[Discussion] Why do you game dev?

You're making a game, most likely a Pokémon fangame... why? What do you want to achieve with it? Are you telling a story, are you showing off a new region and a slew of fakemon, do you really want to show off that awesome new game mechanics you've thought up, are you trying to fill a niche, or do you just want to get some experience with one or more aspects of game development (which ones?)? Or is there some other reason, or a combination of reasons why you're spending so much time on something like this?

If you're not making a game of your own, but you're still reading this, then you're probably interested in the process of game development. Or you're looking around for a new Pokémon game to play. Or you're lost. If you're not making your own game, then what brings you here?

I personally always wanted to make a game of some sort (if you find me on deviantART, some of my earliest deviations are of me trying to theorize a game engine that could reconcile the various physics differences between the myriad Super Mario platformers).

Around the time ORAS was coming out, I came to the realization that, to those that looked deep enough, every Pokemon game had a moral that one can learn from. And I started to wonder.

A month prior to that, I'd started to date a wonderful woman who was generally neglected and sometimes outright criticized by society for something outside her control: she was born deaf, but had an extremely powerful gift for (written) language that meant the deaf community also ostracized her for being too mainstream. After watching how so many doctors and other people would disregard her wishes that she, not I, be the person being spoken to when discussing her health or preferences, I began to mentally pace.

It wasn't until January that I saw something on Facebook (I don't remember what) and I suddenly put the two ideas together: there should be a Pokemon game where the moral is about accepting other people. I had (and still do have, to some extent) the idea of meme-ifying the concept of bridging the Deaf and hearing cultures, and if done right, such a game could start the ball rolling.

Some time in May or June of last year, I had a dream that inspired me to revisit the concept of a Pokemon game about acceptance, and that also gave me an amazing plot point that remains in the plans to this day. And all of the sudden the idea went from something that I felt needed to happen eventually to something that I needed to make happen.

I have several answers to this question.

First off, about the game itself: My project originally started out as a role-play on another site. I'm a writer first and foremost, and the story I came up with for the role-play is the first one I actually finished planning out. As in, it has a beginning, middle and end. That is incredibly rare for me, so I consider it a huge success on my part.

However, in my experience, role-playing tends not to reach the end of the story. Interest wanes, or people find themselves busy with other commitments, leaving little time to write. So that leads to my second answer: I chose to start work on the game to show the story in another form. It also gives life to the new region, Pokémon and player-based mechanic that I feature as part of the role-play.

Third, design and development of video games has intrigued me for a few years now (although I don't see it as a career in the foreseeable future). I learn best by doing, figuring out where I went wrong in scripting or mapmaking through trial and error. And I also want to show myself that I can finish a project. The story is there, so now I just have to build up everything else.

tl;dr? Inertia and in memoriam.

I started in game dev when I was 9, here with another name and a completely different attitude. Pokecommunity is what got me interested in game design and programming, and I spent a good amount of time learning programming and game dev in high school. I had(..have) a bit of an ego and loved the idea of being admired for making something that people could interact with. Throughout all this, my grandmother was always there and supporting me, buying me books on programming, new computers, and every Pokemon game as they came out(she loved to be the family's year-round Santa Claus).

My senior year of high school, I applied for DigiPen Institute of Technology, and was accepted readily. At the same time, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. My freshman year at college, at least the first half, everything was going swimmingly. I met other people super passionate about making games, and remained blissfully oblivious to the abuse the school was putting me through(a story for another time). While I was home for Christmas break, though, my grandmother caught a particularly nasty flu that had been going around, and with her time in chemo, the flu was too much for her. My family was shaken up by the news, and I got lost in the shuffle, and had to go back to WA for my second semester despite not being ready to go 1700 miles away from my family for another semester. After being metaphorically beaten around at school for 3 years, I finally concluded that I don't want to get into the game industry, or at least not on DigiPen's terms.

I'm typing this message on a fairly expensive computer going on about 4 years old now - a going-away present my grandmother got me before I left for WA. Last summer, I taught a class to kids on designing board games to kids about the age that I got interested in game design. I don't really know where I want to go career-wise, and I feel that if I just up and give up game dev, it'd be a waste. ..so, yeah, that's why I'm around on PC these days - it's where I first had passion for game design and development, so I'm hoping to hold onto that passion, at least for a while.

I like to understand how things work. Game mechanics, file formats, all that kind of thing. I also liked Pokémon, and I knew how it was supposed to work, so fiddling around with Essentials was fun, matching up the code with what happened while playing and figuring out why it did things a particular way.

I had a story for a Pokémon game in my mind at one point (I still do), but it wasn't at all fleshed out, and it wouldn't have been that elaborate anyway - I'm not into game dev for the story-telling. Thinking about it, I'm not really in it for the learning of new skills either; it's nice to have that as a side-effect, but chiefly I don't think that's why I continue to work on Essentials.

