32 replies to this topic

[QuickPatch]

I've been contemplation the creation of fan games lately, and one thing that bugs me is the why. I know it seems a little stupid, asking why you would want to make a fan game. However, most fan games seem to be more work than they are worth, and in the end, wouldn't making something more original be better (even if it seems like a rip-off, at least it isn't a copy)?

I of course understand the benefits of fan games. They tend to draw in a bigger audience, there tend to be existing resources you can abuse (for bad artists and musicians especially), and you already know that the formula works. However, the benefits seem to outweigh the downsides. After all, your audience may be bigger, but they're typically more casual and less likely to give good feedback. The resources you reuse may be good, but they get stale. Lastly, recreating the engine and level design of an existing game can be extremely difficult, more so than just making an engine on your own especially since some elements (such as the aforementioned level design) can't be just copy pasted.

I guess one big problem I have with fan games is how unnecessary they are. Most seem to be fan games of franchises that have plenty of titles such as Zelda or Mario, or just Mashup Super Smash Brothers Wannabes.

I should stress that I don't hate all fan games, but I feel that they do have inherent problems that have to be dealt with. Some of my favorite indie games are fan games, Legend of Princess, Eggman Hates Furries, and Duel Toys 2 to name a few. But what makes those games good is because they actually added something of their own. They weren't just level packs, or character mods in essence like some fan games. They're more akin to original games but with the entire theme being a nod to a game they love.

Just wanted to express my feelings on this subject and maybe get some feedback.

[Rusty]

I'm currently making two fan games, I'm developing my version of Mass Effect 4 and a pokemon fangame. Why?

Mass Effect 4:
Frankly, I fell in love with the Mass Effect series and Mass Effect 3 left it at a point that I just couldn't fully accept, even with the new ending DLC. Working with the characters that I feel I know on a personal level is great fun, writing it is possibly the most fun I've ever had in game design, developing it to include all the features that the mainstream games has is challenging to say the least yet so very simple. Frankly, I love working on this.

Pokemon:
Pokemon was the game of my childhood, no game will ever define me the way Pokemon did, that black and white adventure was magical and each of my pokemon seemed like friends to me. I have more respect for Game Freak than I could ever really express in words, what I want to do is attempt to recapture that magic and put it into a game that will let others relive that journey again with my own little take on it mixed in there.

[Debels]

Well i personally like Fan games (some of them), because good fan games are an exact copy of the original games, but with more features which make it better.

Like Bowser's Last Stand, its a good game, is it a fan game?, yes yet its different from Super Mario Bros since they don't focus on the usual they focus on Bowser, which makes it good since the story changes a bit.

Are fan games worth it?

Yes, They are since they already have market (the people that played the original game) and they can easily manipulate that market to there own non fan games.

[TheSpeedyEggbert]

I find most fan games to be boring and predictable. They never try to add their own spice to the game. You should make it feel unique and not some generic copy paste game.

[Debels]

I find most fan games to be boring and predictable. They never try to add their own spice to the game. You should make it feel unique and not some generic copy paste game.

I invite you to play: Bowser's Last Stand, its a really good game, totally worth it.

BTW: I also hate Fan games that are the same as the game.

[ND4SPD]

Generally speaking, the fan games are going to be poor engine adaptations with ripped sprites. They'll contribute nothing to the previous game, and if anything, won't be anywhere near the caliber of the games they're trying to emulate.

A good fan game takes the previous game, and makes substantial additions to it - It should be able to stand on its own as a game, and shouldn't rely on the whole "hey... I'm like this game, you liked that, you'll like me too maybe even though I'm not made anywhere near as well.... LOVE MEEEEE". Rusty's plan for his Mass Effect 4 game sounds good; it's adding to the story that formed such a critical part of the previous games. Hopefully he'll be able to keep the complex dialogue, too?

Consider the sequels to Call of Duty as good fan games (they're barely sequels; should be DLC at best haha). They take the previous game, maybe fiddle around with the 'story', or add a new game mode, and swap out the guns and maps and such so it's not identical to how it was, but the core gameplay is captured. Bam. Fan game.

[Grijze Pilion]

Cities of History is fan-made, being strongly based on the original series with it's RTS elements, humoristic undertone and flexible construction. With the graphics CoH would be closest to CoH(1993), while the game's 'spirit' is more of mix between Civilization 5 and Cities of History Online. Visit the CoH Wiki for more information.

[masterofhisowndomain]

I tend to think that the problem with fan games is where they don't attempt to innovate even slightly. It's worth trying to make a fan game as if it was a new installment of the series; then you take a developer's outlook on the subject matter, decide what is worth keeping, what is worth getting rid of and expand upon certain aspects. I've thought about making a fan game, but purely from the standpoint of "What can I do to make the series better?", rather than pure emulation.

