Before you create your game...

Advice on general approaches or feasibility and discussions about game design

Before you create your game...

Postby STUDIOCRAFTapps » Sat Dec 03, 2016 4:08 pm

Hey guy,

I've something really important to talk about. Why do people prefer Arduboy more than Gamebuino? That's simple. I think that a screen with a higher resolution, a lighter and thinner console and a better CPU help a little 'bit' but what the community prefers the most are the games.

That's true, compare the games for Gamebuino and the games for Arduboy. Arduboy has better games, almost all of the best Arduboy's games are unique, they are not a copy of a PC or Smartphone games. The screen resolution help but almost all Arduboy's game pays attention to the smallest detail. I don't say that Gamebuino's games are all cheap but I'm sure the community of the Gamebuino can do better with unique games. Take Super Crate Buino for example, It's a cool game, I've played it for hour and hour. There's a lot of details and the game is very fluid but, as i said, it's a copy of Super Crate Box. This game is free on Steam and 1.99$ on the app store, if you play it on your computer, you have more level, more texture, it has colour... It's the same for all 2048 clones, 2d space shooters, flappy bird clone... Gamebuino need unique community and unique games to be unique.

That's all.

- STUDIOCRAFTapps

BTW: Sorry for my English skillz. ;)
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby Duhjoker » Sat Dec 03, 2016 8:02 pm

But their customer service sux as well as there forum. I spent a lil time over at arduboy but in the end I think Gamebuino is better. Besides we have nice lil dis-functional family here.

As far as games go, quite a few of us are working on better games for the console. I'm working on a Zelda port to Gamebuino and a dune RPG for the GAP. Resolution and Progmem are a problem though when it comes to details and better graphics.

Plus our library is simpler and has more features like tilemap and collision built in where you have to write a bunch of more code to get the collision and no examples on how to do it.

But I also want to add that nobody has a color handheld at this point running arduino. And there are a whole lot of people waiting for me to finish my hardware and library so they can jump in. I think the color apps will definitely add to the appeal of what we do here.

But we need SD capabilities to make it work. Just sayin!
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby STUDIOCRAFTapps » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:39 pm

Good point. Gamebuino is awesome! I Gamebuino have a great community and it's easy to start creating a game but, as i said, some of the games are just port and the need more detail. I'm happy that some of us are trying to make their game better. It will be the resolution of the year. (Got it? Resolution :D)
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby naed » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:53 pm

I think a big part of the Gamebuino community is here to learn how to make games

I mean in big bold writing on the main website is this Learn programming, it’s easy!

I know I bought my Gamebuino thinking great I can make my own games... The problem is that coming up with original ideas is not as easy... For someone learning to program simply porting or recreating a game is much more easier, then sadly I think people just give up, there are many many many names I've seen on this forum that haven't been around for months and months, hence the lack of the more original games

I know the Gamebuino had been around for a while but it's still growing, in time we shall see the more original games, we'll find ways to overcome the memory limit that restrains us, we'll have more versions of the Gamebuino.... The community will only grow

Plus my adventure game is still being worked on, hopefully that will be original enough for you ;)
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby frakasss » Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:08 pm

In my mind, Gamebuino's first point is to have fun to develop something.

That said, I'm not sure everybody want to spend too much time to create new concepts (that's taking time dude! :) )
Personnaly, my pleasure here is to create games, with good performances and best pixel art possible, with the best gameplay possible.

So, of course, most of the game created for GameBuino can be found with better graphisms, better performances, more content,...
But that's not our games ;)


What we could improve, may be, is game classification ( I'm quite sure I already saw some topics about this) by adding some criteria like "Port/Demake", "Proof Of Concept", "Original GBuino creation", ...
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby Duhjoker » Sat Dec 03, 2016 10:50 pm

He'll I'm the only one investing time into the GAP (besides Naed and Albert for advice) while picking hardware options that make the the lil hand held the price of a regular Gamebuino so the option is there. And I'm giving every thing to Gamebuino.

