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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2024
- You know it's your dream game, and you are different and will actually be able to do it. So might as well learn how to be bad at...
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So I mostly talked about open worlds for RPG's or other similar games, but can you think of any games that are not these but still have an open world?
Nah
How much for you to do the thug shaker
@@theempire8461 "how to fail at thug shaking"
red dead redemption is one and there's an argument to be made that GTA is an open world sandbox
@@ligstig aren't those both rpg's though?
"Some of them are turned 90 degrees"
Yes definitely on purpose to give the game variety
I mean you can hardly tell them apart.
And some of them... are turned 90 degrees THE OTHER WAY!
@@Tasarran -No- Other way?! This is beyond science!
Guys, you'll never believe it, I found one that's 180 degrees!
Guys I found one that’s 360 degrees!
Ah yes, the Ubisoft approach.
LMFAAAOOO
Nintendo does that right.
@@frogtheneonsaber You don't mean in botw/totk right? They're equally as guilty with copy and paste monster camps littering the place. It's only tolerable thanks to how much players can express themselves in terms of combat and world interaction.
@@frogtheneonsaberif your only experience with open world games is only botw/tiktok, then sure, with nothing else to compare, they did everything perfectly, eh.
This is just how the people’s minds was thinking during the making of skull and bones
Don’t forget- as a indie dev, it is VERY, VERY achievable for you to create a vast open world like BOTW. Immediately set your sights on that- anything else is just pixelart garbage.
True! Your first game should always be a colossal 60+ hour masterpiece, and the magnum opus of your career. Go big or go home!
99% indie devs quit right before they hit it big
Don't be a wuss and always start big. Remember, scope creep is a social construct.
@@ultimaxkom8728
Oh for sure, your game will come out perfect if you just keep adding new concepts to it. Extra systems for depth, new characters for new stories, maybe new sidequests and new bonus content (that you develop before finishing the core content, of course), just go nuts and tack on every idea you get. I mean, it’s more content, a big game means it’s a cool game!
And since this is all for your first game, it has to have EVERYTHING. Every good game dev proves all their talent the first time around!
@@cresoma I'll add that _MoSCoW_ is a trap. _"Must" "Should" "Could"_ and _"Won't"_ are mostly redundant and there should only be the _"Must"_ features.
1. create 2 giant-ass continents wired together by a tiny strip of land. you may not even care about naming them creatively, let it be "North ..." and "South ...".
2. Make a spawn point for your main game class in the center of the map, and make it entirely empty. Like, who even cares about starter content? Fill it with sand and it'll be fine.
3. Make a continent to the north of it, and make some parts of your lore claim it's actually 2 continents, so it contradicts itself. Don't forget to add too many peninsulas for fun.
4. Don't reward the player for getting to the northernmost and southernmost parts of the map. Come up with a stupid reason so players don't go there, like, "it's too cold to live" or something. You can also save processing power like that - just cover that land in white so you don't have to texture it.
very good additions. :)
Is God an indie game developer
Wait a second
@@calebd3947 Hollup... Let him cook
Make one of your continents completely disconnected from the rest except for a special event in the lore, and make it require special equipment to get to, then fill it with giant spiders and mammals with pouches, watch your players gaslight themselves...
Can’t wait for the npcs to give one sentence quests! This won’t make the world feel shallow and insincere at all!
lol, didn't even think about that, I just had to fit the quest into one frame, but a great idea none the less! :D
Also! Don't forget to just have some random invisible walls to instead of a interesting realistic border to the world! Just like some random force field will do just fine!
Yeah! Why have a stick? invisible walls work just fine. :)
I always found it interesting how in BotW some boundaries of the world have semi-feasible restrictions, like giant canyons, strong wind, or blinding sandstorms. But then sometimes it's just "You can't go any farther."
In fo4 its just a wooden fence
Not even a tall one
"I should turn back"
Probably the easiest genre to fail in my opinion.
A great option for following this series. :)
Only way to make it even easier to fail would be to attempt an open world MMO (of course, with a dev team of ten or less members and a budget of nil)
Open World MMORPG, the easiest genre for a new game developer
@@cresomaBudget of nil? More like budget of hopes and dreams :D
This definitely hits home for me... Not failing yet though!
How to fail at picking a game engine is an underrated concept, how many times an idea fails because of the engine
That's episode 2. :)
I tried to make my own engine....
and then decides to just use Godot because it is more easy, convenient & fun,
and my game is still yet to be finished.
Bethesda "thats where im a viking"
My 15 year old rot brain is making an "engine" over MonoGame for a TBS game which uses a special content definition language I made for not much reason, more than 1 year of (mostly passive) development and basic UI functions are still in progress, feels great 👍
How to succeed:
1) Make it a small world so players never ask for fast travel. Also decreases overall work so you can finish it.
2) Pack that small world to the brim with activities as if it were a theme park.
3) Randomly place the activities to actually encourage exploration. EG: This cave has an iron rock in it but it's in a different place every single time.
How to still fail after that:
1) Just add fast travel.
