta bug killing? (which obviously likely won’t happen but it’s an example)
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The old save time by buying assets thereby saving time=money in your development of game. Also the mixture of assets built by different developers will that “fit” in your game? For example to promote rapid prototyping I might buy a planet pack and then build some raycast click event so that when I click a planet I could build factories etc in a simple Ogame type way but what I would like in the final game would be a planet where when you click it the screen warps around the planet and you “zoom” down to a surface of the planet and can build buildings in a very graphical/grid way like Civilization games for example but on a limited scale. So in essence would it be worth the money to have a working game earlier and tweak/build it as you go along or should I work on features from the get go because besides time & money.
-There would also be the fear that players get used to a certain feature then they update and they go what happened, where is this that and the other thing? Also the fear of destroying player progress if I change a feature and it saves differently I wouldn’t want to reset a game players have been playing for weeks 30mins at a time.
-So this is kind of the opposite of question 9 should I release the game with near final core abilities or could I plan to be able to change/add new features on the fly?
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(I understand this question is very basis by basis based but I would like general examples how these things work and what to possibly expect) Would I want to design a host based server system or a dedicated server system or a mix of both where I would have the power to assign users with hostage status if they meet certain test criteria etc? Multiplayer battles would likely be between 2-8 users with each averaging probably 50-150 ships with a few turrets/research bonuses. Also would the extra effort to only send data that would be used make any real difference for example a turret wouldn’t move from its parent so the users would only need to know its rotation, scale and position would never change.
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I know game monetization is thinking very ahead but I fill it is needed early on because if the game is pay to buy I just setup the game normal, if it is f2p I might lock down certain features and all that annoying stuff, and if it is ad paid I could be designing billboards into the GUI/space stations etc to earn money. I would like to know the pros/cons of each and their impact in the long run.
