Three quick things I've learnt doing game development

It’s Friday again! Time for another blog update. Game news is slow, and I’ve been trying to explore various avenues for artist involvement again, but I’m beginning to think I won’t get anywhere without paying someone. The only concrete thought I have about my next project is that I definitely want to work with AI in some capacity. Perhaps some kind of simulation game. So, without much game news, I leave you with this: three things I’ve learnt so far during my time as an amateur game developer.

You will underestimate how long it takes

When I first became interested in game development, I did what I think every beginner has done at some point; I planned a project that was well beyond my scope. You tell yourself “I will work on it as long as it takes!” or some permutation of that sentiment. But you won’t.

If you get as far as actually starting the project, you will quickly realise that, without much experience, you have no idea how things work. 10 years commercial experience isn’t necessary to launch a successful game, but if your first idea is on the scale of an MMORPG, just forget it. There is a reason people start with pong.

The key to successfully launching a game - not necessarily a successful game, I’ll write a post on that when I’ve figured it out! – is more about what you don’t add, rather than what you do. You can have as grand an idea as you like, but your first version will be culled down to a husk of itself if you are to actually get any feedback.

You will gradually get better at estimating how long feature X will take, but you will never be completely accurate. Amateur game developers – particular those working in very small teams, or on their own – will almost always be well served if they plan for a game to take longer than they think it will.

You will learn something new every project

… and that’s good! This is exactly what makes game development interesting: the innovation. Had you learnt nothing on a project, you would have kept the exact same skillset. You may not have some extra portfolio work, but you can’t actually do anything new.

One of the best things an aspiring game developer can do is to learn new techniques. Expanding your skillset will undoubtedly increase the quality of your ideas, and your work. Modern day originality comes from the combination of ideas in novel ways, and you can’t combine an idea you do have with an idea you don’t. So get learning new stuff!

You need to draw out all the visual elements

I’m not sure this even needs to be said, it’s that obvious. Regardless I’m saying it because this tripped me up on more than one occasion. I’m a very cerebral person; I reason things out in my mind rather than draw them, or write them down. This process works very well for me when I do programming, but when I’m designing a UI, it’s nigh impossible to do it well without designing it first.

If, instead, you decide to just go ahead and slap a few buttons on the screen with an image here and a title there, you will come back to it. You will end up redoing the entire screen, and that’s time wasted. Granted, there is a use for quick mashups in prototyping, but if you are looking to actually ship a game, get some designs completed first.