Least Favorite Part about Making a Fangame

[Nyarth]

Pokemon fangames are at their peak right now. There are tons of projects going on at the moment. Some are public, some are private, and some probably haven't been announced yet. But there's a lot happening, and I'm interested on everyone's perspective on what they're doing. 

 

Unless you're a super-optimist, there are some lousy sides in making games. Ones you put off doing for a while or try and get them done as quickly as you can, just so you don't have to deal with it. They're your foil, your ultimate weakness, and the death of you. 

 

So dramatic stuff aside, what's your least favorite part in the process of working on your fangame? And this doesn't just apply to fangames, but to pretty much any project in general. Scripting? Mapping? Writing a character? If you rant about it enough, you can make everyone else feel your pain!

 

For me it's balancing, or just making Pokemon battles in general. I swear, I'll do anything  but balancing. I'll let a blank document with the word TEAMS scrawled on the top sit in front of me for hours, while in the background I watch the Important Videos playlist loop over and over again. I'd rather torment myself with cringy bootleg movies rather than work on battles or distribution. This topic itself is being created right now when I should be making teams fair.

I would call myself lazy, but the sheer amount of work I do just so I can get out of balancing the game is depressingly high.

[Autumn Rain]

I'm one of those 'private' and 'optimist' developers. lol

 

I have been working alone lately and I'm about halfway done finishing a surprise game. So far things are working perfectly the way I wanted it but there are some things I find to be annoying during development:

 

1. Getting the In-game Screenshot Key To Work- A personal problem I have that I don't understand why it wouldn't work, even when I found the lines of the code in the Script Editor. I am planning to update essentials but I feel that the dialogues will do the line skip like you see with other fangames and new bugs will arise in my game.

2. New Scripts Break Other Scripts- I used a script for speeding up gameplay but it breaks another script - the Control Timer. I tried to implement a script that the pokémon with probability to drop items after battle. It broke the pokémon 'cries'. Some of the scripts I use need better explanation on how it works.

3. For Every New 'Trainer' Implemented, The EVs Reset- A minor personal problem I encountered. I wanted to make battles harder as many game developers did not see there's a script for editing EVs of Trainers. But every 'new' trainer I make, the PBS file for 'Trainers' deletes the EVs I implemented. I have to make a copy of the original and copy/paste for the EVs to work.

4. Finding Beta Testers- I only have one person that beta test my game and receive very positive feedback. If I were to look for more people, I would need to get to know them first before handing the game files.

5. Getting Permissions From Artists/Musicians/Other Scripters- It's easy to get permission once they said it's 'public', 'free to use', 'download' and 'give credit'. However, some people are strict and want to be messaged directly. I'm trying to look for an 'email', not to create a DeviantART account, Youtube account or anything like that. There are many great things on the internet that could be fitting in-game but some things are not to be implemented unless the owners say it themselves.

 

Everything else I am able to work around it someway or form. I don't necessarily have a team but I can focus on every part of game development just fine.

[ssbCasper]

Making a script that breaks an existing script is the bane of my developing existence.  

[groniack]

remaking character or fakemon design is a major issue for me. I always postpone it... I enjoy designing new graphics but when they don't turn out good enough... I am bored to death to rework them...

Another thing I don't like doing is creating icons for items... The game doesn't break if you don't include them so they always stay in my "to do" list.

Lastly, I don't like making small changes on events or, even worse, having to remake them from scratch. It's really bothersome to me to revisit my old work and it kills me when I have to change things that I have put lots of work on it...

[Phi-Bi]

I am not developing games on my own currently but being a part of gamedev team, my least favorite part is accepting the harsh truth that some key, plot-important features which makes the game unique could not be realized due to scripting complexity. I feel like I want to learn scripting by myself so I could help to make such features real but do not have time to learn scripting from scratch especially since my college study is far-related to programming.

 

It's quite difficult to make unique gameplay without meddling a large amount of scripts so as compensation I try to make the art sides more beautiful. It's important to prioritize gameplay over story when developing games (doesn't mean story is not crucial though), even Reborn does that too, by introducing not-seen before gameplay.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Mapping caves. Specifically the walls. I feel like most of my cave walls look really awkward in places where one end connects with another. 

[ShadeStrider]

Deciding the soundtrack is pretty fun. Battles are more epic when you use the right track.

 

I just hate getting permission to use certain songs. Such a pain.