2) Trivialise all activities the player can do by just making it so the player can buy anything with gold, who needs to do fishing when you can just buy fish.
3) Have a boss that drops a ludicrous quantity of gold so the game becomes stale and repetitive.
This sadly brings Runescape to mind - there is a lot of skilling content in Runescape, but it's usually just more efficient to kill bosses for their drops, sell the drops and buy whatever you would have wanted to get from skilling anyway, and most bosses drop skilling stuff too.
@@waltercardcollector I had Runescape in mind when writing those fails since Runescape did those. Which brings me to:
4) Make the level 40 gear upgrade require 99 blacksmithing or a small sum of gold to render the whole skill worthless.
@@maltardraco9555 Hahaha yessss that never made any sense to me either!
"1) Make it a small world so players never ask for fast travel. Also decreases overall work so you can finish it."
I think this is a good idea but let's be honest: The Legend of Zelda, in 1986, had two different fast travel systems. So did Link To The Past 1992. On the other hand, Metroid (1987) and Super Metroid (1994) did not. So you can go either way and be right.
Oh ya, i play a need for speed most wanted game and the map was small enought to explore, if you want you can buy another city dlc
Make sure to fill the world with NPCs that do nothing all day except sit around and give the player side quests. This hunter needs 50 bear asses! Could he simply go and get them himself, 'cause he's a hunter and all? No. This farmer wants you to watch his sheep! Could he just do it himself, since that's literally what his occupation entails? No. This lady wants you to get her a basket of apples from the market! Could she literally just get off her lazy arse and WALK to the market herself because it's literally RIGHT THERE?! No. There's simply nothing better for immersion than making the player question how the hell this society manages to function without a legendary hero around to wash everyone's dishes and walk their dogs.
honnestly , that's almost every game ever, trying to make such a game would fit in the "how to succeed at failure" due to the ambitious scope of autonomous NPC
And if it break immertion you're doing everybody's chore, removing it skip the point, it make you aware of how the inhabitant of this world ""live"".
Imagine the hunter never ask you 50 bear asses, the lady never tell you she need apple, etc..... what do you know about this world then ? why are you even there (except probably killing strong monsters ) ? What do you even do beside being a passive listener if NPC live their lifes without you ? (obviously doesn't apply if like in a mmo you just skip skip skip skip dialogues)
What's bad obviously is lazy quests "go kill me 10 wolves" or indeed the NPC just stand there doing absolutly nothing.
The hunter should be visibly injured and complain about having to have the bear pelts ready for the local lord within a couple of days. For the farmer, some of his sheep could be stolen by bandits, and they're his best wool producers, so he needs some help getting them back. As for the apples, I have no idea unless she's an elderly villager who asks if you're happening to be going to that town and coming back, could you please get a basket of "sweet ruby" apples from Donald the costermonger.
Or the hunter could ask you to get him a new bow from the only seller nearby, who's refusing to sell him anything because the whole village is angry at the hunter for some reason (maybe he cooperated with the game villains to save his loved one from being forcibly employed as their servant? and maybe she was in debt to the villains?). And since it might be pretty obvious that it's for the hunter, you either have to convince the seller, force them, or conceal that you've been contacting the hunter before, and make it believable that it's actually you in need of that bow.
See, it's still a relatively usual fetch quest, with a little quirk that you have to figure out how to get the item, but it makes sense in the setting and provides truckloads of background. The same could work for other examples, but I'm not gonna write 3 quests just for a comment :P
@@ballom29 I'd rather do nothing than fetch quests
Honestly, 90% of the “I’m too lazy, you do it for me” quests would be improved by just having the NPC go with you. They don’t have to be competent, but at least they’re trying.
I hope someone makes a game jam where you have to follow as much of your videos as possible someday
I've been thinking about making a game based on the series, might be good. :)
@@Artindi please do, ive never done a game jam but id definitely participate in that one, alot less pressure to be the best, quite the opposite actually..
@@Artindi Even better, make your own Failed Successfully Game Jam in the far future.
If you set your game in space, make sure every planet has one biome.
Monoclimatic planets are all super realistic and very interesting!
Oh, monoclimates are TIGHT
To be fair almost every object in the solar system has only one biome
no man's sky
My best advice: You really can't make a Skyrim as an Indie. But with today's tools it's totally possible to make an Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Bard's Tale, Dragon Quest, Legend of Zelda, Legacy of the Wizard, and so on, all by yourself.
There are some pretty awesome open world games made by solo devs. But they are never epic in scale, which makes then better in some ways.
You almost certainly can make epic scale open world on par or better than any *_current_* AAA titles, even as a solo dev. You just need to sacrifice decades for it.
@@ultimaxkom8728Well, we're talking about what's realistic here. During those decades, you'd have to somehow be able to set aside many thousands of hours of time whilst still making enough to get by. Not something 99.9% of people are capable (or fortunate) enough to accomplish.
A good example that came to mind while watching this was the classic Fallout titles. Their 'open worlds' can feel somewhat bare compared to modern day games, but considering how many unique locations it had, and the amount of unique content in each location, AND the fact that it was all only released in 1997 is really impressive. And the best part? No annoying collectibles!
