My last suggest (no more): Concentration on one aspect

[LookforAI]

Critical words: Distinction, Competitive, Concentration, Feature, Unique, Creativity, Survive.

As far as I know, Wolfire is a very small game company, maybe only five staff currently working. So the human resource in this company is fairly limited. If the game company EA is an elephant, then this game company must be an ant.

Question:
How does this small game company make a game compete against games made by those big game companies?
How could this small game company survive in today’s competition?

My answer to those questions:
To win or to survive in this competition, we shall collect as many human resources as possible to develop game with distinct or creative features, which must be unique and different from any game shown on today’s market.

My reason:
If a game made from big company has beautiful images, it is not realistic to ask for a small company to make a game with even more beautiful images. Even the small company possesses the same technology as the big company does; still the big company has far more human resources so that they can spend more time and money to improve the quality of their graphs. However, if the small company designs something no one ever did before, then there is no rivalrous product in this field or aspect, so that the small company can be significantly benefited.

Then question:
What kind of feature does a game include in order to be distinct from many games on today’s market?

My answer to this question:
Firstly, do a survey in today’s game market to see what feature many games have nowadays. Then make game with distinct features.

I did not do any such survey. Here I just humbly talk something based on my intuition.
Example ONE, will adding female characters make Overgrowth distinct from many games? Will adding female characters make Overgrowth more competitive than other games? Is adding female characters a creative feature to Overgrowth?
Grin. I am not going to directly write my answer to these questions, but just merely point out that there are many games including female characters, such as World of Warcraft, etc.

Example TWO, will adding more weapons, such as long range weapons, make Overgrowth distinct from many games? Will adding more weapons make Overgrowth more competitive than other games? Is adding more weapons a creative feature to Overgrowth?
Again, I don’t directly write my answer, but merely point out that the game series of Elder Scrolls have hundreds weapons, including a large number of long range weapons.

Example There, will Ragdoll Physics make Overgrowth distinct and competitive from many games?
I am glad to write my answer to this question. So far, Ragdoll physics really makes Overgrowth more distinct and competitive than many games on today’s market. For example, based on the trailer, the physics in the game Elderscrolls: Skyrim is not as good as Overgrowth. Keep working on this may make the game superior in the future. This is also one of the main reason why many people like Overgrowth on the Youtube, and why many people join in this forum.

Example Four, will improved enemy A.I. make Overgrowth distinct and competitive from many game?
I certainly say “yes”. Based on my long game experience, until now no game I have played ever included impressive A.I. feature, except a few of chess games and Chatbots, in other words, the enemies from almost all the games do not have satisfied A.I., either the enemies are too stupid, or the enemies are not enough personified, and make me feel that the enemies are always cheating. If the A.I. system is improved even a little bit more, the game can be significantly more distinct and competitive than many games.

Furthermore, I have already seen that the Overgrowth has some potential to make an advanced A.I. system. For example, not only does the enemy have sight range, but also can hear the sound from the hero. Not many game, as far as I know, contains the feature that enemy has ability to listen.
(I also know that no combat game in the current market includes the feature that the enemies have their own memory, and are able to do reasoning. So including those feature really can make the game distinct. Please also refer to:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11929
)

Question:
Do you have any example of successful case by making game with distinct feature?

My answer:
So far I haven’t had really successful case, and we need more time to testify it. However, let’s look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatgamecompany
Thatgamecompany is also a small game company. They begin by deciding on the emotions and feelings they wish to invoke in the player. This differs from the approach of most developers, who build from game mechanics or genre features. With this spirit, thatgamecompany made some games with very good sale records, such as Flow, Flower.
The following link shows a new game, featuring with no fighting and unique way for players to communicate, which they are going to release in a short future
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(2011_video_game)

Summary
The human resource in a small game company is limited. Adding more features which many games nowadays have may not only waste the limited human resource, but also may not increase the sale rate of the game. Nonetheless, gathering all the human resource and just focusing on developing one distinct feature shall be the key to make game more attractive to the players, and the small game company may survive!

[Endoperez]

Agreed on that they should focus on one specific thing and leave others for less attention. While AI is one of those things, the combat mechanics are more important IMO. They don't need to do any complex AI stuff as long as the enemy is fun to fight against, and challenging enough to keep the player's interest. Lugaru AI was both of those without being overly complex.

Lugaru AI was still impressive in its own way. Enemies ran away to get help if they were hurt, and against two or three enemies, the first to get hurt would run while the two others would still be fighting you.