Game Developers Refuge

Ah... so this is the post where I bitch about what didn't go right with my compo entry

The short story is that I started too late, had a design that was too ambitious, and lost more time to the day job than I anticipated. Even if the latter hadn't come to pass, I'm not sure I could have pulled off what I originally envisioned in time.

So the fail started pretty much day one.... when I rolled my emoji I instantly thought "I can make that work." Then I promptly stopped giving a fuck for a straight week, as I felt bad, and was recovering from several shitty months at the day job. This time of the year is always tough for me, but if you listen long enough you'll catch on that I pretty much say that about every month, so there's that.

Fast-forward to the second week of the compo, and I get up that Saturday and commit to a design. I take a quick ride around the countryside, letting my mind wander, and come up with something I think will work. I spend the rest of the weekend hammering the tile drawing and movement into shape, and spriting. So far, so good. Trouble sets in the next week, as I only get to spend one or two partial evenings working on the compo. I'm starting to do the mental gymnastics to figure out how much I can get done, and I see I'm running short on time. No problem; I just keep moving forward.

Fast-forward another week, and I'm still getting my stool pushed in by work. I'm either not home, or too tired to do anything constructive. At this point, I'm down to two weekends, and whatever time I can get during the weeknights, which turns out to be fuck-all. As the final week draws to a close, I make a quick pivot and gut my original design scope. Let's go over what I started out with.

Original Idea
The player would search the island for hidden Moai patterns, some of which could only be unlocked by playing the game and earning points. Initially you'd have four patterns, and your love interest would randomly select a pattern they wanted (unknown to you). You would have to collect valuable items around the island and pay off an information broker to get hints as to what she'd like. Creepy? Well, maybe, but who am I to judge dead civilizations? Hidden graves would give you free hints, and occasionally a new pattern. The rest of the game was as it ended up, with you running around gathering resources as the quakes roll in and destroy stuff. You'd have to guess about what resources you'd need, because if you spent time gathering all available clues, you wouldn't have enough resources to build anything interesting. Construct a Moai, give it to your lurve interest, and get points based on how close you got to perfection.


The OFUK we're out of time idea
Hidden and earned patterns got ganked. The into broker also got ganked, as well as collecting any sort of currency. There are now eight tombstones, and eight patterns, and each tombstone gives out a semi-random hint as to what pattern you should or should not build. You'd have to balance gathering hints and resources, as intended, but could always make your best guess and hope for the best. I did add in random NPCs that, while in no way helpful, would occasionally offer amusing advice. You get a WIN/LOSS screen at the end, showing how many resources you picked up (in total) and how many quakes you experienced.

In the end... I barely finished. Around 8:30 PM on the final day of the compo, I packed up what I had and said "Fuck it, imma drank something." And such is life in the States. However, I feel I have a better idea of the scope I should be aiming for in these compos. I can keep things rather simple, and build on the entry if I have extra time. My mistake was committing to do too much, without planning for my available time getting slashed to nothing. Mea culpa.

Well, day job and other daily chores will always get in the way of these projects. The solution is usually to give it more time, but in a jam type format you can't really do that.

As much as I like coding games or similar projects, I have never been into the idea of marathon coding sessions. I mean, I am sure I would enjoy attending a jam if only for the environment and interaction with people. But I am really better suited for the long-distance race.

Don't beat yourself up too much about it. I feel the same as you re: day job leaving you feeling unmotivated / out of energy at the end of the day. Then the weekend comes and you're like "alright, finally, time to relax! oh wait! i should work on $project ... but i am le tired :'(" and then you don't do anything on the weekend, despite hyping it up in your head during the week about all the great stuff you were going to get done this weekend.

Ultimately, I personally think you still created a fun game despite the shrunk scope and slightly refined design from what you had originally envisioned. And that counts for something!

But yeah, as you said in your post, planning for an appropriate scope size is something that we all learn with practice.

carra wrote: ↑Mon Jul 12, 2021 7:23 am Well, day job and other daily chores will always get in the way of these projects. The solution is usually to give it more time, but in a jam type format you can't really do that.

As much as I like coding games or similar projects, I have never been into the idea of marathon coding sessions. I mean, I am sure I would enjoy attending a jam if only for the environment and interaction with people. But I am really better suited for the long-distance race.

I am very much the same way. The (more typical?) 48-hour marathon type of jam is something I would never do myself. I have tried in the past, and I just burn out immediately and end up disappointed. I'm the type of programmer that needs to be able to think about things. Take a few hours or a day or two to mull over a design without even touching a line of code. Can't really do that in a short jam or hackathon or whatever.

This is one of the things I really like about this month-long format. It's long enough that you can take your time. But on the other side of it, gotta get the scope set at the appropriate size!