@@linkly9272 It's possible, it's achievable, but doesn't mean it's feasible nor affordable. It's just the purest trade of time and effort for talent resources and manpower.
Don't forget to add base building mechanics, bonus points for tying them to 1 location or a few more. Saves processing power not having to render the rest of the world you crafted!
Don't forget to make bases meaningless by not giving the player a proper storage or crafting system
@@banko-xv4rtdon't forget to also add constant NPC raids that only serve as infinite weapon and ammo generators
@@banko-xv4rt Limit inventory tabs and sell the rest on your shop.
@@banko-xv4rt or by giving the player a summonable base who also give storage and crafting stations, wich can double as an hangar for all your vehicules and offer by far the best long distance travel, making traditionnal base almsot completly useless.
No, I'm not thinkign at all about a specific space game.
@@ballom29which space game?
Some other tips on how to fail:
1. Oh...while you're at it, add an inventory but make sure it doesn't add immersion and is more of a gameplay inconvenience than actual challenge.
2. Don't forget crafting system! Make the crafting system as cumbersome as possible!
3. Early access! Is it going to be out of early access eventually? Who knows.
4. Remember: You can't make an indoors open world game.
if it was possible to actually fail on Open Worlds, Ubisoft would've gone bankrupt by now
And bethesda
@@lamxdblessed3383 Bethesda don't make games they make mod templates
@@lamxdblessed3383I'd say case -in-point Starfield, but we're talking about open worlds here.
I think it's kind of a missed opportunity. Most openworld game have a lot of open space due to how expensive it is to make all those buildings fleshed out. I wish they'd figure out how to allow players to populate some of the map.
@@delrunplays2903Brutal
Don't forget about invisible walls everywhere, we need plenty of those too!!!!
The best kind of walls. :)
Make sure to add secrets that are harder to get to than those walls.
@@artman40only if they require some bs that makes the player feel frustrated that they succeeded rather than like they earnt it.
@@theapexsurvivor9538 I'll do you one better: secret rewards that you can see and you _think_ you can get but can't possibly reach without using external hacks.
@@theapexsurvivor9538 Make secret rewards that you can see and you think you can get but can't possibly reach without using external tools.
First minute could be easily countered by mentioning Daggerfall lol. It did the realistic scale impeccably for the time. You can definitely make a big empty world only realistically traversable by fast travel, just have to make the gameplay loop revolve around it.
Wow
I managed to forget that game exists
Brb, starting work on my 100% science-based dragon open world MMO!
I'll Wishlist it. ;)
Man i wonder how that chick feels about being the butt of internet jokes for 12 years straight
My favorite open world mechanic is level based combat system! Basically every enemy is the same from start to finish but they get more levels per region. Also you can't damage an enemy 5 levels above you while it always one shots you. (gotta keep it balanced)
Don't forget to make the world insanely fucking big and then filling it with nothing, but needing to place billions of trees and rocks and ruined houses in obscure corners of the map, where noone will even be.
This is why I love Unity terrain building "tutorials." Here, you've made an absurd mountain range that prevents anyone from ever walking on it, covered in 50,000 identical trees so you can never build anything on it! Is this game dev? Is this how "game dev" works? 😎
The entire underground of tears of the kingdom. The size of the entire original map with enough original content to justify 1/40th the space it takes up.
This only-vaguely has to do with open world games, but I had an idea awhile back about a linear story with branching paths. Sounds contradictory, but no. The idea was to give the player a FEELING of an open world, while still technically keeping them on a linear track.
It worked like this; lets take a game like Half-Life2, specifically the section from the Airboat Dock to Black Mesa East. You have a single linear path connecting you from one stage of the game to the other. That one linear section is full of all sorts of fun interactive puzzles, deadly chases, and intuitive combat encounters, with brief airboating sections in-between. But what if you wanted to hoof it on foot?
No problem! You can either take the airboat through the canals, OR, you can take a back-path through the sewers of City 17. Spelunking your way through the infested, grungy tunnels, stumbling across the remnants of the Resistance's underground railroad, fighting through a Combine-controlled dam, and trudging through the remains of a rebel shanty-town, before finally arriving at Black Mesa East. You still arrive at the same destination, and overall the outcome doesn't change, it just gives you a whole new experience to explore.
And the idea that sparked all this was the complexity of open worlds. I admit I'm too dumb to plan out an ENTIRE open world where the player can do anything they want, but I still wanted that feeling of adventure and exploration. I felt linear, branching paths was the best solution to this, where you still get that feeling of adventure, but the game's story doesn't change.
This is a great way to find a balance between narrative and open world feel, I think. :)
Would be a problem of ""waste of time"".
So let's say you want to make 3 different paths, normally making one path would require X effort to make Y amount of playtime for the player.
Now if you make 3 paths, then you need 3X effort to make it.....only to give Y time to the player... or one player gonna be a completionnist and spend 3Y time before completing the level but damn he's gonna feel he just paddled throught useless content in the fear he missed some important stuff.
