What things do we gamers take for granted?

I would say wireless controllers and auto-save checkpoints. They're so amazing. What do you guys think that we take for granted? what are some underrated features of modern gaming?

Agreed, I don’t miss the awkward reach of a wired controller in front of the tv, seems like ages ago when we had that. Also the ease of online play and buying games digitally on consoles.

@dracula_16: All the things you mentioned. Plus game development. It’s truly not easy to develop a game by yourself like I’m trying to do. Sure there are some fun elements. But there’s a lot of issues. Like finding the right artist. A story writer.

Therefore, if there’s a game you truly enjoy playing, play it! That’s what I think.

I would say the basic grunt work required to make a game.

Coding, for example, seems mind-numbingly boring. As much as I love sitting behind a desk and playing games on my PC, the thought of doing that for my job freaks me out. Hell, I can barely manage to sit still for five minutes at work doing the little paperwork I have to do each day.

Likewise, quality assurance/testing just sounds awful, and it's generally done by people not paid a whole lot.

• Imagine being tasked with playing the same 5-minute section of a game for 8 hours a day.
• You have to try every conceivable approach to his section and, when you encounter a bug, you have to document the bug.
• THEN instead of moving on, you are tasked with reproducing the bug so the people that make the game can actually identify it (as opposed to you just saying "I found a bug" they actually need to see if it is something that will occur more than once).
• And, on top of all this, you aren't even allowed to try out the whole game because the publisher is so concerned with security and leaks they partition the game out so you only get a teeny tiny little slice of it.

Game development sounds awful, to be honest. I'm sure there are parts of it that are really rewarding but for the most part it sounds thankless and monotonous and...yeah.

So, thank you game developers, for all your hard work.

But **** you, AAA publishers, eat shit.

@mrbojangles25: I code. I don’t make syntax errors anymore, but the logical errors whilst running the program are absolutely frustrating. I eventually fix it, but I want my game development to go much faster.

I think my main problem is budgetary. No money to hire any people to do some work.

AAA publishers are powerful. They got manpower. It always helps to have connections. Helpful connections, that is.

Also, I would say something we take for granted is the semiconductors that are made mostly in Taiwan. 90% of them are made there. If there were to be a problem in the Taiwan straights, this would be impacted.

Online multiplayer. It is a vast network of servers and constant upkeep for the companies. It wasn't like this in the 90s. Back then servers were available but not as much as now.

Just to reiterate what's already been said here: How much damn work probably goes into one game. I wouldn't exactly know but let me tell you I have tried making one myself on my own computer. Epic failure. I tried coding collision in a 2d game, couldn't even get that to work right. Tried using one of those fancy game maker tools, another fail. Imagine trying to do all the music, animation, artwork, design etc. yourself? Good luck with that one.

@mrbojangles25: Coding is amazing. You get to implement what you want and see it come alive, and others can enjoy it. Just making games for and with my kids is so great. Even after you implement something, you can refine it. Coming up with a way to make something much more efficient is a very satisfying feeling.

And even outside of games you can apply coding to so much. I've also made a lot of tools just to help with what I want to do. Even outside of the desktop, programming for devices, having everything the way you want, not having to rely on crappy third party solutions that want you to go through their online service just to do what you want, and then change your s*** and make it worse or slower with a bulls*** update, remove features, etc.

My only issue with coding is, it is tough to switch off the excitement and inspiration. I have to take notes in the middle of the night sometimes. It's compulsive, because if I don't do it then I might lose the idea. Sometimes I've dreamed of the perfect way to implement something and I had to get up to program it while it's hot, you know, while the juices are flowing and you are envisioning it and it is just coming out of you.

It's not the same for everyone obviously, hopefully everyone has something in their life like that for themselves even if it's not coding. Maybe it's music or painting or writing or cooking or whatever.

Anyway I don't want to oversell it. Sometimes working on commercial projects can be nerve wracking, and doing what someone else wants can sometimes be a slog, but it can also give you a fresh perspective and doing it can help you solve things in other areas. Overall to me it is an interesting challenge and I am always doing new things and getting new ideas.

@Sam3231: Get some public domain assets or placeholder assets and fill them in slowly as you go on. You gotta start somewhere and there are ways around those roadblocks. When you see it come alive you will inspire yourself to go on. If it's a personal project you don't have a deadline. Doesn't matter if it takes 10 years.

@Sam3231: I was actually successful with coding a collision concept.

Couple points…first if you’re coding without the help of gamemaker, did you do this??

So you know how there’s an x and y axis. If character 1’s position exceeds character 2’s position…do something. (Example I had my character fall down.)

Secondly, I would say if you’re working alone, @GirlUSoCrazy is correct. No pressure to finish your work, unleashes good creativity.

Currently I’m working on a scrolling screen. I have some ideas on what to implement, but I’ve been struggling with the concept for the past year.

Electricity.

CoD

What I mean by collision is how platforms work and I wasn't using a gamemaker at the time. just C++ and direct2D I think? It was a platformer, kind of like a poor mans Mario. I can't remember exactly what the issue was (I don't even have the project anymore) I think it had something to do with making a platform passable in a certain direction but not another, like you needed to pass through it going up but not down and that really had me stumped.

As for a scrolling screen, I assume you just make your scene or background very large and only draw or focus on a certain section, I'm pretty sure I had that part working in my project.

Needless to say, the fancy gamemaker, well what I am playing around with now is a lot easier which is GBStudio. Kind of like a tool for making Gameboy style games.

@Sam3231: On every frame (or tick if you are doing frame independent logic), add x_inertia and y_inertia to the player's position. (These can be 0 if the player is still or negative/positive if the character is moving backward/forward/up/down). If the y_inertia is negative (the character is going up) then the character doesn't collide with certain objects (like that platform), but if y_inertia is 0 or positive (standing, nothing under the character and adding gravity, etc), and the position of the bottom of the player is higher than the position of the platform, then they do collide.

To get back on topic I'll add that one thing gamers take for granted is how many options they have, and how many games are available to them. It used to be easy to okay everything that came out but now it's impossible. There are so many good games that it's always possible to find something you will enjoy, whether it is a new game, or one that you overlooked.