Please don't take this as a complaint as I enjoyed making my wooden back and front to my Gamebuino but when my Gamebuino came the acrylic was cracked as thin acrylic does. Well there's a company called Armattan productions that CNC's carbon fiber at really good prices. You could have backs and fronts made of carbon fiber which would look freaking awesome on the Gamebuino!!! Plus no breakage. Price would be around $8 for both to be CNC'd plus what ever Rodot wants to charge.
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby wuuff » Sun Dec 04, 2016 6:48 am

I think I'm also going to have to disagree.

What I mean is that there is no point in chastising the community for not making enough "original" games. The Arduboy has a similarly large number of game clones. What you're asking for is more highly-polished original games, and the only way we will get that is if we have multiple highly talented individuals in this community that are working to make games. There is a long tail of games for every platform that are not the "killer app" games, so those will be made regardless, and I welcome all games. It is easier to make a copy of a game as a first game, and eventually someone can improve their abilities to make an original game. Also, the Gamebuino community is smaller than the Arduboy community, meaning less people producing games.

There have been multiple efforts in this community to make original games. Just take a look at some of the community threads. Even the people discussing the Pokemon clone tried to differentiate it. However, many of the original concepts get too ambitious and fail in the early stages. Again, I think it all comes down to having experienced people. The newbies of today are the experts of tomorrow, so the Gamebuino may eventually get more advanced games over time.

In fact, I think the real reason that Arduboy games seem better is in large part due to Team A.R.G. Having both artists and programmers working in a team to create polished, fun, and pretty games is a huge draw to the platform and sets a standard to follow. However, even many of their games copy other games. Blob Attack is influenced by Puyo Pop Fever. Reverse Mermaid Hockey is basically Pong, except with a wacky premise and nice graphics. Shadow Runner is just another infinite runner, but it looks fantastic. Sirene is just a horizontal shmup, although the setting feels fresh, and again the visuals are excellent. Epic Crates of Mass Destruction is based on Super Crate Box!

Therefore, I think that what's more important than a completely "original" game is one that has polish and a sense of identity, but the ability to produce this comes from experience.

In summary, it's true that there are more *polished* games on Arduboy, but I would not say that the best games are all that unique. Let's compare the official games lists on both platforms (it's true that the official games list on Arduboy is missing a lot of the good games on the platform, but they should keep it updated!). I'm being *very* generous as to what I consider "original". If the game has any variation from the original at all, I'm saying it's original. I'm sure I have some mistakes in here, so feel free to give corrections:

Code: Select all
Arduboy                             Gamebuino               Based On                Original? (not EXACT clone) (G = Gamebuino original, A = Arduboy original)

