What makes a game amateurish?

#1 I think games feel amateurish when they are unpolished and without a sense of style. I have seen many professional games that feel amateur to me, but usually it is indie games that are really bad about it.

Here are some of the signs that I see as amateurish:

- Obvious typos and misspellings
- Inconsistent graphical style, such as photorealistic backgrounds and cartoon characters (though this style can work, most indies don't make it work)
- Unpolished UI, especially in the transitions from screen to screen
- Clunky controls with poor animation
- A poor 3D engine used when a great 2D engine would have been better
- Overuse of certain "humorous" elements : Pirates, Ninjas, Robots, Monkeys, etc... (though some games hit these dead-on... Earthworm Jim)
- Music that does not fit with the gameplay and presentation style
- Poorly chosen, improperly mixed sound effects
- Superfluous gameplay elements (such as a jump button that is useless throughout the game... Doom 3 anyone?)
- A system that was obviously scaled back, such as a hugely complex magic system but only seven spells.
- Misaligned textures in the levels
- Generic level designs, lack of scripts/triggers/events within the levels
- Trying to jimmy a generic backstory into a game that didn't need one (how does fighting the Robot of Doom equate with making a toothpick statue?)
- Focusing so much on a poorly written story that the rest of the game suffers (most indie RPGs fall into this category, written by people who want to write stories, but like to play games)


There are many more tell-tale signs, but basically the lack of polish and an obvious misunderstanding of what makes a game great are the signs that I see. Generally, I think the problem is that indies often want to compete with the big-guns of gaming. This means that they bite off more than they can chew and then don't have the time to give the game that extra polish.

In making our most recent game Rumble Box (shameless plug coming!!! www.phackett.com/rumblebox) we focused very heavily on trying to avoid an amateurish presentation. Since our game world consisted of all cubes and spheres, this was very difficult, because these basic objects are very tough to make look good. However, through a consistent and varied UI presentation, smooth animations, heavy focus testing, emphasis on player controls and a unique visual style we were able to create a game that has received much praise on its professional appearance. Sure, its not perfect, but I think we did a pretty good job of avoiding that "amateurish" feel.

#2 I think Joe got it right.

Unpolished.

It could be the simplest game in the world, but if it's polished, it *is* professional.

Usability is in a similar grouping, but not exactly the same issue as being ammature.

#3 I'd have to say that it's polish as well. I've seen a number of large studio games that had a "rushed feel" or "amateurish feel" because of a lack of polish.

#4 Yes, but now:
Define POLISH.

How do you make a game POLISHED?

It's kinda like "pretty" - people can see and identify "pretty" (subject to some statistical error to account for personal taste), but it's hard for untrained folks to know how to MAKE something "pretty." And even professionals get it wrong.

So what can you DO to make sure you game is "polished?"

#5 Great might as well throw my game out the door now. It was called "Pirate Ninja's -vs- Robot Monkies"!

#6 This "amaturish" feeling can be seen many things. (Yes, I'm aware of the stereotypes). You can watch these things and KNOW they are ametures.

Little kids trying to inline skate.
Ameture sports players.
Martial Arts practioners who haven't been in their arts long enough or haven't put enough time in.
English Second Language translations (although there are just as many ESL's that do better jobs than many native English speakers :[ ).
Teenage Garage bands.
etc...

Things lacking in fluidity, consistancy, control, coordination, timing and yes polish.

In of the examples above and the thousands not above, the amature is 'getting the job done', but not with the adeptness of a more experienced professional.

You could hand me a guitar, and the notes to the star spangled banner, and you could probably say "yeah... that's the song" but it wouldn't be the way Jimmy did it.

The line between the two comes down understanding of the medium, and time in.

#7 Inconsistent and downright zany color schemes. They tick me off.

#8

Quote:Define POLISH.

Absolute, meticulous attention to every minute detail.

Never saying something is "good enough"/ never "settling".

#9 @Kirby

Quote:Never saying something is "good enough"/ never "settling".

