I discovered my favorite type of game development project when I had the opportunity to work on three different game banners this last year. I don’t mean those awful flashing advertisements claiming you can win an Xbox if you hit the monkey with a banana. I’m talking about replacements for the static headers we typically see at the top of a webpage. Games in unlikely places can create a lasting impression on website users, inviting them to engage and interact with the website. The constraints and tight development schedules present a unique challenge, emphasizing vision and simplicity over flashy graphics. From this experience emerges four core principles essential to effective game development, no matter the size of the project.
Three Banner Games
Bouncing Boxes
Click to see banner game full size
The first game banner I created was for gamedozer.com, a blog that does bite-sized reviews of recent indie games. I budgeted 4 hours to complete this game banner and the design called for a physics-driven industrial sandbox to play off the “dozer” part of the site name. Originally, I had intended for players to be able to pick up and toss the letters around the space and interact with other physical objects like levers and springs.
The physics ended up taking too long to do all the different behaviors, and flinging letters around wasn’t much fun with the limited vertical space. I don’t remember where the inspiration for the cannon came from, but once it was in, everything else really just came together. I ended up wrapping it up after 6 hours on the clock.
Serenity (Screenshot below)
This is a screenshot – click to see banner game
The second banner was for gamepoetry.com, a blog dedicated to the art, business and science of indie game development. My inspiration again was pulled from the site name, which called for something serene and relaxing. My goal was to make a dynamically growing cherry blossom tree. I wanted to finish it in the same or less time than my previous banner, so I budgeted 6 hours.
At the end of hour two, I had a very basic tree generation algorithm going but it sucked. I believed I could make it look nice, but at best it was going to look like a random tree. The lack of interactivity was an obvious problem. I threw out all the code and started fresh with the idea of floating cherry blossom flowers. Three hours later I was very pleased to have achieved my original design goals while successfully introducing interactivity.
Population Control
Click to see banner game full size
The last was for urbansquall.com, the Urbansquall company website. I budgeted 6 hours for this game banner. I really had no idea what I wanted to do, just that I wanted to use the Urbansquall mascot, Hammer Bunny, in some way.
I messed around for three hours before settling on the concept of a mini-sim, where you’d indirectly manipulate a growing community of bunnies. Another two hours got me a diverse population of bunnies up on screen walking around a randomly generated landscape. I became concerned about the prettiness factor, so I decided to switch to a tile-based world and use a tileset I had lying around. At this point I was about to hit my time budget and I wasn’t happy with my progress.
I gave myself an additional 4 hours to wrap it up, and given this constraint I decided to down scope to the part of the mini-sim design that I thought would be the most entertaining, and that was different ways of killing off the bunnies. I put together several different ideas and started executing on the ones I thought were the most fun. At hour ten I decided to devote another two hours to the project to refine some of the visual effects of the deaths. I finished very much over my time budget, using a full 12 hours to complete the project, but I was very pleased with the result.
Other Great Banners
There are a few other great banner games out there. If you’re ever charged with putting together one of these banner games, I suggest you check out the following for inspiration:
Four Principles Of Effective Game Design
Several best practices were used effectively in the development of these three banner games that are applicable no matter the size of the game you are developing. These principles are especially important to consider if you have several constraints you’re juggling on the project, whether it be physical constraints, like the size of the swf, or intangible constraints like your project budget. Applying these as a part of your development methodology can improve your effectiveness as a game developer.
Principle 1: Embrace Constraints
Freedom often stifles creativity and hurts progress. One thing that becomes abundantly clear as you’re working on your game banner, with its short development cycle, style concerns, limited resolution, size and scope, is that constraints can help refine and sharpen your focus. If you embrace your constraints they often will give you the creative inspirations that end up defining your game.
Principle 2: Focus on Interactivity
If you’ve spent more time coding the user interface than the game itself (guilty of that one at least once!), then your game is probably not that much fun. True interactivity is what sets games apart from all other forms of entertainment, so don’t forget that this is where your game needs to shine. More people will play and enjoy something that is intuitive and interactive. Think of creative ways to bring your game world to life through interactivity and your game will resonate with your players.
Principle 3: Court a Clear Design Vision
Your banner game has to grab the player’s attention and it can only do that by committing to a vision that resonates with the website’s design. If you’re serious about building your game on a realistic schedule, you need a clear design vision before you start any real development or you’ll waste precious time thrashing around getting nowhere.
Feeling uninspired? Spend a few hours getting outside of your comfort zone and see what sticks. Listen to some weird music. Page through a funky art portfolio. Google for Flash prototypes. When you have a concept that resonates with your project constraints, put your design brain to work and come up with a clear vision for your game. This is your hook. It is what drives the game’s development and it is the thing that people will remember or forget about your game.
Principle 4: Don’t Marry Your Design Vision
Each of the three game banners morphed during development, and for different reasons each time.
Game development is a complicated matter that is often derailed frequently by uncontrollable external forces. A part of being an effective game developer means the willingness to adjust to the organic process that is game development. If you’re too rigid, you’ll either miss deadlines or you’ll ship products that fail to achieve their full potential. Formulate a strong design vision, but be flexible enough to respond to the course adjustments that are inevitable on every project.
Bannered
Actively considering how these principles apply to your project, no matter how large its scope, can help you make better games faster. Hopefully you can use some of these insights to improve your next game, whether it is a small banner game, or an epic multiplayer virtual world.