And not only that, but your 3 paths gonna be balanced, you wouldn't want to risk to have 2 great path, only for the 3th path to ruin the experience of the players who picked it.
Anyway...rainworld
I agree with @@ballom29. If that's what you want to do, maybe look up the "illusion of choice".
Basically make sure the branches get back to a single path as often as possible.
You just made an open world telltale game lmao
There are many games like this, that give the illusion of being open world. The problem with this is that some people like it, while others don’t
kenshi did manage to make a huge open world mostly solo, but thank to a lot of good decision the general grindness, emptiness and unfairness of the game actually help the ludo-narrative
For anyone interested, Wave Function collapse is kind of a cheat code for proc gen. It's not going to solve the problem of you having a lack of content in your game, but if you want procedurally generated environments that differ from one-another, WFC is the way to go.
I came in expecin the same level of thoughtful, gentle critique as the rest of the gamedev videos youtube's been recommending to me, and instead got all the snark and cynicism I was going to leave in a comment to such a video. This is very cathartic, thank you.
oh you are most welcome. :)
Jokes aside, the comment section here and the video itself is super helpful for me.
I lost my old game project’s file from file corruption, making me lose 4 years of progress. But is a blessing in disguise as I’m now remaking it from the ground up whilst heavily improving on everything, specifically the world and its lore.
But the main struggle is the open world itself. All the stuff here has already given me ideas on what to do and what to avoid; and has even given me ideas such as rather than simply adding fast travel to the game like I was going to originally, completing certain sidequests or main story quests will reward the player with new shortcuts of varying types that help them travel around the world much quicker should they choose to do so.
These shortcuts themselves may even sometimes contain extra stuff as well, such as a path to a different area of the map previously thought to be inaccessible
The fact that big companies do the things you mentioned about indie game dev mistakes is halirious 😂
Unsighted is an open world indie game which I like a lot. It's 2D and doesn't take itself too seriously, but you can totally travel anywhere right at the start by using valid game mechanics (like crafting yourself a huge spinner and using it to bounce over the water)
Cool! might have to check it out. :)
Can't wait to make the next GTA! All by myself.
😂😂
This is basicly what bethesda did with starfiled
Also can you make "How to fail at Souls-Likes"
I said I wasn't naming any games in particular..... ;)
Also, no, Souls-like games are perfect and cannot be failed at... (shifty eyes)
how to fail at souls likes:
Release a masterpiece on a console that is barely able to run it. Give it a good DLC.
Never return to it. Never port it to PC. Never make a remaster version.
@@banko-xv4rt nah just copy paste lords of the fallen (2014) and you'll be fine
Haha "starfail"
@@banko-xv4rt me when she births my blood until I nightmare
Step one: Make a giant map
Step two: Put a few big interest points, like cities or towns
Step three: Put medium interest points in between the big ones, like towers or forts
Step four: Put small interest points in between the medium ones, like random encounters or natural views
Step 5: ???
Step 6: Profit
There’s a solo-dev open world game, called Gedonia, that I really enjoy. Now, it’s no infinite-polygon, 4k graphics, AAA game. Its story is short and cliche, and the voice acting is flatter than a crepe. But there’s a ton it does super well, one of which is its fast travel options.
Regardless of your build, there are several warp points in set locations throughout the world. To travel to any warp point, you must first be at a warp point. Furthermore, you have to unlock warp points for fast travel by approaching and interacting with them. The warp points are few, far between, and rarely close to where you need to go, so you are often depending on your legs, a mount, or speed boosts to get around.
If you make a mage/wizard build, you’ll have teleportation available as a mid-late game option on your skill tree. This spell takes you anywhere within a certain distance from where you’re at, costs more mana the farther it takes you, and has an exorbitant 3-4 minute cooldown.
But the best fast travel by far is flying. With the same wizard build, you can unlock and upgrade a flight spell, which at its max upgrade lets you soar across the map in tens of seconds. It’s convenient, but also incredibly fun, and you can still enjoy the view (as long as the rendering can keep up with you lol).
Gothic 1 and 2 have the perfect open world type. It's perfetly accessible from the beginning, areas just have enemies way stronger than you so you don't want to go there before leveling up. And the world is actually fairly small in comparison even to games that came out around the same time, but it's absolutely packed with content. Hidden paths, hidden items, enemies, locations, quests, NPCs... Everything feels way bigger than it actually is.
Gothic is literally the only good open world game I have played. To be fair I've not tried Morrowind so maybe it's good?
@@blossom357 I don't know, the only TES I've played was Oblivion
I was going to write the same thing
I genuinely don't get proc gen in open world games. It's like skipping the soul of the world. Works for something like Minecraft because it's a survival game but for something like botw it would suck
Yup, depends on the feel you are going for. pro's and con's for both. and like you said, works better for some genres over others. :)
I think it depends, the problem being mainly scope. If the goal of an open world is exploration, then proc gen is useful and the blandness/interesting scale is simply a matter of variation, how places interact, and level of detail. For example, one can compare early minecraft with today's minecraft and moreso with mods/datapacks like Terralith, etc. It's still a type of hand crafting simply with more variability. If the goal is to tell a story, then places need to be consistent and so proc gen is only useful for filling in grass or something.
