First, I feel like I need to put out the obligatory 'been a while' comment.
It's been a while.
Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to talk about how games change over time and how my expectations for my games has changed. Last post was about how strange and difficult Indie game development becomes as it goes on. This will be, I guess, tangentially related. Really though, I just want to ramble for a few moments on games change both during development and while being played.
Obviously, games change during development. The go from being an idea in someones head, to being a collections of art assets and code snips, to being real games, though that's not the kind of change that's interesting. The more interesting changes come from the goal of a game changing as development goes on. SiC started life as a game about bounty hunting demons, before it became a game more about exploring an open station and repairing it, before eventually changing more into what it is now, which is more of a linear quick paced shooter. The central system planned has become less and less complex as development has marched on.
Ideas are easy, everyone has a million, every single person reading this has a game idea that they think would be great. The ideas that matter are the ones that get made, be they into games or books or comics or just as an essay. It's about turning a collection of random chemical signals into something tangible, something that can be shared and talked about.
I'm not (well, not anymore anymore) the kind of person who's concerned with whether or not a game I'm working on is worth being talked about. I used to care, the first few years I was working on games, I wanted each to be talked about, I wanted each game to have impact, and I'd get especially depressed when they didn't. This was compounded by not immediately starting on something else once I'd finished a project. By now I can look back and see that I really didn't get what I was doing, that I was saddling both myself and my games with the expectation that they needed to be great, so when I would put one out, and watch it go by completely unnoticed, I would be devastated. Eventually, I figured out that if I immediately moved on to the next project, I could escape the existential dread of all my effort being in vain, instead being forced to focus on the next design issue or confusing new mechanical implementation. Eventually I stopped caring about making a game that people want to talk about, focusing instead on making the best game I can make.
That's all I want now. I mean, hell, if I do make something that's legitimately worth talking about, then that's great. In the end though, I'm not looking to make a game that's well loved by everyone, or dealing with a specific taboo topic. I just want to make a game that people can enjoy.
Anyway, I don't specifically remember what I started off talking about, but it probably wasn't any good anyway.
Wyatt White
Proud owner of $6.28
It's been a while.
Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to talk about how games change over time and how my expectations for my games has changed. Last post was about how strange and difficult Indie game development becomes as it goes on. This will be, I guess, tangentially related. Really though, I just want to ramble for a few moments on games change both during development and while being played.
Obviously, games change during development. The go from being an idea in someones head, to being a collections of art assets and code snips, to being real games, though that's not the kind of change that's interesting. The more interesting changes come from the goal of a game changing as development goes on. SiC started life as a game about bounty hunting demons, before it became a game more about exploring an open station and repairing it, before eventually changing more into what it is now, which is more of a linear quick paced shooter. The central system planned has become less and less complex as development has marched on.
Ideas are easy, everyone has a million, every single person reading this has a game idea that they think would be great. The ideas that matter are the ones that get made, be they into games or books or comics or just as an essay. It's about turning a collection of random chemical signals into something tangible, something that can be shared and talked about.
I'm not (well, not anymore anymore) the kind of person who's concerned with whether or not a game I'm working on is worth being talked about. I used to care, the first few years I was working on games, I wanted each to be talked about, I wanted each game to have impact, and I'd get especially depressed when they didn't. This was compounded by not immediately starting on something else once I'd finished a project. By now I can look back and see that I really didn't get what I was doing, that I was saddling both myself and my games with the expectation that they needed to be great, so when I would put one out, and watch it go by completely unnoticed, I would be devastated. Eventually, I figured out that if I immediately moved on to the next project, I could escape the existential dread of all my effort being in vain, instead being forced to focus on the next design issue or confusing new mechanical implementation. Eventually I stopped caring about making a game that people want to talk about, focusing instead on making the best game I can make.
That's all I want now. I mean, hell, if I do make something that's legitimately worth talking about, then that's great. In the end though, I'm not looking to make a game that's well loved by everyone, or dealing with a specific taboo topic. I just want to make a game that people can enjoy.
Anyway, I don't specifically remember what I started off talking about, but it probably wasn't any good anyway.
Wyatt White
Proud owner of $6.28