I have 'scope phobia' after more than a year of developing.

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So I’ve been designing and programming off and on for a couple decades, and I’ve recently kind of hit a case of ‘scope phobia’. What I mean by this, is that I’ve tried my best to study over the years including the years before even starting this project what might constitute someone to fail in one of two ways, which is either taking far too long in development or stopping development.

I do not want to self-promote but I will explain what I am trying to create, why I am trying to do something like this, and what I have complete. I do have a field system playtest for anyone that would like to try it, you can message me if you’re interested.

Anyway, you will probably laugh and say I’m crazy, but I’m in a practical way trying to create a (very small) turn based rpg in the styles of Grandia 1 or Xenogears. I KNOW that these games were created with teams of people with hundreds of thousands of man hours, but please hear me out.

Last year when I started posting on these forums I had made a thread in where I said that I would re-create RPG Maker in Unity. With an RPG Maker, it’s definitely possible to achieve what I’d like to in a swift manner.

So, I basically got to work on an eventing system for Unity. The eventing system now has in an aaalmost complete form (needs tweaking and some debugging here and there of course) fade in, out, a text box engine, movement control of actors and cameras, switches, debugged nice scene transitions with loading screen, debugged and working data save and load, generally like an rpg field system, all with a custom scripting language.

I’m using RPG Makers trigger based systems with interpreters that read from lists attached to objects, the lists among other scene data being stored in a main game xml database. The lists contain a custom scripting language. This scripting language has a lot of commands that can control aspects dynamically in game on the fly. Interpreters are activated automatically or through being triggered by button press events, or can even be triggered by two objects colliding with one another or the player, and you can put custom field bools in there and switch them around.

I’ve also finished scene transitions, a solid debugged loading screen, bgm and ambsfx looping without having to manually cut up audio files including fading in and out, and I have finished every actor graphic including all of their battle sets (they are pixel-art characters) and every scene in the game (there are 30 or so of them) including all field and all battle scenes.

In generaly I’m trying to say that I have a focus FIRST on data management, data save/load, an event manager and debugging for long hours to ensure stability.

Now, I’m left only with a couple more general steps to the project… That is:

  1. Playtest more and debug fully the field system
  2. Create menu system with rpg stats in my xml database
  3. Create battle system
  4. Script cutscenes

These are all of the steps that are left, virtually, and I…at least THINK I’m confident on my own in the whole ordeal. I can work full time hours because I work at a part-time job school busing that makes enough money to do so…which is the toughest part I guess because I’m working 70 hours a week and have no friends right now (no joke, I’m a total loser, I’m probably gonna lose my mind stuck here alone on this laptop).

Well, all of the characters graphics with animations are complete. All of the scenes are complete. All 3D graphics are complete. The field system is being playtested and I would give it a week and I think I’ll have a solid beta version of it, this is after developing it since October of 2016. The music is also complete, the sfx library I have set up as over 10 years I’ve accumulated a well organized collection.

Here I am, with all of this stuff ready, and the last of the work is strictly mechanical, no design, and I have experience now with C#, and I have decades of programming experience, and yet you know I am very terrified at this moment, because I keep reading online and seeing in advice videos “you shouldn’t work on your dream, you need to learn to scope”.

I BELIEVE I could finish this game by July. The game is only going to be 2 hours in length, I’m trying to go by the Telltale model of episodes; it only has about 15 battles that you fight. There’s only one thing that I imagine could kill the project, and that is the battle system.

I’m sorry for being so self-centered in this post, but this is a real fear of mine…I see it all the time, games that have some successful kickstarter or get funded or whatever but the creators overscope and waste a good 3+ years of their youth away. I should know, I’ve already wasted more than 10 of mine on previous projects, but a year and a half later and thanks to Unity I’ve got this whole setup, it’s pretty neat.

The only plan I have to combat the fear, because i hate putting all of my eggs in one basket in my life, is to bring other programmers in on the project and release the toolset as like a 2.5D rpg maker for Unity. I can’t afford to hire virtually anyone else, so I wouldn’t know what else to do at this point…

If there are any experienced programmers that have tried to create turn-based rpg engines, maybe you could help me out with some advice on it, I don’t know…Just posting some doubts and trying to get what people think about the whole ordeal.

