Piecemeal Jack - post 4 - wrap up

 I'm calling it quits on Piecemeal Jack for now. This is as far as I got:

I built everything I had planned, to some extent, and the result appears to be a game you could finish in less than 30 minutes. Granted, I haven't implemented the bosses, and damage isn't doing much, but I don't think adding either of these things will help extend the game beyond 30 minutes.

2 strategies come to mind for ensuring player's don't finish the game in 1 sitting: Slice up what I have and extend it out by adding 2 more levels, or ensure the game is so difficult that few players would be able to complete the game the first time they play.

I don't really like either approach at the moment, so yesterday I decided to put Piecemeal Jack aside. I don't see the point in paying for the production of art assets for what I have. I intend to return to this project some day in the future, but next month I plan to focus on things that would help me get a new job instead.

Piecemeal Jack has very much been a learning experience on when I should start talking about a project. I get so exited and, as with the registering of a domain, the paying for a website, and everything that happened with my past game projects, I think I rushed into showing off the idea. I don't think any of these things was strictly harmful to myself, but I believe it's hurt my ability to find and retain an audience for blogs, future games, etc. Honestly, I don't believe anything I've done to date is particularly interesting, and I've started asking myself why that is.

 

The next time I start on a game, I'm planning to stay silent on the whole thing until I've reached the point of adding art assets.

New Production Strategy

Over the past 5-ish months since my last post, I've learned that programming only really matters to me in the context of programming a game. Accordingly, I've quit school with the intent to do everything possible to move into a game development career. My first priority in this regard is to find a new and better production strategy for myself.

Of the strategies I've encountered so far for making games, my favorite has easily been the boardgame production strategy:

Produce prototype > find players > get feedback > repeat until "ready" > submit to a contest or group of other designers to tear apart > make corrections with intent to pursue a publisher or kickstarter, with additional testing as needed.

However, I haven't found a way or group to work with to easily apply this strategy to my videogame production. The closest similar outlet I've found for videogames are game jams, where you craft and produce an idea in accordance with a theme (or, sometimes, no theme) and (hopefully) receive feedback from other jam participants. Even if you don't get feedback, you get the opportunity to compare you work to your peers.

Jams are very good for testing new ideas and mechanics you might be interested in. It's my impression that making jam games can do alot to develop your ability to craft mechanics that "feel good". But, how do you take a jam game and turn it into a full title? I've yet to figure this out, despite trying to for at least 3 projects. The spark goes out once the prototype game is "done", and I find myself moving on.

My only alternative to the boardgame strategy and jams, until recently, was just to "plan to finish a full game this year" and work on and off on the project. This strategy led to boredom and frustration. I spent a good portion of my free time tinkering with programming languages until I finally decided to go back to school.

I need tight deadlines, the ability to work rapidly, and built-in time off in order to ensure I can continue working full-time while attempting to change my life. I've decided to try the following strategy:

• Sent aside 4 months twice a year to produce a full game with the intent to charge some amount of money for it
• First month is just brainstorming and experimenting with the goal of selecting 1 game idea to continue with. I've been completely derailed by experiments in the past and, in the game jam I most recently participated in (MechJam II), the game I actually finished was started with 12 hours left out of 2 weeks. It's my hope that providing more time at the start will allow me to get a better grasp of my project and its scope.
• The remaining 3 months are intended only for the production of the idea I selected in the first month. The 3rd month is intended as a safety net only, so if I'm starting over again in the 3rd month that's a sign I need to shelve the project for later.
• The remaining 4 months are sprinkled between big game projects and are for pushing my games on social media, game jams, programming, life events, whatever else arises. I've found social media in general to be an annoying distraction, and I hope to keep interaction with it to a minimum while developing.
  

 

This new strategy doesn't include time for user testing, feedback, or coordination with other artists. There's so many prototypes vying for people's attention, not to mention all of the completed games from every decade imaginable, that I find the idea of attempting to attract an audience with my current resources extremely intimidating. I've also given up on the idea of paying others to work with me for now, as I no longer have the spare finances.

