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Thoughts About Indie Game Project Management
I’ve been trying to optimize my game development process and I have some findings that might or might not be obvious to you.
For my personal projects now I’m completely separating my design and code process. Design in a google doc. Technical design on paper or directly in code. I used to just sit down to code whatever as soon as I got an idea for a game, don’t bother to write it down in detail. Which sometimes led to me simply forgetting what the original vision was, or just losing time coding things that project doesn’t really need. Now I actually try to be two separate people.
When I’m the designer I try to make sure of all the features the project needs. I also try to write down all the small quirks that I should put in the code that I might forget while I’m in the zone coding. And when I’m the coder I sit down and try to engineer the technical design. Maybe I’m just a easily distracted person, I don’t know. But I find it very useful to go back to my documents and see “what the designer wanted”.
Benefit is being able to get more people on board. I’ve found that whenever I think I’ll be the only person ever to touch this code or design, I’m usually wrong. Write code that you’re happy with!
I have to treat every project as a more-or-less documented professional project.
In a lot of small-medium scale projects you will need help, contractors, or in my case, a super talented programmer (Tarik) might hop on and off during development.
Project needs skyrocket through the end, but for especially the pre-production times, one person can be enough.
There was a twitter thread by a smart person that contracting is the best scenario for an indie studio, which I agree. Because until the vision and the mechanics are there, you are like a kid in a sand pool, trying to find your castle. Having 10 other people with you might be a waste.
But then it’s the production times, and you suddenly need 10 characters and 25 levels designed or whatever, and that’s the real work where you might need a lot of help. This is the best time to get some art/design contractors in your project. Because now you know what you need.
And then there is the end of a project, where you probably have some technical debt, held off on some boring UI, game needs to be optimized for a specific platform, or whatever. This is the best time to get some coder contractors, because it’s extremely easy to get overwhelmed.
So yeah, project management is an interesting problem, especially because you are throwing man-hours into a pipe to solve it, and it should definitely be optimized, and the answer will vary from project to project.
Another specific challenge that my projects face is that they are part-time gigs, so something that should take 1 month can take 6 months. So time is even more valuable. I’m looking forward to get more experience designing/leading/managing so I can see if theory fits the practice.
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Life goals etc.
Had time to think about life goals and existence and stuff while I’m on holiday. It helped that I was listening to the audiobook of Sapiens, which aims to explain all things that make us human from an evolutionary standpoint, and how originally being a hunter-gatherer species has shaped our behavior.
The heart of the matter is, I pretty much think nothing I do actually matters in the grand scale of things and I should just do what I like. Which happen to be: create things like games and music, spend time with family and friends, enjoy art. For a long time I was in a certain mindset, putting pressure on myself, reminding myself of goals. I think I’m letting those go a bit.
One was “be one of the good guys”. What that means to me is don’t be like those people who hurt and not feel remorse, rude, unthoughtful people. Then I had to figure out that I’m not really a great person, not even a decent one at times when instincts take over logic. So there goes the “good guy” goal. I’m not going to become a buddhist or something and take control of all my instincts. I just want to be a human and live a human life.
I also had “be happy” as a goal in the past. I ditched that, as it was too hard to have control over and also felt too limiting (I like being sad sometimes) (sadness is not equal to depression). The goal that replaced that is, “be as physically and mentally healthy as possible”. It forces me to do things like exercise, eat well (not super well, just better than before… I still have episodes of eating a box full of biscuits or whatever unhealthy thing I can grab), even go to therapy which I though I’d never do (it’s not a pleasant experience but it helps). Self-care has been a big theme in my life for the last 3 years. You can only live your life depressed and anxious for so long, then you go “I can’t do this anymore”. That’s where this goal comes in.
The last goal or mindset I had was “achieve amazing things in my career and prove my worth”. Sounds really unhealthy because it is. I have to get over this achievement-obsessed part of my brain. Because, best case: I’ll be a workaholic who achieves a lot. Worst case: I’ll always feel like a failure. I don’t like either of these options, so I’d just like to exist without the pressure of having to achieve. I mean, I feel funny even admitting this, because (I hope this doesn’t offend you if you care about video games) video games actually don’t matter. Like, at all. Today, the general view in the world seems to be, games are something people get addicted to and would be better off quitting all together, like smoking or alcohol. Assume this is the case for a second, then being respected in games industry is like being a world champion at beer pong. You might have fame and money but in the end are you really an important person? If you die tomorrow, all people will say is “oh no, we’ll never have the same efficiency in putting ping pong balls in beer cups”. La di da.