Unfortunately this is the exact way to never ship a title. There will always be things you can fix up, redo, cleanup, add, etc. to your game. There comes a point where you do have to say "good enough" or "most people wont notice this so leave it". It all comes down to reward vs time spent. You could probably easily spend another year fixing up things that maybe 2% of the people will ever notice, but the reward vs the time spent doing that isn't worth the effort. Your time would be better spent working on a new product.

#10 Yes, polish is a slippery term that has more nuances than literal definitions. "Rushed" is also often used either in correlation or synonymously. While one indicates lack of refinement and fine-tuning the other can often mean lack of promised features, buggy release, or inadequate documentation. Both terms have a serious amount of overlap.

For example, take a puzzle game like Sweet Tooth from PopCap. It's a simple "swap to connect three" game. These are extremely common on gaming portals, but I've seen versions of them that incorrectly perform their checks, so you can get a game over screen when a connection is in plain sight (though for some reason the checking algorithm didn't notice it). That would be a lack of polish, even if the pieces were as shiny as an artist could make them. Note that Sweet Tooth works wonderfully, but a number of similar games do not.

Seemingly untested gameplay (Dreamcast NFL2K, players 2-4 could not select timeouts of substitutions) or strange GUI elements (I believe it was Catfight that had a GUI where the QUIT button and the NEW GAME button overlapped) can lead to a feeling of being "unpolished" or "rushed".

I've actually been quite happy with the majority of Indie titles that I've purchased. Just as I've been extremely unhappy with a large number of big-publisher titles that I've felt were rushed or unpolished.

#11 ---------
Define POLISH.
---------

Read post #2 in this forum. Having all of those things I listed right is polish.

----------
Never saying something is "good enough"/ never "settling".
Unfortunately this is the exact way to never ship a title.
----------

How about "Never saying something is "good enough" if your focus testers say its not perfect.

Sure, you can fart around for a year polishing things to make them perfect for you, but the trick is making it so that it's polished enough for the players. I can always look at my own games and say "that could be better, this could be better", but unless it is a problem that players actually see then it's a bit pointless to spend time messing with it.

That said, I think alot of people don't spend enough time with their game really trying to find every possible complaint that players could have. This could be as simple as add "Press SpaceBar to Exit" to your credits screen, to an enemy whose texture clashes with a certain backdrop.

By having alot of people play your game, and by looking at it through the players eyes (a difficult skill to learn, but deadly useful), you will have a polished game.

#12 Amateur - A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.

Originally amateur meant someone who did something because they had a passion for doing it. A person could be both a professional and an amateur. In recent times it has been used to denote someone who's effort isn't good enough to be professional. I personally wish that the original meaning of such a wonderful term hadn't been lost. I am proud to be an amateur game developer.

My first website job for a gallery was during my first quarter of computer science. After I finished the development of the site the owner of the gallery told me that all of the artists whos work was on display were extremely happy that for once a website wasn't ruining the composition of their work with poor or distracting page design. He told me that one of the most important artists in America said that for a site done by a college student it looked pretty professional. I was happy that they liked the site, I worked hard on it. But secretly I was a little offended by the statement. I was paid to make the site. Yes, I was in school for programming, but I had experience as a graphic designer. Being professional means that you are paid for your work. That's it. Just because I was a student they were suprised that I was a high quality graphic designer. I was a professional. They hired me, I did the work, they paid for it, end of story.

My point is that just because you don't have a lot of professional experience doesn't make you an amateur. If you are being paid or you are doing your game to get paid, you are a professional. And just because you are paying yourself with your day job doesn't mean you aren't a professional. It means you are an professional businessman making an investment. If you are doing it for money, you aren't just an amateur. Don't let anyone tell treat you like you are.

#13 Perhaps I should have let my first sentence stand alone?

#14 I feel a lot of indie games are amiturish becuase the people making the game are indeed ametures in their fields. Art looks sloppy and not as good or as polished because the artist hasn't been drawing as long or hasn't had the training that a paid pro would have. That's why there are ametures and there are pros.

What I think each ameture team needs is a leader that has a good eye and is well rounded in most or all game related fields and most importantly, will not settle for less (to a degree). If I know nothing about art then how am I going to tell you that your characters shading or anatomy is off? How can I explain to you why is stance or face looks off? I need to let my composer know what note is off key or why this melody doesn't fit the mood I'm going for.

Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony don't have their programmers lead the art team, so why are you (single disapline designers) trying to decide on what looks good and what doesn't? Unless your a jack of all trades and a master of at least one, let someone that can draw handel the art resposability. And stop being cheap and accepting garbage. If I had to pay for good art or get crap for free, I'd rather pay. Your name, company, and finacial future is on the line.

You have to know your team, push them to do things they have never done before, but know what their levels are too. But most importantly YOU have to KNOW what looks/sounds/plays good and what doesn't if you plan on controlling all aspects of your team and/or making final decisions. If you accept crap, then thats what you'll be selling if it gets done.
-Ajari-

#15 Polish is shine.

#16 Know your vision, know your game.

At the same time, know that your idea IS NOT perfect, and should evolve based on what works and what does not. But, throughout this evolution, never lose sight of your vision. Without vision, a game becomes amateurish (the negative definition) and uninspired. Without evolution, a game becomes amateurish (the negative definition) and uninspired. With vision and evolution, your game will become great.

Edit: So that I don't sound like a hippie here, I'll elaborate:

If your game, at ship, is exactly what you wrote in your document, then it is either
1. So simple that you had it perfect without even playing it, which usually means it has already been done before (possibly better)
or
2. A very unpolished, amateurish game, because of the difficulty of hitting the nail right on the head without even prototyping.

So now my above statement makes a bit more sense

#17 The "polish" to me is my frame of reference. when a game falls into a recognizable genre (FPS, RTS, etc) i have reference material from my favorite games in those genres sitting in my memory. so when a new title comes out, say a FPS, and doesn't have the same quality from an objective standpoint (graphics, sound, story, etc) of a Half-Life 2 or Doom 3, or whatever is out at the time, it looses that sense of polish. But that sense will always be secondary to gameplay and serve only to enhance it.

throwing that term around immediately makes me think of Blizzard. They never do anything new. But when they do something they take what everybody else has done right and make it work for them. It's safe but when you throw around the kinda money they do I can see where they're coming from.

#18 Working on my first indie game, I'm definately feeling the need to make all the artwork as polished as I can, in the time I have. Because ultimately, its the graphics in the game that sell the game in most consumers minds and I agree that gameplay is always secondary. If you were to walk into any game store and observer the customers, most look at the back of the box, if it looks good they read the words, if not they put it down. Now granted alot of game published have been altered in photoshop to look great. hehe

I just hope when our game is released at the end of august, it will look better than most games of the genre :D

#19 I say polish also. Polish as in time spent after finishing most of the game to go ack and make everything flow together well as well as catching minor bugs.

#20 I think it goes like this (and read the production of Marble Madness for another example)

1. You scope the project - what it will do and what it wont.

2. You never add new features after the scope doc is finalised and signed off. ( adding new elements is called feature creep )

3. You prototype the basic functionality of the game (which again is scoped and follows the same rules but is reduced functionality - represents the core game play )

4 Test it - see if it rocks - if it sucks ditch the game and scope a new one.

5 Sticking to the original scope doc implement all the features (don't add more - EVER!).

6 If a feature is cumbersome, buggy or counterproductive to the development timeline review and if required drop it from the scope.

7 With the first draft of the game that abides by the scope doc test it, and get others to test it until it breaks (crashes, game logic fails etc).

8 Fix bugs, test again until it works - get feedback.

9 Review scope and see if elements can be enhanced based on feedback - again don't add or removed something if it is not needed, is counterproductive or will cause major production headaches.

10 At this point if you are facing a huge list of mods, bugs and feature requests you need to assess if the game can be recovered or maybe it's time to ditch the project.

11 If you do decide to add / reduce features head back to step 1.

12 Now the POLISH comes in. You now have a bug free game within scope that is fun to play. Review the entire game and decide which bits need attention - textures, music, theme, pace, sound fx. C'Mon! You know that Robot Monkey needs a better texture for the backpack - don't be lazy :)

13. Scope these changes. Proceed to step 1.

14. You have polished the game, everyone likes it, even outsiders, it's fun to play and even though it didn't have everything in it you wanted it functions without bugs and shines like a mirror. Ship it!