Every now and again, I hear about weird little indie games. Projects buried in the mass of steam, or invisible on the prototype-heavy platform of Itch.io. I hear about these games from videos posted by other game makers, or through quirks of the YouTube algorithm that lead me to tiny channels with minuscule followers. It really seems to me that any sufficiently entertaining or distinct videogame has the potential to be discovered and cherished by a tiny group of zealots.

Aiming for tiny success is not a good business strategy. However, when all you want to do is produce something worth actual money with your very limited resources, ie not an asset flip and typically more developed than a student project, it is a strategy. Worst case, no one notices your games and your portfolio expands beyond jam projects. Best case, you make a game a few people like enough to tell their friends about. 

 

You don't have to ask for money as part of this process, but I want to. It gives me reason to aim for a higher standard in my work.

As part of this new strategy, I plan to spend this month planning a project and then next month attempting to make 1 game. This would allow me to treat December as an off month before planning a new game in January.

This will be my only blog post for October. However, I plan to post weekly updates in November. I plan to continue posting here because I'm not ready to divide whatever audience I might have. 

 

Until then.

Week 5: done, but not fun

This week, I learned the hardest thing for me to do is set aside a project that inspires me. When my daily life is stressful, as this past week has been, this becomes doubly true. However, in the interest of this little "3 hour game each week" project I'm on, I tried my best to move on from Ghost and Hostage to something new.

I spent far more than 3 hours this week experimenting with mechanics in Godot. My self justification was that I needed to settle my mind into a new goal I might achieve in 3 hours. I ended up stuck on ideas and mechanics that would only apply to the growing list of projects I've shelved at one time or another, and that continue to haunt me.

I finally settled on a new project yesterday, and started building it at my earliest opportunity. The idea was a simple puzzle game. I don't typically play or enjoy puzzle games, but it was all I'd come up with all week. The result was so mechanically uninteresting to me I will not be publishing it.

To break it down: you play a little green dude who picks up green bugs. You automatically pick up the bugs, and automatically drop them in the appropriate spots to cross over lava to reach a goal. You control your character using the mouse.

 

I imagined a really simple and breezy puzzle experience, and ended up with something that was too simple with less than an hour left for changes. I tried some changes and ran out of time. 

 

I can still see some potential in the idea. More hazards, height and or jumping, more obstacles, and there might be something. Trouble is, I don't think I care enough to return to the project.

 

I've re-written the ending to this post multiple times. How much do you vent about growing pressure at work to conform in a public blog? About wanting to find a new job, but feeling hopeless in regards to your ability to step into a new industry or find anything better in your current one? I have no answers, these 3 hour games aren't helping, and I'd rather use 1 or more of these hours looking up jobs each week. So, as of now, the 3 hour games are done.

I'm going to step back and figure out what development I can fit in without adding too much stress. I'll post an update next week on what that means.

Last week was hell, taking the day off

Ok, (short) story time:

At some point early last week, the CO2 alarm in every apartment in my building went on and stayed on for about 2 hours. Now, Austin was frozen over, and there's still covid, so there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. I sat on my couch with my old college laptop, put earplugs in my ears, prayed the electricity would stay on, and tried to figure out what to do with myself.

Long story short, I started an RTS prototype based on a game I no longer have access to called Susume Tactics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNh2xjd27_8

 

Unfortunately, I can't tell you much more about the project. With school closed and so much shut down, I transitioned to spending most of my free time each day working on it. It helped with my anxiety over figuring out sponge baths, my shrinking supplies, my growing pile of clothes, the possibility that my water wouldn't return when the freeze broke. Then, the freeze broke, and just like that my motivation was gone.

I'm not sure exactly how much time I spent on this project. I know I wasn't close to finished, and that 3 more hours won't change that. I know I've slacked on my school assignments and my exercise. So, as part of trying to get myself back to somewhere stable, I'm taking the rest of today off. Next week, I'll be returning to the whole 3 hour project in a week thing.

Until next time.