For a long time I’ve been dreaming of having my micro company making the kind of games I want to make full time. Soul Searching is a step in this direction. That goal is still there, but I’ll try to put less pressure on myself about that. Not take it super seriously. Not feel too bad that I haven’t achieved my yearly goals this year for example. Because I have to enjoy the process of creating. Pressure is anti-joy. I have enough anxiety in my life without this. Otherwise what I make doesn’t matter. I’m not some Van Gogh type tormented genius. I am a husband, brother, and someone who occasionally makes his own games. I live a privileged life that some might envy. I don’t really deserve it because no-one really deserves anything. I’ll just try to be an okay person, which in the end also doesn’t matter. Breathe, smell the flowers, then die. Then in a few centuries no-one in the world remembers I’ve ever existed. And that’s okay, it even helps take the pressure off.
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red girl
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naked boi
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dirty man
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fire
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Inktober 2019
I did Inktober! Here are some of the best (and really the only ones I don’t hate)
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Soul Searching on Nintendo Switch!
Soul Searching is OUT NOW on NINTENDO SWITCH! It’s a narrative survival game about sailing away from your homeland.
I really like our new poster.
Look, my silly depressed baby on a Nintendo device!
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New Game: Garbage People
Garbage People is a game about feeling like garbage and being abducted by a giant.
Takes about 10 minutes to play.
The visual style might remind you of the absurd little flash games we used to play.
All original art and music created by me, who is not a good artist or a musician.
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bathroom0.jpg
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New Game: Crime Factory
Happy with how this game turned out. I coded all platformer physics on this one, and a custom level editor. It was a good learning experience. The game didn’t really make a big splash, not a lot of people cared about it, but I think it’s one of the better games I’ve made.
Fight big robots, do your job, then go and visit your mom. https://kayabros.itch.io/crime-factory
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toothpain, self portrait
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New Video: It’s A Living
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Soul Searching Short Stories is OUT NOW!
Short Stories is a free update to Soul Searching. It adds 7 new games that are designed to enrich the lore of Soul Searching. It took a lot of time to prepare these games but we are very happy with the result. I hope you enjoy this big update. We are looking forward to hear your thoughts.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuDqByntWT0
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/586240/Soul_Searching/
itch.io and Humble: http://playsoulsearching.com/buy
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Human knowledge is incremental
Apparently, I wrote this 2 years ago. I think it is one of the better things I’ve said and might be worth revisiting. So I’m posting it here:
Today, anyone can make music. They can pick up a guitar and learn some chords and strum the guitar and make some music. It’s easy. But you wouldn’t be able to make music if people over generations didn’t work on music theory and sound waves and crafting instruments over countless iterations. That’s, to me, most of my music, done by other people, old inventors. Do I own the music that I make, or do they?
Noone on earth can make a modern computer from ground up by themselves. From harvesting the silicon to making the chips to the hardware to the kernel and the operating system on top of that, you’ll miss some information and not be able to make a complete modern computer by yourself. On top of all that computer work, someone made a game engine and I make a game with it. How much of the game that I made do I actually own? Human experience is incremental. We need each other to make a computer. We need each other to live.
If people didn’t make up words and languages with grammars, you wouldn’t be the same logical thinker that you are. Our language shapes how we think. With different vocabulary and different grammar, your thoughts would drastically differ. The language is created slowly by old generations, and it evolved through time, changed itself, and changed the way we think. How much of your own thoughts do you own? Human thinking is incremental.
We take most of our looks and some of our personality directly from our parents. Our genes decide on our future sicknesses and faults. How much of your actions is intellectually done by you? And how conscious are you while doing things?
To me, it’s hard to take credit for anything good I do. I try to be the things that I want to be, but mostly just fail. To be aware of this stuff and actually have a productive stance on it, maybe we should always be humble, try to make good things, and not take too much credit for them. We’ll die some day and be a microscopic part of human existence. As someone who I adore said, “no one’s going to remember us in 200 years anyway”. Our names will be forever lost, and our story irrelevant.