Though if it is not a fixed story, that can be interesting as well by implementing either a simple sim (dragon wanders about, attacks town when hungry, returns to cave) which helps create organic stories (if attacked, town asks for help, hero defends town OR hero follows dragon to cave to kill there OR hero places a pile of food somewhere so dragon eats that instead of attacking town OR hero blocks off cave and dragon starves, etc).
Certain plot events and characters can be proc gen'd as well (every 20 days, some npc is going to become a thief, rob someone, and that someone will ask hero to find and return item), the issue here is simply having enough detail and space between repetition to keep things interesting.
Yes, it eventually gets repetitive, but so does doing the same static quest over and over, games don't need to be infinitely enjoyable such that it replaces your whole life.
@@josecarlosmoreno9731Look at AI dungeon, that AI is like 5 years old and its still able to *somewhat* create unique quests by judging the environment. Procedural world generation would go hand in hand with AI story builders, at least when AI is a bit more smart and memorable
“I could draw others but eh I’m lazy” is the smartest way to illustrate your point I’ve ever seen
this one is the most aggressive and direct of these videos. love it
Well in fact Gothic 1 an 2 nailed the world building in game. The worlds in both arent large, in fact they are pretty small but they are o filled with everything, full of secrets, interesting stuff and they are also expanded vertically, so they seem huge and alive. Second, the progression. Worlds in those games are open since the start. So, how do you recognise that you shouldn't be in this area yet? You get your ass beaten in moment by monsters in that area. Of course there are few places that are tied to the story, but there is only few of them and they are completely logical. And last thing, the fast travel. You do not have teleportation at first or any fast travel means. Its not a big problem since as i said those worlds arent so huge. In fact its extremely good, because you are naturally forced to exploe the world, learn it, find a lot of things. You get telepotation runes, and only to few key places in like half of the game, when you already learned how the world looks and cleared the areas between key locations.
I wish more open world games would understand the formula of "big world with a lot of empty space" + "very face modes of transportation" like how the Just Cause series does it. JC2 had a map so big it could take hours to walk, but you could bypass the distance by hookshotting onto a fighter jet.
Your truthfully words wound so deep :D "If you never try, you're not really failing". If not for that, many people could believe that they "failed" by not trying and be done with it and move on with their lives. Instead, there is a need - a drive - to fail properly (technically, "to succeed OR to fail demonstrably enough") and so one still has to do an actual attempt =) And the more honest your attempt is, the less mistakes you're allowed to make knowingly, because that's like making failing easier for yourself. I guess, if "not trying at all" is failure of the zeroth degree, then "trying while ignoring obvious mistakes" is failing of the first degree, but it's still not good enough for a true Failure Knight! =D
An excellent way to put it. Very insightful. :)
There was this guy who made a really big rpg world by himself for the original gameboy, it took years, even with useful tools like GB studio [the game is called dragonborne]
Neat. What was it?
@@AlgaeNymph its called dragonborne
1:57 There are semi-procedural map creation tools available which allow you manual adjustment of a proceduraly generated points. For example, microverse for Unity - it allowed me to create a decent looking 16km^2 (nature-only though) map in a less than a month. The same goes with Gaia+Gena, but with less manual control.
While a AA or AAA title, the Yakuza series has the right ideas about an open world. It is open world, but they only give you a single city district to explore. But oh man, that single city district is full enough with life, interesting locations, quests, mini games and atmosphere enough for 3 Ubisoft games. The games director wanted to make a living breathing district.
Couldn't agree more. I also find it hard to care a lot about most video game stories because they have to share so many tropes with the other 8,000 video games we've already played. Two games can have completely different stories yet still managed to feel so insanely similar.
Ok according to this GTA San Andreas has a bad open world because it has off-limits locations for most of the game, the progression is tied to the main story line and it has collectables in strange locations.
But in fact, it's one of the most beloved open world maps there is.
Almost like a lot of players don’t actually care about sth being off limits for a while as long as getting there is earned lol
The problem isn't a game having restricted areas and collectables, the problem is a gaming having nothing more than restricted areas and collectables
Misinterpreted it award 🥇
Mentally handicapped award 🥇
@@EngiGODS358 Pro tip: if you’re going to insult someone, actually have an explanation of why they’re wrong. Otherwise you’re just going to sound like a 12 year old.
@@ygthemoth9425 If you couldn't figure out that artindi was talking about games that do these things poorly then you should put one of your sockets to good use by probably putting a fork in it. GTA San Andreas does this without it being an issue because not only is the area you start in massive already but is also just a fun game with a great story which makes up for it. Like I said, put a fork in it.
2nd Avernum (Or Realms if you're really really old) handled that well. Open world with big magical barriers locking you in to the starter area. Main quest at the start: nobody knows where these DAMNED magical barriers came from and by now we are so desperate, and so short on manpower that we're sending some rando lose- eum adventurers to find out wth is up.