ArduBreakout                        Breakout                Breakout
ArduboyLife ( Conway's Life )                               Conway's Game of Life
Atomic Puzzle Pack                                          puzzle games            A
Battle for Zuthsrah                                         vertical shmups         A
Begemmed                                                    Shariki/Bejeweled       A
Blob Attack                         Blob Attack (port)      Puyo Pop/Dr. Mario      A
CrazyKart                                                   Mario Kart/racing games A
demoScene                                                   cool demos              A (not a game)
Dice of Fate                                                real life dice          A?
Epic Crates Of Mass destruction     Super Crate Buino       Super Crate Box
Fatsche                                                     tower defenses sort of  A
Flappy Ball                         flappy birdo            Flappy Bird
FlappyHalloween                                             horizontal shmups       A
Glove                                                       Gauntlet                A
Helii                               Copter                  helicopter games
Mazogs                                                      Mazogs
MicroCheckers                                               Checkers
picovaders                          Invaders                Space Invaders
Reverse Mermaid Hockey                                      Pong/tennis games       A
Shadow Runner                                               infinite runners        A
Sirène                                                      horizontal shmups       A
Space Knife                                                 horizontal shmups       A
Sudoku                                                      Sudoku
TeenyTank (MicroTanks)              Artillery               Worms/Scorched Earth    A?G? (Unique terrain?)
Tiny 2048                           Gamebuino 2048          2048
                                    a2k                     2048
Tiny Depth                                                  SuperDepth
Tiny NS-tower                                               NS-TOWER
Tiny Sokoban                        Sokobuino               Sokoban
Trolly Fish                                                 horizontal shmups       A
Virus LQP-79                                                top-down shooters?      A
You Won't Survive                                           horizontal shmups?      A?
                                    armageddon              Missile Command
                                    b-rally                 racing games            G
                                    crazycar                ?? (something)          G
                                    the ship                LCD games (I don't know if these are based on a specific LCD game)
                                    robotron                LCD games
                                    balls                   LCD games
                                    glaci glaça             management games        G
                                    Microhexagon            Super Hexagon
                                    Digger                  Digger
                                    Smash and Crash         ?                       G
                                    CastleDefence           tower defenses sort of  G
                                    NightDriver             racing games            G
                                    Descent Into Hell       Binding of Isaac        G
                                    Blockdude               Blockdude (TI-83+)
                                    Gambipaint              drawing programs
                                    Mandeluino              fractal drawing progs
                                    Copter Strike           Desert/Nuclear Strike   G
                                    Zombi Escape            arcade beat em' ups?    G
                                    Conduit                 puzzle games            G
                                    Tron                    Tron
                                    Simonbuino              Simon Says
                                    Stick Fighter           fighting games          G
                                    whg                     World's Hardest Game
                                    Maruino                 Mario platformers       G? (It does have different levels, but...)
                                    Bomber                  Bomberman
                                    S-Copter                Choplifter
                                    GW-Player               media players           G (not a game)
                                    Taxi Fou                Crazy Taxi              G
                                    Spin Spin Spinbuino!    Kuru Kuru Kururin       G? (New levels?)
                                    101 Starships           horizontal shmups       G
                                    Lander                  Lunar Lander
                                    Bub                     puzzle games            G
                                    Killrace                ?                       G
                                    Catcher                 falling thing games
                                    Tetrino                 Tetris
                                    Blocksbuino             Tetris
                                    fxsynth                 synthesizers            G (not a game)
                                    Snakeabcbuino           Snake
                                    Snake                   Snake
                                    Shootbuino              vertical shmups         G
                                    Asterocks               Asteroids
                                    Asteroid                Asteroids
                                    Ufo-Race                racing games            G
                                    Paqman                  Pacman
                                    Minesweeper             Minesweeper
                                    Crabator                top-down shooters       G
                                    Superspaceshooter       horizontal shmups       G
                                    Lights Out AD           Lights Out
                                    Death Maze              mazes
                                    Senet                   Senet
                                    Stack Challenge         Stack Attack


From this very unscientific study, it appears that the arduboy has 17 "original" games (18 including nongames), while the Gamebuino has 22 "original" games (24 including nongames). Of course, good games are missing from the official lists of either of them (e.g. Star Honor for Arduboy or Operation Fox on Gamebuino, though the latter was removed from the list due to SD card issues, and it is a demo). In addition, there might be more games missing from the Arduboy list than the Gamebuino list. Regardless, both game libraries are filled with various game clones.

I would add games from the forums that are not listed in the official lists, but this already took forever, so this is good for now.

It's very hard to determine what makes something "original," because everything copies from something else; it all depends on the *degree*. Are all platformers in which you jump on enemies Mario clones? What makes one original?

Also, I think it's really the screen resolution and the construction quality of the Arduboy that draws people in, not the games, because just like for Gamebuino I think a lot of people want to make games too. For a lot of people I think the slick look and higher resolution are priority features. It's a shame, because I think convenient game switching is much more important, and Gamebuino's SD card is a big selling point to me.
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby naed » Sun Dec 04, 2016 12:32 pm

That made a very good read wuuff
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby STUDIOCRAFTapps » Sun Dec 04, 2016 7:27 pm

Futur is the only hope for Gamebuino. BTW: I've receive my Gamebuino today.
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Re: Before you create your game...

Postby rodot » Mon Dec 05, 2016 11:02 am

Good insight wuuf! I agree that people go for the Arduboy's look, even if it has less features. I'm thinking about a new Gamebuino design, I might post a survey soon ;)

I also think that Team A.R.G. is responsible of most of the "polished" games of the Arduboy. They are not interested in Gamebuino due to the low resolution though. But as naed and frakass said, the Gamebuino is about learning programming, gaming is just a excuse.

frakasss wrote:What we could improve, may be, is game classification ( I'm quite sure I already saw some topics about this) by adding some criteria like "Port/Demake", "Proof Of Concept", "Original GBuino creation", ...

There as bee several topics about this, but it's not the top priority at the moment. I hope to get time to freshen up the website soon.
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