How Real Does it Need to Be?

#1 Why are you making a game? Is it for the creative reward of making the game, or do you want to sell it?

If it's for creative enjoyment, then don't ask the question. Do it the way you want, and enjoy the experience.

If you want to sell it, then you need to do some of the marketing work before you start working on the game.

Who are you going to sell it to? Their opinion as to how real it needs to be is the only opinion that matters, and you need to figure out how to ask that question of them.

If it turns out that the people you thought you wanted to sell it to expect it to be far more real than you think you can deliver, all is not lost. Perhaps there is another audience that you hadn't considered that would be willing to settle for something far less real.

There's another thing to consider as well. As you mentioned, "most people cannot do what you can do in those games". People don't play games because they are 'realistic'. They play them because they are 'superrealistic' or 'idealistic' or some other 'istic'. If life wasn't boring, there would be no entertainment industry, so trying to duplicate reality is both unrealistic and unneccessary. Forget about making the game 'real'. Make it 'entertaining'.

Instead of just inline skating, make it a delivery courier that travels by inline skates and introduce goals, rewards, competitions, etc. Set it in the future where inline skating is just the way everyone gets around, and turn it into an RPG with some kind of plot. Invent some kind of inline skating/extreme roller derby thing and go for that. All completely unrealistic, but if done well very entertaining to a much wider audience than inline skating purists.

Reality is not all it's cracked up to be.

#2 I think the real question should be, how real do you wish to go? You sound like you want more of a simulation than a fun oriented, exaggerated game like T. Hawk. Think about what kind of situations you would like to "simulate" in your game first.

What LOD depends mostly on what type of challenge your game offers. If it's mostly racing, for instance, then any tricks might have to be oriented to keep up with the speed of the race more than their realism might cut into. Where your balance lies is all up to what your game is and what LOD are you willing to put into it.

Objective vs. LOD in TH:
- Perform a 900 -> requires good air time or SPLAT!
so...
- Good Air -> requires exaggerated jumps or jumping abilities = Sacrifice realism for fun.

- Perform grinds -> requires triggers on edges of terrain
so...
- Edge Triggers on all terrain edges -> plenty of exaggerated grinds = Sacrifice realism for fun.

Now, go do yours!
- Ronixus

#3 Awesome feedback! Yeah, I think I am forgetting the 20 seconds of fun. Get the 20 seconds and then do it over and over again. I will try and include the moves that people do now, but just exaggerate them. Your both absolutely right. Make it fun and nothing else matters. I will just have fun trying to keep up with my game in real life! This seems like very simple game play that I can build on once I get the basics down.

I will also not just concentrate on aggressive skating. I think other types of inline would be appropriate for speed races. My roots are in the generic blading so I would like a mix for myself. I will just have to see what is fun.

Thanks,
Frank

#4 I always like how tony hawk had a lot of real tricks you could do. On the other hand, I hated that it had the guy skating super fast and doing completely impossible things (wallride/kickflip/backside tailslide onto a twenty foot rail/360 flip out/manual to switch heel-flip into a bowl manual to mctwist, etc..).

I like realism. Make it simple but fun (of course your idea of fun is different than mine). Might be cool to make a town and have stuff to skate on, planters, rails, stairs, ramps, banks, snake run etc...

#5 Some games exaggerate to be fun, others require realism for fun, usually they require the line between realism and exaggeration to be quite flexible yet exact in just the right areas, but in the end the line is yours to draw.
- Ronixus