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I have nothing to add because as an animator I barely understand half of your post. But I do have one thing - spring is right around the corner - get out and enjoy the outside at least 1 hour per day - probably more for better mindfulness and invigoration to proceed with a project that sounds interesting - if a little confusing to a visual minded person. :wink:

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Nah just rot in the dark like all good indies. You’ll have great skin when you’re older. Maybe.

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They do say don’t do your dream project, but that’s typically because people typically approach their dream project without the necessary knowledge to do it, and thus bounce off of it, taking longer to make progress than they would by working on other things first and building their skillset.

It sounds like your skillset is already there. In such a case, I don’t see why it would be a problem to work on this.

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In my case, doubt creeps up when I’ve had my head in the game for too long.

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Do you want to be an “RPG Maker Developer” or an “RPG Game Developer”? Answer that and you’ll know whether to plan on releasing your toolkit or to keep it as part of your secret sauce.

It sounds to me like your scope was well defined (an RPG Maker clone), if a little ambitious for a first project. From what you’ve described of the completed systems, it doesn’t sound like you over reached or are taking too long. So unless you are about to give up, you might as well stop worrying and get back to work :wink:

Having said that, where does exercise fit in your schedule? With a driving job and coding keeping you sat for 70 hours a week you need to make sure to take care of your lower back.

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This is exactly my thinking. I don’t want to develop and rpg maker. The idea was to create a toolkit that I can then use to make many games in the future and improve it as I go. I want to be an rpg game developer for sure, but I could maybe bring someone in on the project that could take over the rpg maker part while I go on to use it as a developer. Just a thought…Not sure how well it would turn out though.

This is exactly my thinking as well. I’d imagine that those people that spend so much time programming have to pay attention to diet as best they can and exercise. I try to do light exercise and stretching every 45 minutes to an hour but you could imagine like most any programmer I end up getting absorbed and then 4 hours goes by in about 10 minutes. I think the general worry I have for my life is that the project ends up taking a year or two more and the isolation takes a number on my brain, not only the exercise and diet. Somebody has to release a book like ‘the programmers diet’ or something to help people with this kind of thing. There is a local game group meetup that I did go to at one point, but it’s a 45 minute drive…this is in NY in the US by the way. I think people use game dev group meetups to not go insane.

@EternalAmbiguity The finish line seems to be there, but I’ve seen so many people over so many years say that and then either never release anything or get to 99% complete forever, whether they have the skillset or not. I’m insanely determined to finish this like “No matter what I’m gonna get this done no matter what the physical or mental consequences are” and I think that that kind of thinking can also be extremely unhealthy, and it’s hurt me in the past.

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Not worth it imho.

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Is your long term goal to be a one man studio or to grow into a bigger independent? If anyone could buy your codebase, would you still be able to compete with them in the games market?

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Though most introverts do tend to be overly critical of themselves by using an extroverts definition of loser…

<— says the man hiding behind a logo :slight_smile:

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True enough. I think in this case you might do a couple things like defining and writing down a timeline for when you expect to finish various things, based on how much time you can devote to development. It sounds like you’re experienced enough to do that without overestimating your abilities. Then compare your progress to that.

You’re definitely right that that kind of thinking can be unhealthy. I’d advise as the others have, to step back just a teensy bit and give yourself a little bit of time every day or every week to do something else entirely. This can really only help your dev work: by spending time away from it you limit the chance of burning out, and if you find yourself thinking about it while you’re doing something else you’ll go back to it with a renewed energy.

And post about it on here. We’ve got the Work-In-Progress board, though sadly that’s filled with so many asset adverts that it’s easy for some of us to ignore (though throw a link in this thread and you’ll get some of us following it). You also have Feedback Friday here in Game Design. That might be best for very early prototype (to get feedback on the direction of the project) or very late work, but it’s another avenue where you can get other eyes on your work so it’s not just you. It’s only the internet, but it’s better than no one seeing your work.