I like to make Essentials better, whether it be more functionality or more complete or more user-friendly or more efficient or whatever. At the core of it, it's a matter of problem-solving; I like puzzles, and programming is definitely that. I also like to enable others, letting them make better games by using the frameworks I've helped to make.

I game dev because it is supposed to become my profession.

Since I was little, I enjoyed playing games, but I also enjoyed imagining maps, levels. I drew hundred of circuits for Mario Kart games (never had the possibility to actually make them of course), I made some level design on the Half-Life series, and when I play I always try to find how they did that, how is this working...

I love making maps. Level design is probably my main specialization. I like to create places, with a good ambiance, with details and logic. I'm also in 3D modeling, and a little in coding (I can do some small changes in Essentials, but I also make a Minecraft mod with Java, and starting C# on Unity).

I always wanted to make a custom Pokémon game but never got in rom hacking. This is why Essential is a good way, though I would love to make some 3D maps like gen4-6 games :p But time is missing so much for that now, with my studies...

I was nuzlocking Drayano's Pokemon Blaze Black 2 for like the 10th time, and as much as I like the game, the same world over and over again became too repetitive. So I decided I'd make my own world. Pretty much, I'm making a game so that I have a game to play.

Like KillerMapper, I too grew up with games in my life. Sonic, Super Mario Bros and Battle Toads to name a few. I grew fascinated with how they can make you feel like your deep into the game, into the story. It made you feel like you were actually in the game. From there on out, I decided that I wanted to be like them, to be one of the greats in gaming development.

1. Oneness: I believe that my game ideas combination/implementation have almost zero chance of coming out by another person. And my games make people happy and thankfully (or probably will, for games that I gonna make).
2. Opportunity: I am very annoyed about cetain aspects of existing games. Commercial games are made to sell, so the responsible people take some decisions about this, like Wi-Fi events and some stuff being scattered between several games. For me, the biggest problem is the "Series Tradition", so we have very stupid mechanics, like trade evolution in official games.
3. Effective Medium: And, most important, there several effective tools (like Pokémon Essentials and lots of ripped/original graphics) that helps to make a game full of stuff without needing several people in a team or several development years.

My existing/future games (Pokémon or not) have these three reasons.

I like to see what I can do... Can I pull something off... Does it work how I imagine it to... I like to learn... But like some others here, I wanted to make a game, what other games had missing.

BadSamaritan said:

While I agree there are many mechanics Pokemon could try to improve/change, I disagree about this one.

If anything, the aspect of trading and meeting new people, that Pokemon as a series is founded upon, is being lost more and more with things like the GTS and Wondertrade. Evolution trades actually force you to meet other pokemon fans and arrange a meeting.

The person to person interaction is one thing I'm hoping to facilitate in the game I'm working on, Ethereal Gates, down the road actually. It's something that's been integral to the feeling of a Pokemon game since R/B/Y, and something I feel like fan-games have been lacking.

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No. I'm not against people to people interation (but also thinks that isn't bad to have some 100% single player games). For these cases that you mentioned we have the version exclusives, starters, fossils, Hitmonchan/Hitmonlee and so on.

Trade evolution is stupid, is like "I gonna give you my pokémon to you give it back right after". If you don't know someone with the game SOON, you gonna beat the game with Kadabra or can keep the game waiting until you found somewhere. Before Wi-Fi era this was even worse, because in some places you can't find someone with the game, specially if you are playing years after the official release. And even after the Wi-Fi, since the Nintendo DS Wi-Fi was shut down around 1 year and half after Black White 2 north america release (ridiculous). If you use this method with someone that you don't know well, over Wi-Fi, there's the chance that this people won't give your pokémon back. Also, the method about trade-evolution isn't clear in-game, specially if uses an item. Someone here know that Onix evolve traded with Metal Coat without picked this information with someone?

As a Visual Novel developer (I'm creating an Online (RPG Maker MV-based) Visual Novel Nuzlocke), I wish to experiment with using sounds and movement to see how it works for telling a Pokemon-based story with Final Fantasy as well - because I've never seen another Nuzlocke VN.

That, and I think it is an interesting way to tell a story - a very visual method, which could work well instead of a comic due to my desire to develop all the main characters quite a bit.

I originally got into game dev-y things because I was really into computer science and programming and the like, and I thought games were a great way to express oneself in that framework. I wanted to be able to see for myself what my ideal game would look like. I gave it a shot, realized that graphics really isn't my thing (debugging a GLSL shader program makes me want to punch something), but found that AI and HCI aspects of games are really neat stuff.

My interest in Pokemon comes from the fact that I just love the series, and I think there's more than enough toys to play with that I could make something really cool. Like, we have really well done battle simulators. What if we modified them to create frameworks for people to create AIs? We could do really neat stuff in player modeling, automated difficulty tuning, procedural content generation. It just opens up so many possibilities.

