I was wondering why there is so many puzzle game and no shooter or adventure games? By reading some post I can tell many programmers in this forum are experienced enough to pull a small fps game. But I Don't see any of them. So it might be a reason, xbox limitations, game content or else.

So I'm asking some details from people who tried to create one. OR if you did not even try why ( except the fact the you don't like shooters)

cheers

1. 3D is harder to learn than 2D.
2. Shooters are harder to program than puzzle games.
3. Creating the art is usually a big part of it. I can open up Paint.NET and make some ok sprites, but any of my 3D models are going to look ugly. Not to mention animating them.

Those are probably the main three. There might also be a level of disinterest where developers just don't want to make shooters.

Its also stupid to compete with the type of games that has the buggest budgets on the market. The best way to succed as a inidpendandt is to make a game that don't exist, but should..

Simple - they're very hard to make and most here probably don't have the knowledge to make them.

Jim Perry:

Simple - they're very hard to make and most here probably don't have the knowledge to make them.

are you talking of programming skills ?

What about Valhyre or Mithra?

TG Viking:

Its also stupid to compete with the type of games that has the buggest budgets on the market. The best way to succed as a inidpendandt is to make a game that don't exist, but should..

I think all the points raised so far are good, but this one is the most important, to me.  If you have no budget, why would you try to compete directly with the companies who can spend millions of dollars on their games?  Wouldn't it make more sense to make something that other people aren't currently doing?  Successful independent games, like World of Goo or Audiosurf, tend to do well because they've done something unique.

I haven't tried 3D programming but I cannot do 3D artwork. That's my main hangup.

That and I'm a huge fan of the old 2D games from back in the NES/SNES days and there has been a severe lack of those over the past decade, which is why I'm filling that void by making one of my own :)

No decals in XNA.

I fully intend on doing an online FPS at some point; I just have a lot of other good ideas that I want to do first.

Teg1337Bix:

No decals in XNA.

Um, what?

ZP2K9 is a 2d shooter on the 360. It is really fun with a big variety of weapons and has a lot of potential. It doesn't have to be 3D to be good!

"Its also stupid to compete with the type of games that has the buggest budgets on the market. The best way to succed as a inidpendandt is to make a game that don't exist, but should.. "

I think you are 100% correct.   The hope is to do new stuff that has a chance of sucess.   There is no way that one or two guys will come up with something better than halo in a few months.

Besides it being hard a big reason I dont want to try to make a shooter, is because I want to make an inovative and different game and im sure many other people on here do to, the shooter genre is being milked by the big boys who cant afford to take risks and make something to different. Also there has been alot of inspiration latley, from world of goo to braid and crayon physics deluxe to make a fun and sucsseful puzzle game.

I think it's hard to innovate with 3D shooters. If you think about recent ones, how much have they really innovated? Generally good shooters are good because they do everything right. They are good because they are refining the genre rather than innovating. Was there anything particularly innovative about Halo? I don't think there was particularly, it was just good at what it did. I guess the aspect of fighting alongside NPCs was fairly innovative, but again it was far from the first game to do it, it just did it particularly well.

Most innovation in recent fps games are things that could be applied to other genres. I haven't played it but Farcry 2 sounds interesting because of it's partially randomised plot and sandbox style environment. Those concepts could be applied to a wide range of games so it's not really a shooter specific thing. It's easier for amateurs to apply those concepts to other types of game because with an fps you have to get everything else just right for it to actually be a good game.

thanks for the comment but most of you talk about innovation and the fact you can't compete with AA game. I think it's a bit off topic. even if some developers want to break into the industry doing puzzle game and such but I don't think you can survive with only concept game. Anyway I didn't consider like commercial FPS in the first point, so yes gear of war for example is great and the model are just awesome but I didn't see any platformer with good graphics as flashback. also I'm a 3d artist and I do believe that 2d game if you want to make a quality one can be really harder than 3D in some point for example animation. So yes we cant really compete with AA game but I'll pay few point for a goldeneye like game if it's funny enough.

But in terms of capabilites Xna could do a FPS ?

If your question is, is it possible to write a FPS or TPS using the XNA framework, then the answer is "yes". But that's now what you asked originally. There's actually already a couple 3D games up on Community Games, one of which *IS* a TPS (and was already mentioned in this thread). There was also an RPG written in a weekend at GDC a couple of years ago that was all first person.

So yes, entirely possible, the reason you're not seeing a flood of FPS or TPS on Community Games has nothing to do with the XNA framework, but everything to do with what everyone has already mentioned...

I personally considered making a fps, but I decided that it would require too much content. The people who make fps games have teams of people who spend entire weeks making content for these games. As a single person, I can not produce this much content by myself, so I chose an option that has much less content.

Even the teams that have the resources to create all the content and systems for an FPS may be reluctant to make something that complicated for their first XNA game. 1. Learn the platform and then 2. Push the limits. :-)

Still, there are some out there, the game Mithra is available on community games right now, It's not a shooter, but it is third person and it has a reasonably rich environment and graphics.

It's not actually all that hard to knock up a quick fps. But it is very hard to make that fps polished enough and with enough content to make it worth playing.

I think you'll probably find a surge of FPS games later this year. I'm sure there are a number of people working on them and as everyone has stated they simply take alot longer to make.

I'm working on a few game ideas at the moment with a bunch of people helping on each of them, each gaining in complexity but will all be able to make use of all the helper classes I've written along the way. The 3rd project is a full blown FPS which we hope to release by the end of the year, the other two (much simpler games) might be out during the summer.

Akai kaze:

Jim Perry:

Simple - they're very hard to make and most here probably don't have the knowledge to make them.

are you talking of programming skills ?

And math knowledge.

Jim Perry:

Akai kaze:

Jim Perry:

Simple - they're very hard to make and most here probably don't have the knowledge to make them.

are you talking of programming skills ?

And math knowledge.

And overall knowledge of the XNA framework, there is a lot of great stuff in there and it's still quite new, we're all learning it bit by bit as we go.

We have some 3D shooter plans stored away for the future, though these would be more of a Tribes meets Virtual On or Gundam type game and not your standard FPS. Its not in the production pipeline though given that it would probably take at least a year to make if not 1.5 years, and due to the funding necessary to pull it off as I'd wager it would require easily 30k in art assets if not more. Then of course you have the 3D engine programming, the network programming, and the rest of the issues to burn through. At which point you have 200-400k tied up in production if you count labor, with a sell price of 5 or 10 dollars? This leads you to go for XBLA contract, and pick up another 100k or more in validation and certification costs. Which your now sitting at half a million, and still need to be able to compete against top tier FPSs. Not exactly the best winning situation.

-Zenroth

Well, it's funny someone would say that there's no point competing with the major industry, because to be frank I've found a lot of mainstream games very unsatisfying as of late.

As for programming 3D games, I don't think it's incredibly more difficult than 2D games. So I would agree with everyone else who has said that the graphics are the limiting factor.

P.S. I saw a very nifty XNA game on youtube about a year or two ago with a spaceship flying over water, shooting at geometric shapes.