Yes. The Avernum/Exile games did a good job of making the barriers part of the story world.
My favorite part of skyrim was the large (for the time) natural looking spaces. I think it worked so well for me because of all the resources, animals, and npcs along the way. I usually avoided fast travel because of it. But after having played so much skyrim in the past I'm not sure it would still hold my attention now.
yeah, I have to mod it now to keep things interesting. :)
That was something I found great on my most recent playthrough. I'd find little quests I knew nothing about just by walking along the roads or exploring - e.g. a skooma den, in which an imperial soldier recognises you from Helgen. If you use the skooma there, you get captured by vampires.
Love this style of video, had a good laugh. Good work mate, nice to see your channel growing!
For me what makes open world great, and I noticed it during AC Valhalla in particular, is the "follow road - [e] go to quest location" feature. Riding to far off blue dot on the map with meaningless rewards but a bit of funky story is neat, and not having to "drive" the horse but just looking around while I eat a waffle or light a cigarette is pretty relaxing to me. Of the 78h I'm into the game, I probably "followed road" for 3-4 hours by now if I had to guess, and I honestly do not regret it lol. That said I'm on great medication, not sure how I'd feel about it without.
Other things you should add:
Resource collecting, it would make the game more immersive.
A needlessly complicated cooking mechanic that the players wont ever bother learning because the can just select whatever ingredients and make a sufficient meal.
A needlessly complicated vehicle building mechanic that probably took up most of the development time.
Recolors of enemies that have more more hp as the game goes on so people might not notice the lack of enemy variety.
The most underwhelming sky islands ever, but make them seem like a big deal in the trailers.
Make running tied to a stamina bar that drains even when not in combat.
Hmm...
Other than the sky Islands i don't think these mechanics are bad
I'm not sure but i think you should totally try Zelda ToTK, you might like it!
And add one towering sky island that would be the biggest after the 2 only islands who felt like proper place, but put it at one of the hightest altitude from the game, surrounded by others islands but so far away from them the place is practically inaccessible without using method that feel like going around the intended away.
This island gonna tease the player, he's gonna wonder what can even be up there, surely some optional late game dungeon or at least one epic challenge or secret content.
And once arrived you'll realize it's almost like any other sky island, a huge bulk of the island that make it look so large is just useless decorations, an island bit more original than the rest but ultimately just a quick look around of the place and it's time to move on.
Zonaite forge was one hella big letdown for me, the view of this hard to access island hyped me so much.
Don't forget the most important one
In order to have the world not seem empty just copy and paste the stuff you already have everywhere.
Have 3 bandit camps within five feet of each other!
Have ten shrines different of power visible at one time!
Put literally a thousand tree poop in every corner of the map!
You know that guy who you can help to get an item? Make sure you can see more than one instance of him at the same time!
Have your mini-map so full of collectible markers that you can't see the ground!
The possibilities are endless
Just make sure that, when making the world, you do so in a way that guarantees that players ask the all-important question:
"Where the heck am I supposed to go?"
Shows how tight the line that games like Rain World walk is.
Speaking of fast travel, be sure to place your teleport waypoints in the middle of nowhere, but be sure to not place them near points of interest where you'll often be returning, because that would be convenient.
Make sure that the waypoints are in the middle of a valley and not on some vantage point where you can use your patented Open World Glider™ to travel. On the topic of vantage points, the points of interest should be unremarkable, and practically invisible until you stumble onto them. Because doing it otherwise would make the players actually look out for them, and plan a trek across the wilderness where they would have opportunities to get lost and bask in the openness of the world, and we can't have that.
You know, I like this series. Most people learning anything regarding software development, especially game development, are very adverse to any kind of critique, but this series explains it in an amusing and relatable fashion. Hopefully it'll help people become aware of their flaws, or at least, the flaws of their creations...
I just found this channel, It's like the video game counterpart to Terrible Writing Advice.
That's what they say... :)
the stone of barenziah reference as a useless collectible gave me flashbacks
Broo... Cool one, I like your style! Keep on!
Best openworld by solo dev I played recently have to be the moonring.
(It's free on steam, BTW, so tryit, not only the world, but the whole game is great)
Theres a dev who worked a simple menial job and worked on a game for 10 or more years afterwards getting the deserved attention and finally a crew.
One guy made everything, and his story inspired me, because the game itself is kinda about hard work.
And his game has lore that you yourself needs to find out, as it wont be laid out for you, the game will be harsh to you and there will be many reasons why. There are no quests because you are a nobody who nobody cares about, you will die alot and that will make the world bigger.
Kenshi.
Make sure to make the decorative novelty of the game something unique that you otherwise couldn't experience in real life, like space. That way, you can mask the games' complete lack of content and slow paced story behind "but at least it looks pretty", and then maybe people will stop paying attention to how weird the face textures look
I think a small open world will work for what I want. I remember playing dues ex mankind divided & was surprised how much was packed in the world. We need more small open worlds 🙌
Pst, heres a secret for making high quality base world maps "ez". Either draw or hire someone to draw you a cool world map reference you like.