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The advice to avoid your dream project is because a dream project is usually of much larger scope than the new indie game dev understands. They don’t know enough about the details of how to implement their vision to understand how much work they are taking on. A common issue is including networked multiplayer in a project, and not realizing that will at least double the amount of work instead of being a relatively small addition. (I went into business with a friend who was business experienced but not game dev experienced, and shortly before release of my first game he made that very suggestion “Why don’t you add multiplayer?”… Ummmm no, you obviously don’t understand what that involves)

This advice is to avoid spending years on a project that ultimately is uncompleted, or doesn’t live up to the original vision for the project. Additionally, indie developers often ignore the marketing end of it, thinking they can just develop a game and it will somehow sell itself, so for that reason alone it is better to step through developing a simple game and going through a release to experience the pitfalls of a release on a project with a much smaller personal investment.

So your biggest risks now don’t appear to have to do with the quality of the game, as you seem happy with your progress. Your biggest risks are failing to complete the project, and failing to market the project properly to avoid a launch failure since you only get really 1 shot at releasing the game.

My recommendation would be to continue working on the project until it is fully playable (lack of the battle system seems like a major missing feature right now that will need to be iterated on). Get a feature complete build ready and get a lot of play testers on it. While you are getting their feedback, start a new very small project, something that can be completed in a small number of months. Get that small project completed, and then go through a marketing release cycle for it and actually release the game. That way you are learning how to release a game on something you don’t care about much. After you go through that release, return to your dream project, make any changes you need based on feedback, and then start working on its release using the lessons you just learned.

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Hope I’m not too blunt but:

  1. Fix your personal situation, go to the gym, whatever you need to do to feel good about yourself;

  2. Fix up your CV and or whatever it is that you need to do to prepare for this thing not working out;

  3. Start marketing the game and getting feedback;

  4. Finish the damn game ASAP!

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ok… the reason why they say “don’t make your dream project” is so…

they USED to say, if you make a game (that’s geared) towards yourself, that the game wouldn’t sell… that you could not make a game for yourself that other people would enjoy…

they said that mostly, because back in the long long ago, a developer would get half a million bucks to make a game, and would be expected to pay that back in royalties… if the game didnt’ make its cost back, it was considered a flop… and the publishers took a HUGE ammont of cash from the game after getting the development money back… so basically to make a successful and profitable game (in the 90s… the Xbox changed everything, imo) you had to sell 100,000 copies or more…

So, back in the day, you kinda made a game for a certain kinda player (your “target audience”), one who would spend 50 bucks on your game and wouldn’t return it to the shop in 3-5 days (returns could kill a game in the first few weeks)

but the game industry is not like that anymore… with Steam wanting only 5% off the top of each sale… I mean, that’s a VERY good deal

I’m working on a game concept, and I’m designing it with the idea that I have a “target audience” of about 30,000 (so, a very “select” target audiance) people (on Steam)… die hard Elon Musk loving NASA wannabee space-nerd who are into exo-planets and Star Trek…

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I apologize, this isn’t really that related, but it’s 30% for Steam. Still cheaper than physical, but not 5%.

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DOH… I guess the guy who told me that was confused about stuff. darn

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I was going to say, Steam owes me a bit of money then. Been getting ripped off! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Sounds like a fear of releasing a product and starting a (small) business and responsibility for it.

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@astracat111 How’s it going? It’s almost June.

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Well I’m on the menus. I had to design like an rpg database editor module. I expect to be done with menus by this month and then it’s on to the battle system. I will bet you anything that I’ve underestimated the time it will take for the battle system by quite a lot. I FEEL like I could finish this by September, but it’s probably going to really take until next year. I do think I can finish menus by July, and that will leave just the battle system to go and then I’ve got a fully fledged rpg maker.

RPG Database Editor Module, which is completed. Just using some characters from an anime I’ve been watching recently…


Menu Module, in production:

The xml database editor took a lot longer than I thought, a month and a half of full time work and 4000 lines of code… and of course like is typical with this kind of thing like anyone else I’m having trouble finding the hours to do it as real life problems are pretty numerous.

What I’ve learned though is how complex an RPG actually is, and why you don’t see RPGs just flying off the production shelves so to speak. It’s like 3 games in one, an adventure game, almost like one of those sports mogul games, and a battle system all in one. I feel like if I can just get the data done, and get this menu module completed, then all I’ll have left is the battle system which will just be an extension of all of the data and graphics that are already there. I think that’ll be like the final battle, so to speak.

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