[DEVBLOG#180] Modding and game design (Patreon)

Hey guys! Hello ladies!

Something a little bit different now. As you know, We are releasing our own game called Cursed Crew. We have it up on Kickstarter now which ends in 6 days, so this is perhaps the final call to back it and get exclusive rewards if you're interested in it!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cracklewockgames/cursed-crew

We got fully backed in 19 hours, and we're coming up on the next stretch goal now! 

If you're not convinced, consider pledging just one euro so that you get regular email updates in which we try hard to convince you that you might just enjoy this game!

Now, I wrote a short section about how mod design and game design share many similarities. If you'd like, give it a read. I am not an authority in any way, and this is just my experience and my view on the subject.

I started my modding career when I felt like RimWorld is missing certain things - which in itself could be brushed under the ‘game design’ category - I pinpointed what I thought were flaws in a product, and then I set out to fix them by creating game elements and mechanics. The only difference is, this product wasn’t mine, but an already released and established game.

Many people always ask me if mod design is similar to game design, and I must say it is, but it’s not just that. Mod design shares many similarities with game design, but also with project management, resource distribution, critical thinking, asset creation and market research - which are all extremely valuable if you’re ever thinking about making your own video game. I don’t make my mods by myself - I design them, sure, and I make any visual assets we need, definitely, but I am not a coder, nor do I plan to learn how to code, as I believe my strength to be conceptualisation and art design, which is also what I got my degree in.

As such, I surrounded myself with extremely talented programmers. Over time, our team grew, and so did the scope of our projects. This is where the project management skill kicks in. Every project needs a clear Project Lead, otherwise it’s at risk of descending to chaos. A project lead should listen to what other team members have to say, but ultimately it’s on the project lead to make decisions that nobody should question. Collaborating on mods with equal creative input sounds great on paper, but more often than not there are issues between different people wanting different things, and thus a mod never reaching it’s full potential due to discord and disagreements.

Modding quickly shown me that nobody should be working for free. I’ve created our modding Patreon which quickly rose to popularity, and having finally obtained some funds, I was able to pay other programmers who work with me what I could. This is where the resource management comes in. It’s great to come up with these huge, huge ideas for mods, but the hard truth is, there is only so many hours that can be spent on specific mods - which all depends on how much money we’re willing to invest into a mod. It’s crucial for the project lead to determine what aspects of the mod deserve the resources, and what aspects are less important and perhaps can be skipped.

Critical thinking is one thing that everyone should be doing, but rarely anyone wants to. I often look at my own work, and I try very hard to see the mistakes I do, but my brain doesn’t let me. This is why it’s good to ask the community for feedback. I take everything people say seriously, because the opinions of the community stem from somewhere after all, but I do not act on every single opinion, because I also need to agree with them. When I release mods, there are often single voices that request particular things - even if I agree with them, resource management comes back into play and I need to assess whether it’s feasible to invest resources to satisfy these opinions. I have a long list of changes to do on all the mods I’ve already released, but if there are no resources to devote to these changes, they cannot come to fruition.

Asset creation is something that takes a lot of practice, but ultimately it’s also something that turns you from a ‘guy/gal with ideas’ into a ‘guy/gal with ideas and the ability to act on them’. It’s way easier to gather talented people around yourself and create a ‘studio’ (be it modding or game design) if you not only present them with the ideas, but also create code or art assets for these ideas. It shows the people that you’re more than just talk, and it also saves a lot of money for you since you can be doing half the work yourself. Art is very expensive, so if Vanilla Expanded modding group was to hire artists on regular basis, we wouldn’t get anywhere near the amount of mods we have released now. Fortunately, I always had a knack for art and design, so I can do it myself!

Market research is also something I engage a lot in when making mods. Sure, if modding is a hobby, then you can make any kind of mod that you want to. You want to see Corgies with machine guns on their backs? You absolutely can! But until you do market research, you won’t know if that mod will be popular, and if you don’t care about a mod being popular, then you probably have quite a lot of spare money. Every product that you create and costs you money, you probably want to benefit from in some way. When I start drafting a new mod idea, I go through all the forums to see what the playerbase wants to see. I talk to people, I engage with the community, I see what the competition did and what mistakes they made, so that I don’t repeat those. I see what other games are releasing roughly in the same time, to see what trends there are among gamers. It’s all very complex, but it will give you an idea what product you should make if you want it to gain traction and become popular.

All the things I just talked about in the context of modding are just as valid (if not more valid) in the context of releasing your own game - because whilst mods cannot be monetized and you rely on donations, a video game can become a steady source of revenue if you do it right. I think people underestimate how much mod design is similar to game design - in fact, I regularly juggle two jobs - being a game designer and being a mod designer, and the workflow is exactly the same in them both.

Thank you very much! If you have any questions, ask them in the comments! I will try to answer them all!