Next sculpt a scaled miniature of it in 3d, or hire someone to do it for you. Its actually a lot cheaper than you could ever imagine.
Make sure to add height based texture to the map, mind you it wont be fine detail, you just want rough detail from the height based texturing.
Next scale it up to the real scale. Now you have a pretty high quality world map base.
From there all you have to do is the hard work, which is everything else. But this method is used to rough out major map designs fast while sticking close to the reference material.
There are professional tools for making maps but you could do this using most 3d programs including blender.
I suggest importing your world map base into unreal to apply the finner details. UE has amazing map making features for free. With paid addons its even better.
If anyone wants some other map making advice I'm happy to see if I can help.
this video made me laugh 😂. and btw, can you make a video of “how to fail at rhythm games”? thx
Eventually it will be done. :)
make the game force the player to press early or late without any indication while the notes are always misplaced they won't notice it right?
fnf mods in a nutshell
This bit killed me (Fast travel)
1:07
Thank you for this tutorial.
I was just having the hardest time failing my open world game.
Like everything i did just turned out to be masterpieces.
The fact a lot of people call Open-World a genre makes your point perfectly. People see it as a genre instead of what it really is: a level structure.
So instead of thinking of their mechanics and their "real" genre, they first look at what an open-world game "needs to have", and fall prey to the classic mistake of thinking everything in a Ubisoft-era-openworld is scalable to indie size.
Think first about your game mechanics, your genre, the experience you want the player to have, and only then think of how you want the world to reinforce those.
"Open-World as a genre" only works if you have the budget to make the world into your center piece and are ready to cut down on the rest of the design to do so. And even then, you're better off not doing that.
Elden Ring isn't an open world dark souls, it's dark souls with an open world. The distinction is pretty important in why this game's world feels so unique.
Sound exactly like Starfield ;)
I guess you are one of the people who "know" ;)
@@Artindiyeah, i was also thinking minecraft
Anyone who criticizes my decision to make an open world game as a solo dev is a jealous hater
I would never! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I think you should do How to Fail at boss fights for the next episode.
It's a good idea, but I think I'm going to do how to fail at survival games, felt like I needed to do open worlds before I could though, but now that that is done I can do survival. But Boss fights will be a great future episode. :)
Give the boss an overly complicated attack pattern that doesn't matter in the end because all you need to dodge him is to repeatedly roll over the floor 🤣
“Put five billion kilometres between respawn points and the boss arena.”
@@gatoreptiliano8785 Make said attack patterns obnoxiously long to die out, and give the player a mere second to strike before it starts the pattern all over again
Optional: Make a boss that blocks every single attack, sans one single special attack you’ll now have to spam cheaply to win
Sure, there are literally no examples of a hand-crafted, true open world made and completed by a solo indie dev, but surely that's because nobody has ever bothered to try except for me! And I've already gotten burnt out after a week of trying to make the sprawling, enormous MMO from my dreams, so I have plenty of free time!
I thought you where serious for the first half and was going to give you examples of open world games that have been made by solo devs. then I read the rest of your comment. lol. :)
Or you can take the Space Engine approach and succeed at making an open world proceduraly generated not-game. I think a lot of devs are drawn to procgen and feel like they need to make a game out of it. If the gameplay is a second thought it only makes sense that it won't be fun, but that doesn't mean we can't admire the generated worlds. I used to be disappointed that Space Engine had no game loop but I've come to respect that decision a lot as I realize that making a good game is more than just the sum of its parts. Weaving engaging gameplay into an open world is much harder than the combined tasks of making good gameplay and making a good open world. And that's without even factoring in sound design, art, narrative, or UI.
Ima need a how to fail at shooter game development
it's on the list. :)
of things I need to do. ;)
@@Artindi 🔥 🔥
Artindi: *speaking about how to make bad games*
Me: how to code "hello world"?
Making the interesting locations and activities miles apart is key here. Breath of the Wild fails at this because the player is always looking too many interesting things to do no matter where they look. But a world that's so wide you can't even see another interesting location for miles? Who *knows* what could be out there! Maybe you'll come across a rock! Or maybe even *two* blades of grass instead of one!
1:35 Gothic 2 is the best "not open-world" game world design I have ever experienced.
This is good advice for me, I was actually planning on building a horror rpg and the concept kind of forced me to make it open world to some extent
Getting reminded not to overdo it is pretty important
I'd keep at it. Even if it does fall by the wayside, and most indie projects do anyway, the experience and knowledge gained will still make it worth it. Only stop when it stops being fun.
@@steve16384 Yeah, it'd give me work experience and something to put on a resume
I wish there was an open world game that was beautifully handcrafted, packed to the brim with content, and had no fast travel, oh wait!
PLAY OUTER WILDS!
yeah... I need to get that game. :)
you forgot the most important part, never have random events that just happen while exploring anywhere, because if you have fun stimulating events then the player wont be able to rubber band their control stick while afk to make it to the next town, and everyone knows rubber banded control sticks are the future of gaming
1:36 You literally described my TGG paradox.
