Texas A&M University Arch Camp 2008

Uncle Lars Teaches Game Design

7.15.2008

If you're here, it's because you were either one of my students for Arch Camp from Summer of 2008, or you're just nosy. Either way, feel free to sample these awesome materials!

The Tutorial

You may consider all of the assets in this zip file under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License:

Super Miyamoto World by Lars A. Doucet is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.fadupinator.com/files/gamemaker_tutorial.zip.

My Design Presentations

Click here for Presentations

Websites I Recommend

Gamasutra.com - The leading website on Game Development. Despite title, has nothing to do with a certain East Indian ... Book.
Ernest Adams - The Designer's Notebook" - Awesome game DESIGN website.
The No Twinkie Database - Ernest Adam's list of Stupid Game Cliches. Important enough to give its own entry.
Daniel Cook - Lost Garden - Amazing game design blog, complete with lots of free artwork released to public domain! Click Here for Index
Raph Koster - Raph Koster wrote the amazing book, "A Theory of Fun." He's really smart and has good insight.

Indie Games Scene - Join the Revolution

TIGSource - The Indie Gaming Source - THE definitive page for Indie Gaming.
Tim W. - Indie Games Blog - a good, frequently updated blog about Indie Games. Sister site to TIGSource, almost.
Derek Yu - The personal website of the driving force behind TIGSource
Jay Bibby - Jayisgames.com - GREAT blog on Casual Gameplay. One of the places I publish my games.
CasualGameplay.com - Jayisgames' casual game database. Lotta good stuff on there.
Kongregate.com - The XBOX Live Arcade of the web. GREAT games, has a wonderful community. Also - if you publish a game with them, they PAY you your share for it!
IGF - Independent Games Festival - The Oscars of Indie Gaming. You should enter!

Recommended Free (or mostly free) Stuff:

Game Maker - a free program that lets you make games! The best of the "game making" programs, in my opinion.
YoYoGames recommended resources - a bunch of free useful stuff
Microsoft XNA Game Studio - more of a "real" programming environment. Make awesome 3D (or 2D) games for Windows & XBOX 360!!!!
Paint Dot Net - an awesome, free "sequel" to MS Paint. Think of it as Photoshop-lite.
Audacity - a free program that lets you edit audio waveforms and export them.
Anvil Studio - a free program that lets you make MIDI files and export them.
sfxr - "Sound FX'er" - an awesome program that lets you easily generate NES & SNES sounding sounds!
musagi - a music composition program specifically for retro NES & SNES type music.
Blender - a completely FREE 3D modelling/animation tool. VERY powerful. Be warned, it is notoriously difficult to learn.
GIMP - the GNU Image Manipulator Program - completely FREE photoshop-like program. Very powerful. Interface sucks, though. But it's free!

Recommended Cheap Stuff:

Noteworthy Composer - a cheap MIDI editor that's got a LOT of nice features. Free trial.
Graphics Gale - an awesome image editor SPECIFICALLY for sprite art and animation
Milkshape 3D - a useful (fairly) cheap tool for making 3D models. Used a lot by game modders.

Interesting Stuff:

RPG Maker XP - make your own RPG's. Very nice, but can limit your creativity to a japanese-style RPG
RPG Toolkit - alternative to RPG Maker. What I got my start on. Listed here for nostalgic purposes, also pretty good!
Adventure Game Studio - for making your own point-and-click adventure games. Just like the above, it can limit your creativity to an adventure game, but I've seen some amazing stuff done with it.

Recommended Stuff that costs $MoneyDollars:

Multimedia Fusion - an alternative to Game Maker. Some AWESOME, award-winning Indie games have been made with this.
Adobe Flash - I use this to make most of my games. It's easier to learn than C++, but harder than Game Maker.
Adobe Photoshop - Industry standard image editor. I use Paint Shop Pro myself, but I can't recommend it past version 9.0 since Corel screwed it up

Awesome Indie Games you should play:

Cave Story - by Pixel. THE KING OF INDIE GAMES. Play. It. Now.
Knytt - by Nifflas. Atmospheric exploration platformer. Easy.
Within a Deep Forest - by Nifflas. Amazing atmospheric platformer. Difficult.
Knytt Stories - by Nifflas. The sequel to Knytt. Excellent, also open-ended and MOD-able.
Aquaria - by Derek Yu and Alec Holowka. AMAZING aquatic exploration game with great story. Won the IGF!
Immortal Defense - by Rinkuhero. Tower Defense strategy turned on its head with a deeply touching story.
Poyo - by Lazrael. Fun little platformer, COMES WITH FULL GAME MAKER SOURCE FILE FOR YOU TO EDIT!!!!
Schizoid - by Torpex Games. Awesome co-op action game. Only "semi" Indie but I think it's amazing. For XBOX 360
Fadupinator Portfolio - We make games too, ya know :P

Awesome Game Developers you should know:

Shigeru Miyamoto - the man who made Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong. Made Nintendo what it is. THE founding father of Video Games as we know them. Console-gaming.
Will Wright - the man who made SimCity, the Sims, and Spore. Made the Simulation game what it is today. Another founding father. PC-gaming, mostly.
Sid Meier - Will Wright's counterpart. Made CIVILIZATION, and defined the modern strategy game.
Richard "Lord British" Garriot - A Founding father of the American RPG. Also, a Texan. Created ULTIMA.
Roberta Williams - A Founding mother of American Games. The mother of the point-and-click adventure game.
Tim Schhafer - A Fouding father of American point-and-click adventure games. Did a lot of good stuff for Lucas Arts - Grim Fandango, Full Throttle
Warren Spector - Another Founding father of PC games. Worked with Garriot on Ultima. Famous for System Shock & Deus Ex
Hironobu Sakaguchi - Founding father of Japanese RPG's. Directed Final Fantasy at Square Enix for years.
Koji Kondo - Not a designer, but a composer. Composed all the famous music for Nintendo games, like the Mario & Zelda themse.
Nobuo Uematsu - Another composer. The "John Williams" of Japan, composed music for nearly every Final Fantasy Game.
Hideo Kojima - A Founding father of Japanese console games. Created the Metal Gear and Metal Gear Solid series.

Awesome INDIE Game Developers you should know:

Derek Yu - the man at the forefront of the US Indie Gaming Scene. Developed Aquaria and Eternal Daughter. Chief Editor of TIGsource.com
Nicklas Nygren aka "Nifflas" - the most famous European Indie game developer. Developed Within a Deep Forest and Knytt. Famous for Atmospheric music. Swedish.
Daisuke Amaya aka "Pixel" - the most famous Japanese Indie game developer. Developed Cave Story, widely considered one of, if not THE best, Indie Games of all time.
Kim Swift - one of the girls on the team that madeNarbacular Drop which became the mainstream smash-hit Portal. Public face of the team and awesome developer. We need more like her.
Jonathan Blow - an American indie game developer most famous for his Indie games work on Braid
Cactus - a team, not a person. Swedish Indie Game Developer.
The Fadupinators - Sean Choate, Megan Bednarz, and Lars Doucet - We really don't deserve to be listed alongside these guys, but hey, it's our website!