The “I have made a cool engine” problem
Meaning I still haven’t created a game with it. Oh I didn’t reinvent the wheel though. What I could take from someplace else I took. I built an engine that can create a top-view stealth games… or something else. I even have a more or less stable map editor so all that’s left to do now is to use all this code I created to build a game…
I’ve been telling me this for a bit too long now. I kinda have a concept but I haven’t been able to translate this idea to a proper complete and fun game. I built many versions of prototypes that all had some kind of potential but these prototypes never became something more. Sure with time my engine became more interesting and my prototypes have improved but…
Well to tell it straight I should be able to create a game with what I have right now. I’m wondering sometimes if I’m just avoiding to create a game since I feel so secure working on the code of the engine.
Writing code for a game is easy. Creating the game itself and feeling you have something nice is something else though. I’m guessing that just by polishing the tools I have right now and releasing them online someone somewhere could create a cool game. Not quite what I had in mind though. I’m able to create levels that last about 5 minutes. Nothing to release a game that people will pay $10 for (at least that’s not my feeling).
Maybe I’m just being impatient. Maybe I just need to sit longer playing with my level editor. The pieces are all there. I just need to find a way to make them fit together.
Or maybe I just picked the wrong type of game. I had no difficulty to figure out what was needed or how to do it. Maybe I didn’t put much thought on the “am I able to use this to make a game”. I’m sure I don’t need to improve the engine (well beside making it more stable). I just need to create THAT game. And here I am staring at the screen wondering what to do next.
That’s when I start getting wild ideas. With the code I have I could create a twin-stick shooter. A zombie killing game. A horror exploration game. A dungeon crawler … But I never worked on this project in this direction. I’m just panicking.
So what will I do next? Maybe I’ll just figure out the game I can make. Maybe I’ll team-up with someone who knows what could be done. All I know is that right now I’m not moving away from this blurry project. I don’t have anything else in store anyway. Like I said I know that I have everything I need to create a game right now. I just need to find the right spot to finally jump.
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Bret Airborne, 1 month later – Stats and thoughts
about 3 days ago - No comments
I won’t call this a postmortem as really I feel it’s a bit too early to use this word. Let’s say that it’s just a picture I’m taking a bit more than a month after the release of Bret Airborne. I’m not even sure I’ll one say write a proper “postmortem” with the typical “what [...]
Thoughts on the choices I made: Day job VS indie
about 1 month ago - 4 comments
For over a year I’m working 4 days a week for my day job with every Fridays free to work on my games. It’s a choice I made after being unemployed for about 6 months and sleeping about 4-5 hours a night before that while I was working on MMOs.
You don’t clearly know what’s coming [...]
My journey from working on MMOs to releasing a match-3 game
about 1 month ago - 4 comments
Yeah I know. *yucchh* match-3 games … I believe in some countries people must exile themselves after building such game.
Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t a fan of match-3 games either. I never understood why so many people got excited about sliding gems around just for the sake of sliding some more gems around. I’m not one [...]
The guide to indie game dev success
about 2 months ago - No comments
This is the post I’ll make once I know success. Well I’m writing it now so I’m a bit ahead of time here but it doesn’t matter. I’m pretty sure it’s the post I’ll write anyway.
What is success? Let’s define it as “being able to pay for whatever expense you might have”. Nothing too fancy, [...]
Bret Airborne dev diary – Tech and resources
about 3 months ago - No comments
Here’s the first entry of what I hope will give you an interesting peek behind the curtain of the development of Bret Airborne. I’ll do my best to cover as many aspects as possible but feel free to send me suggestions if you’re curious about a particular point.
This first post will look at the tech [...]
Motivational indie poster: Marketing
about 4 months ago - 2 comments
Or demotivational? Anyway it’s a poster. A tongue-in-cheek poster but if I have to say so then … well I’ll try to do better next time.
Marketing is like a highway filled with grey cars. There are so many cars and most of them all look the same so it’s really difficult to have someone notice [...]
2013 is coming … A look back and forward
about 4 months ago - 2 comments
I keep telling myself that I should post more on this blog and I never do. I do have stuff to say about games but often I just find someone else who said what I would have said in much better words so my post never leave the draft folder. So my first wish for [...]
Releasing my first downloadable game
about 5 months ago - 8 comments
It’s done! You can now buy Tales of Another Galaxy! Oh and if you could stop by Steam Greenlight and vote for it that’d be great too: Tales of Another Galaxy on Steam Greenlight
I can’t believe this is my 11th game since I started in 2007. At a time where it many devs go online/social/multiplayer [...]
Failing to pull a game out of an idea
about 8 months ago - 1 comment
This is not a post about how the last 10% of a project is the other 90% of development time. This is not a post about how difficult it can be to polish a game up to the point where it can be looked as a professional project. This is not a post about how [...]
Stages of game development
about 9 months ago - No comments
Well mines anyway. The funny thing is that I’m still learning about them.
#1 – The idea
Well I guess it all starts there. People have ideas every day but for some reason few seems to actually try to do something to make them more than an idea. Lack of money, don’t know how, pessimism, … All [...]
about 11 months ago
Story of my life! I feel your pain. Like you, I am an engine coder – bringing that engine to the point that it becomes a polished, finished game is another four times the work, but I’m often tired of the project once I finish a rough engine. Don’t give up: YOU CAN DO IT! Make a top down STEALTH game roguelike and take your time with it. Your engine will benefit from a real game being made with it and your ego will soar to new heights when you reach that next milestone.
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about 11 months ago
Thanks! Nice to see I’m not alone in this situation.
Seems like it’s a very long road from being a programmer to a game designer. Really didn’t expect that. Seems so easy when you just put one line of code after the other. Now I’m starting to realize a few things. Took me 5 years but eh. At least it’s happening.
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about 11 months ago
I’m in the same boat.
You know what? Maybe we should stop beating ourselves up over how long it takes to finish.
Imagine if you replaced the word “jet airplane” for game / game engine:
“I decided to build a jet airplane by myself. I actually built a couple prototype jet engines and got them to work. But makimg the airframe took 2 years and then I had to take another year to learn sheetmetal forming to skin it. I just realized wiring up all the instruments will take even longer. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, why am I not done yet?”
So at this point I’m just tired of the productivity lifehacks du jour or the admomitions to “just finish it” as if it were as susceptible to willpower as that.
Now if you’ll excuse me I have a game script debugger to write. Yes, yet another tool not a game. Why? Not because I don’t want to make a game, because it’s the f-cking dawn of flight and we’re at the technical maturity level of the Wright brothers as an industry compared to where we will be 50 years from now.
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