Wow... why do I game dev... there are a lot of reasons.

• The most obvious reason: I love video games!
• I've always wanted to try, in addition to programming, that I already do as a job, to try more creative endeavors: write a story, make graphics, make music etc. This medium is perfect for doing all that at once. The game is actually a self-imposed challenge: can I do everything myself? I am a bit nervous about making music, I've experimented before, and I have a lot of ideas for that, but, still...
• Over the years, I have gathered enough ideas while playing games: what would I have done differently? What did I like or dislike? What did I expect to happen and that never happened? I just think that there is no better way to express these ideas than to simply make games that include them :) .
• As to the reason why I'm currently making the game I am making: it all started with me wanting to make a spiritual successor to a video game series I really liked as a kid (and still do) : Wonder Boy/Monster World. I started doing that, and even when, some time later, the series was unexpectedly revived (the new game looks wonderful, BTW) , by then my game evolved into something with its own identity, and I was having too much fun making it, so I just kept going.

SaniOKh said:

• As to the reason why I'm currently making the game I am making: it all started with me wanting to make a spiritual successor to a video game series I really liked as a kid (and still do) : Wonder Boy/Monster World. I started doing that, and even when, some time later, the series was unexpectedly revived (the new game looks wonderful, BTW) , by then my game evolved into something with its own identity, and I was having too much fun making it, so I just kept going.

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Oh wow. That's also one of my targets, as in specifically Monster World (with a touch of Devil May Cry and Bloodborne)! I'm less ambitious though, I only want to contribute programming to the effort because my other assets are horrendous!

The reason why I develop games is that I'd like more games that I personally want to play. I'm one of those people who doesn't watch a film twice because I already know what's going to happen, so I spend a lot of time messing around with procedural generation so I can experience new content.

In Pokémon my favorite part is the gym puzzles, so I'd be trying to bring something like that to almost every route. Close second is that feeling when you backtrack through areas and discover that you can explore new parts with your HMs (I vividly remember using the Acro Bike on Route 119).
My biggest gripe is the battle system, I doubt I'm the only one who fast-forwards through battles. To "fix" this I basically want to turn the battles into Pokémon Showdown vs an AI.
I suspect that I have a wildly different opinion on what counts as core game play compared to the masses; my definition doesn't include training, catching and evolving Pokémon!

Also the cynical answer: I'm arrogant enough to believe I can do better than everyone else.

I actually asked myself some of these questions when I was making my first Pokemon fangame, and I quit because of it. I couldn't find a reason for why i was doing it, and what i would accomplish by making it. It would just end up as another Pokemon fangame that has the protagonist (you) start a Pokemon journey, have a rival, and eventually defeat E4 and save the world from the evil team and all that. Also I found out I didn't like playing it that much either, so I couldn't make it just so I have a game to play either.

So I decided to try to find inspiration in something else. Since Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is my favorite game series for Pokemon, I decided to try to make a fangame of it (although with normal Pokemon mechanics). I got a lot of inspiration from playing the Pokemon Ruby Destiny 2 hack, and even use it as an example for some things to do and not do. I took a PMD story I was making in a comic about 8 years ago and decided to revive it with this game. I'm also putting some of my own mechanics into the game that will hopefully make it different and interesting to play.

In the end I hope the game will be fun and enjoyable to play, and that people will like the story and the game overall. And i hope it will bring something new to the game dev forum. Though if I end up really liking it, then I'll just consider that a huge success even if others don't.

While I am not making a fan game, rather an original game inspired by the monster-collecting genre, I can answer this question.

At first, it was because I wanted to bring my ideas to life, and I had tons of game ideas. When I was a kid, I'd often discuss fangame and original game stories and ideas with my younger brother.

Now, along with that reason, there are two more.

1. It's fun! I've come to enjoy making sprites and programming objects and the like. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment and challenge!

2. I want to make a living out of it! In relation to number one, they say "If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life!". I hate work, so if I can get paid for something I love to do, even if I have to work toward it, even if it might not happen, I'm going to try!

Im here for code. "Talk is cheap show me the code"
While not makeing a fan game. programming is one of my hobbies. i like to do some c# work and ruby.
I like making ports of engines and mixed engines. Such as my RCD Game Engine (WIP) it is a OpenAL with SDL2 engine. with some ideas to make some game development ease.

I don't make Pokémon fangames myself but I am really interested in Game Dev. Programming is totally not my thing, and I haven't tried some programs without the coding part yet, but I want to play with it a little more. Since I study Game Art it's important to know the basics of development because artists need to know how to deliver their work and to bring the idea you have better since the artist can help the developer if the artists knows the basics.
And yeah, so that's why I clicked on the Game Dev section. : D

Just working on my game is more than enough programming exercise... and I also intend to end up with a playable product. It's still a long way, but slowly, but surely, I'm making progress. Here's hoping I can make it all the way to the end!