[Changgi]

I personally make fan-games for my own amusement. So yeah. I make them because making them amuses me. Playing them also entertains me. It also serves as a little challenge for myself, trying to code out the original stuff. I also tend to add elements of my own and remove some things that I find annoying in the original games.

Edited by Changgi, 13 August 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[Yal]

The problem most people that make fangames have:

Type 1: They can't code whatsoever and just slams stuff together. I call this Fan Trash.

Type 2: They focus too much on recreating the original experience and (a) waste work on unnecceassary tinkering and ( doesn't consider improving original flaws.


Finally, most people don't even try improving on the original concepts, so most fangames doesn't even cut it as "sequels" (since sequels shalt be better than the game preceeding them). The fangame I'm most proud of today is Kirbyvania which is a Kirby/Castlevania mashup. It borrows elements from both genres and actually provides something two camps of fans can enjoy. There should be more fangames like that, mashups or not.



To all fangame makers out there:

1) Don't try anything out of your league. Means less glitches and more likely a more fun game if you know what you're doing.
2) Be creative. Your game should offer something else than the original game.
3) In-jokes.
4) It's often easier to make NES-style premakes/de-makes than trying to recreate the game fully. Especially true for modern 3D games.

[PetzI]

I invite you to play: Bowser's Last Stand, its a really good game, totally worth it.

It's not "really good". It's average. It redid a platforming game that's been redone (better) literally hundreds of times and honestly, it's unfair that it gets so much attention. If it used original assets and story, it probably wouldn't have gotten half the attention it did. Although people would still probably say it's totally awesome even though it's a standard platformer with nothing new to show and linear level design from 30 years ago, because people here seem to have lowered their standards 10 meters below the ocean level, so much that every game can get at least one response giving it a 12/10.

While I'm complaining about things, I might as well mention the way people give a game a 15/10 or an 8/10 out of nowhere and yet keep their reply to only 10 words and don't really give any constructive criticism, which would actually be useful, and not some number you came up with from thin air, which is worth about as much as a comment on youtube saying "12 people will die unhappy", referencing how many people down-voted the video. Telling people they get a high score on your Not-completely-terrible scale does not help them make better games.

The author isn't mentally retarded, he doesn't need you to praise him for not using precise collisions, because that's something any half-decent game developer would have the sense to do. I don't hold anything against Bowser's Last Stand, it's a very decent game and it did was it set out to do. However, I believe onpon could totally have come up with a fresh concept of his own and have actually innovated beyond the average Mario clone. But he felt like having some fun making an average game and writing silly dialog, and that's fine too. Not so fine is the way people perpetuate this behaviour by having such low standards. Most fan games would only have benefit from originality, except they wouldn't get all that free attention from the piggy-back they get, but if you're confident that you're any good, you can make some new and still get it to be well-known. Look at An Untitled Story, or Karoshi.

In short, most fan games would be better if they were original and you people need to grow up and realise that not every tiny effort is worth your 200/10, but is IS worth your criticism, which can help make the game better. Thanks for reading my rant. Now go play Space Mice Moon Quest and when you're done write a post telling the author what you liked and didn't like about that game, while resisting the urge to give it a numerical score that no one cares about.

Edited by PetzI, 13 August 2012 - 03:59 PM.

[QuickPatch]

From what I'm reading, everyone seems to be on the same page as me. Fan Games can be generic lazy rip-offs, and typically are, but they do have potential to be fun and unique.

One element that always bothers me is that in a lot of the above examples, such as Bowser's Last Stand, or Kirbyvania, if the titles were changed and most of the graphics switched, they could have been original titles. In all fairness, no one would have let them see the light of day, but still, the games they are based off of are fairly generic themselves.

[Rusty]

One element that always bothers me is that in a lot of the above examples, such as Bowser's Last Stand, or Kirbyvania, if the titles were changed and most of the graphics switched, they could have been original titles. In all fairness, no one would have let them see the light of day, but still, the games they are based off of are fairly generic themselves.

I think that can be said of most games though. "If Halo: Reach replaced it's character models with giant teddies and renamed itself "TEDDY MASSACRE" it could've been a completely different (and slightly hilarious) game".

[Insert Name Here]

There are just fun to make and play. If you do something new that the game company hasn't thought of, then they might even use it. I honestly figure that it is also easier for story too. If I have to come up with a story for a platform game, then that adds a lot of work.

