EL405: Reaching the Widest Audience

Darby, "Make Amazing Games in Minutes"

After reading the first four chapters of Darby's book, I am really looking forward to getting started on a game or two. Darby realizes that readers are also getting pumped to start creating... but he stresses planning. Game-making is the same as writing a good paper: you have to do a sufficient amount of planning and preparation before actually sitting down to make the thing.

While the opening chapters of the book were somewhat base and childish, I did like Darby's suggest for outlining your game. Creating the idea, the objective, and the obstacles and then seeing what is actually feasible is a smart way to go about things. Sure the whole book seems to be an infomercial for The Game Factory 2 (TGF2), but after fiddling with the program a bit it's clear that it's the best tool for what we aim to achieve.

How I wish TGF2 was a Mac program... having Inform 7 on my Mac made everything that much easier (and the Mac's version actually had more features than the PC one, which is always a plus.) However, the Click Team--the programmers responsible for TGF2--doesn't produce this product for those of the OSX variety. A Mac alternative is Power Game Factory, a side-scroller-creator that actually looks cleaner than TGF2. Unfortunately, the creators of this game are almost violently anti-PC, which means that any game you create is stuck on a platform that only holds roughly 10% of the market.

And for me, it is key to create a game that can reach all platforms. It's sort of like a publisher who is trying to decide whether or not to develop a game strictly for the Gamecube. You could certainly create an excellent Gamecube game that would really take advantage of the system and all it has to offer... but then you would only have a very small amount of people playing it. The same goes with Power Game Factory. Thankfully, TGF2 can export games to the web, which will be clutch for reaching the widest audience.