The Quest for Excellence

Wow, with a title like that I feel like Im back in my old Civil service days!

The question Ive been thinking lately is how important "quality" is within a game these days.

Now, of course quality can mean so many different things, qualuty of graphics, quality of sound, quality of gameplay, etc...but when you're in a position like me, ie. no artist and no money, how can i acheive quality of graphics, for example? Is it essential that I do?

The answer is fairly simple I believe. Ive seen many very well done games which have a very minimal feel to the graphics but maximise on gameplay and sound. "Obvious!" I hear you say, but if it was so obvious how come we get so many badly done clones which seem to pull in the sales? Its becuase they've cloned the quality of the Gameplay above all else which is what attracts people to buy...

The point I amd trying to make is that quality is a balance of all elements in a game. If you're unsure, think about how someone might review your game. When beta testing "Pushy and the Magic Blocks" I asked everyone to give me an opinion on each aspect (although i was mostly worried about the graphics). One of the first reactions was about the sound! Ie, the blocks used to move with no sound, anytime you clicked on something there would be no sound. So I immediately added a library of sounds to the game to give it a better feel...

So, if you have pretty average graphics and no money, work on the gameplay and sound. Try to create emotion in the game, give it character, give it a soul. This will give it quality.