[QuickPatch]

One element that always bothers me is that in a lot of the above examples, such as Bowser's Last Stand, or Kirbyvania, if the titles were changed and most of the graphics switched, they could have been original titles. In all fairness, no one would have let them see the light of day, but still, the games they are based off of are fairly generic themselves.

I think that can be said of most games though. "If Halo: Reach replaced it's character models with giant teddies and renamed itself "TEDDY MASSACRE" it could've been a completely different (and slightly hilarious) game".

Well, yes, you could, but we're talking about fan games. I'm saying if the creators took the games they made, and removed the much more obvious traits of being fan games (graphics, sound, characters), they'd get a lot more credit themselves, other than a sense of riding on someone else's coattails.

Heck, most professional game devs will mention inspiration they drew from other titles. I guess I'm trying to say that instead of making a simple fan game, wouldn't it be better if the creator took what design elements they liked, and added them/built around them with their own original creation.

Although I don't have too much room to talk, I've got a few fan game ideas I'd love to try. '

[Rusty]

Well, yes, you could, but we're talking about fan games. I'm saying if the creators took the games they made, and removed the much more obvious traits of being fan games (graphics, sound, characters), they'd get a lot more credit themselves, other than a sense of riding on someone else's coattails.

Heck, most professional game devs will mention inspiration they drew from other titles. I guess I'm trying to say that instead of making a simple fan game, wouldn't it be better if the creator took what design elements they liked, and added them/built around them with their own original creation.

Although I don't have too much room to talk, I've got a few fan game ideas I'd love to try. '

Fan games are more about what you'd like to see in that universe, your own take on it or you extension of the storyline. It works the same way as fanfiction, fanart and all those CharacterxCharacter debates you see floating around the internet. So yes, while I could turn my fan projects into original games, I don't want too, I want to show and share my additions, what I would've done differently and where I think the storyline should go/should've gone.

Fan games are a perfect way to explore those "what if"s that the canon just can't (for obvious reasons).

[Yal]

I agree, and I've actually considered redoing Kirbyvania into an unique game. It's just a pretty bad game if you scrape off the fan parts, and I've considered making a sequel just to show people I can actually make better than that. Honestly, I hadn't even played a Castlevania game before making Kirbyvania so I missed out on a few canonical details (such as Dracula's trademark fireball attack).

[dannyjenn]

I think the main problem with fangames is that typically they're made by either n00bs or newbs. Which is where the bad coding comes in. That, and lazy people who don't want to come up with their own ideas (other than some improvements to an already existing game), which is why they typically only use ripped graphics and nothing original.

The fact of the matter is that very few fangames I've ever played have been fun due to the fact that the very people making them are either inexperienced or just plain lazy. And this means that these fangames just can't compare to the originals, which are made by entire teams of professionals (some being experienced in coding, other being experienced in graphics, others being experienced with game design, etc.).

For a fangame to even be considered decent, it must have enough original ideas in it to make the game itself good. Most fangames don't do this and instead rely on the popularity of the original game that they are based off of.

And there is one other problem with fangames... even if the game itself is amazing, all fangames inevitably infringe on copyright. Which means you can never sell it and you run the risk of having your project end up shut down, sometimes before you even release it. You could even end up sued. It's simply not worth the trouble... if you do come up with some awesome idea that sets your fangame apart from all other fangames as well as the original, why not just take it one step further and create an original indie game instead?

[Lune]

To add on to dannyjenn: If you're going to make a good game, you need a serious investment. If you're going to make a serious investment, you want some sort of return on it. Fan games, due both to copyright issues and other such problems, aren't near likely to get a good return.

I don't think they're inherently or always bad, but it's a rough setup.

[QuickPatch]

To add on to dannyjenn: If you're going to make a good game, you need a serious investment. If you're going to make a serious investment, you want some sort of return on it. Fan games, due both to copyright issues and other such problems, aren't near likely to get a good return.

I don't think they're inherently or always bad, but it's a rough setup.

That right there. That's what I think I was trying to say this whole time (maybe that "Worth it?" subtitle should have been the whole first post). I've always wanted to make games, and fan games aplenty are on my list of ideas, but it becomes a question of whether you're willing to take the time to.

I think the biggest offender are mashup titles, where the focus is on content (SSB styled games come to mind), which overall just takes more and more time. This doesn't make the game bad, and I'll be the first to praise a game that manages to do so WELL (Duel Toys 2 anyone?), but it really comes down to the question of whether it's worth it or not, especially if the game ends up being sub-par in the end (Duel Toys 2 anyo... wait...).


Also, sidenote, I actually played Kirbyvania as a result of this thread and well... I really like it. Not a lot of polish, but great concept, and it's simple enough to be fun. Just curious, how long did that take you to make?