This. This video finally puts into words why I absolutely hate New Vegas.
Then add microtransactions for fast travel or making a new character...
Actually gating areas by high level monsters is actually good... when you give player option to pass through them if they're clever enough.
Like, make an entire area, a desert full of flying dragons that challenge even if you're high level, but you're low level rn... but there's a small shrine on an island near the shore that has an obelisk that can grant your characters a bit upgrade to all the stats! So if you're clever enough to dodge all the dragons, you can reach the shrine and give your characters a nice boost! ...Or you can use a hidden teleport right in the starting location that warps you direclty there, and there's a teleport in the wall that can warp you back to starting area.
...What i have described actually exists in Might and Magic 6 Mandate of Heaven.
Seriously, old Might and Magic games, specifically from 3 to 6, are examples on HOW TO make an open world game. And they're not too big! But full of content enough to make them feel very big.
This guy teaches people by not teaching them he's like a genius
Love ur content btw
I think Stalker style "open world" is a fantastic mix of linear and exploration. Semi large open levels with traversal points (i.e tunnels, roads etc) connecting them. Venturing into more dangerous zones is a whole spectacle as you dont know whether youll walk in with no problem or get ambushed at the entrance
As someone who just started their first attempt at a game, I am now more encouraged and disheartened than ever thanks to the comments 😂
3 words (or is it 2?) - Pseudo-Random Generation. My game world will be infinite - a never ending number of planets to explore - with lots of rocks and wide open spaces. And at least 10 variations of animals with slightly varied color and texture patterns on each randomly generated world. Of course, due to memory constraints, I'll have to limit your exploration to a 100x100 meter square radius. But hey - infinite planets!!!!
this video is just a diss on bethesda i fucking love it
The Stone of Barenziah as a collectible example is crazyyy. Such an annoying quest.
I was sure someone would recognize that. lol.
Hey devs. I'm making one of these. I will tell you, while feature and scope creep are definitely the arrow to the knee of indie devs, you CAN make an open world game. The only issue is that you don't realize all the skills and experience that go into doing it at first.
It's a lot easier to make an open world when you've made 30 outdoor scenes first. It's a lot easier to make points of interest to fill up your world when you've made 30 5-minute games or designed indoor environments for 30 game jams first. It's a lot easier to tell what's boring and what's not when you've made 30 player controllers and analyzed move speed and abilities, and how they work in the levels YOU like to design, first. You CAN do it and I believe in you. Just repetitively practice your core skills first, and it will get a lot easier.
At one point I was trying to find a fun rpg game for mobile where I could just spend a few minutes playing, and just kill some time. I found some pretty good ones, there were some bad ones, but one took the cake. I remember downloading a fairly small, but not obscure game. I can't remember the name, sorry.
It was online, open world, and had a really cool class based rpg type gameplay style. The issues started from the first quest. For example tje quest would be kill Reginald's Grass Giant. I would be fighting it for ages, until a high level player came in, finished it, and I didn't get the quest finished because I didn't kill the giant. So then I had ro wait 5 minutes for it to respawn.
Then the term "open world" was used incredibly loosely. You had two roads that connected the map together, with half the map being inaccessible because of hills that were too steep. So the game forced you to one route every time. The road had branches, but you couldn't explore properly, which kinda ruined it for me.
It had a class system, but that was pretty much useless, because you'd be able to unlock everything anyway, and be able to level it up quickly. Of course you could speed it up by spending a little dough.
It had about three big rock textures, and about two tree textures. Half of the trees were floating, and most of the enemies were just the same enemies, just slightly different looking. The game was horrid. 1/10 wouldn't play again, and I'm glad I forgot the name of it.
1:11 i know this is comedy, but there are reasons for blocking off parts of the world. like how in the first zelda how some of the world was locked off due to not having a item or enemies are too tough. This helps in making the world more interesting and creates a sesense progression. Breath of the wild hardly did this. so there all of the content sort of feels the same level and you don't get the same progression.
Open world, loot boxes, microtransactions, 3000+ hrs to complete, online only, and live service, are all features that will ensure I will not play that game. It makes it easy for me to focus on games that respect my time. All my favorite games are generally 10-20 hrs that I’ve replayed countless times for fun, not some Skinner box demanded by a suit for maximum addiction and profit.
Instructions unclear. Made the next Skyrim on accident. Then the cat ate the code.
bro accidentally taught me the formula for an Assassin's Creed game. YOU FOOL!
A good example of an Indie Open World game is Kenshi
I sometimes wonder what open world even is🤔 How big should the game's world be to be considered open?
Does your mom's basement count as an open world if the player can do whatever there? Does an apartment block? A city probably does. What IS an open world?
(Thank you for the video, How to Fail at X Man)
it's has a gray definition. might be one of those things where it's like, you know it when you see it. But yeah, a good question to ask. :)
Why does every open world game have to have at least 93 lightyears between points of interest?
Make How to fail at Tycoon Games
I'll add it to my list! :D
I like how this all applies to AAA "open worlds" as well. Just more money to fail in the same ways, but also access to the marketing to make up for it.