How do you guys stay motivated with a one person team?
I am self taught in NES/SNES style sprites and animation, and have a degree in Game Design and am pretty handy with C# and Unity. I can create all the music myself, as I also do that (I run a record label and produce music as well).
I have a passion project that is about 4 months in, but I can see the span of a 2-5 year development cycle being brutal. Do you guys find it is better to get more help, or stick to your original vision? If so - how do you keep yourself motivated? Iāve received positive feedback on my project, and I may eventually begin a Kickstarter later in the year. Development blogs (if so, what sites)? Obviously we are mostly all self funded in our indie game endeavors and doing this in our free time. Just curious how you guys stay moving. Do you make lists of things you want to accomplish and time frames?
We have all seen games on Steam that are poorly made for .99 centsā¦ we could go back to the a Game Design Document or scope - but a big part of it I think is just staying motivated and plowing through building new levels (on paper first, then on screen).
The point is - I would rather have 5 good levels than aim for 10 that I can never finish. If I had funding, I could potentially do that. What are your experiences - developers who have published?
I think what keeps me motivated is that Iām doing it purely as a hobby, Iām nearly finished with my first game but as far as I can recall I began work on it back in 2012 or 2011. Another important aspect to keep in consideration is that Iāve restarted from scratch three times since I felt various parts of the game were shitty- while it is frustrating I still believe itās important to not be afraid to start over, since I would personally be far less motivated to work on something that I either donāt enjoy creating or something that has utterly craptacular gameplay.
Now as Iām coming close to the end I feel my motivation is starting to dry out though but I think that could have to do both with alot of things happening in my life that reduce the time I have to work on my game and also that I have some other game ideas I wish to start working on- and the game have become quite large for me alone to work on so it is very time-consuming.
Iāve posted dev-logs on various sites- indieDB, GameJolt, itch.io aswell as twitter and the game page Iāve set up (lootburnkillrepeat.wordpress.com), Iāve received relatively little feedback but since Iāve enjoyed developing the game and play the game the fairly small attention the game has received havenāt been a problem to meā¦ but as said, itās a hobby to me and I havenāt had any intention to make a profit from it.
I think every developer have to follow his/her own belief and what is important to them, I do it all for fun, an escape from reality and I enjoy problem solving. If I had intentions to earn a whole lot of money from my project(s) I think Iāld aim for making smaller games that would consume less time.
Another thing that has helped, perhaps not with motivation but more concerning the planning of game development has been the visual studio projects website, a free and great tool for planning project timeline, to-do lists and wikis to help keep track of game content, editor functionality or project guidelines etc. etc.
In my experience, itās easy to keep motivated when youāre certain of your goal and making progress.
Itās hard to keep motivated when you donāt feel youāre making progress.
Itās brutal when you arenāt certain of your goal.
The real pain points are when you hit some kind of roadblock. Something doesnāt āworkā but you arenāt sure what it is, maybe itās lack of content, maybe a system isnāt jiving quite right. The killer here is that you may not be sure what the problem is, so you canāt possibly be sure of the right solution.
This gets worse and worse if you attempt some fix but it also doesnāt quite fit right.
More open ended games can suffer from this more so than linear games.
There is a great analogy in actual game play. In an open ended game, sometimes you can hit a point where itās not clear what you should do next. You might be willing to keep fighting a tough boss over and over till you win, but when you just feel lost and donāt know what to do next, thatās when youāre most likely to simply stop playing.
When we have clear, certain goals, itās easy to find motivation. When weāre just lost, itās easy to simply walk away.
My game is mostly linear. Hereās a question for you - do you set date specific goals or set things in order? Do you draw maps on paper beforehand? Do you do a different theme for each level? Do you flesh out a level entirely in Unity, or do you roughly lay the groundwork and move on? This is after your system is working and has been tested pretty exhaustively.
Here is another thing I know from years of music production and releases. If you listen to/work on something too long, you lose your subjectivity and things that looked great start looking oldā¦ before you know it you start tearing away your original intentions. The best things seem to come from getting the concise idea down, then fleshing out the extras - which takes years to kind of gauge your barometer.
I think the one man team is tough, but doable. If you look at all the successful one man steam games, theyāre literally 2D scrollers like youāre doing. But thereās a lot to do, including programming sound design texturing animating modelling, story design.
As a one man I donāt think I could finish a game to a standard Iād like, perhaps if I did a 2D one Iād have a better chance.
And yeah motivation is a sucker, youāll always find something else to distract you unless you are laser focused.
Additionally, it is difficult to stay innovative for example with 2D side scrollers, you move across platforms jump over blocks and shoot enemies (I guess not sure on your game theme) thatās been done so many times. I think you need to have something unique to be somewhat successful.
Yeah, you are correct about this. This is intentionally made to be lo-fi NES styleā¦ so I was able to teach myself pixel art in PyxelEdit over time, which has been a process in itself. I can see myself maybe realistically doing 5 levels and releasing it. All of the one man games seem to be either Zelda clones/tributes, platformers, or Metroidvania games and they still take a lotttt of time. Iām also using PlayMaker now (visual scripting / state machines), with an expanded Corgi Engine (the game is based on a sidescroller I programmed by hand, and was so impressed with the Corgi Engine that I dumped my project, used the Corgi Engine and added onto it.
The game is not over-ambitiousā¦ it is just a love letter to NES-style games with some new tech in their as well.
I donāt know. Itās hard to keep that laser focus when you are looking down the barrel of a long dev cycle. Iām trying to think of a better way to manage things and plan what I want to accomplish within time frames I guess to ensure it gets done. I bring this back to musicā¦ it was years/is years for guys to learn how to produce good electronic/video game musicā¦ and most have hard drives filled with unfinished tracks before they start committing to them and finishing every good idea.
Yeah I tried pixel art once, but it was way too tedious for me to consider all the animations. I also tried my hand at music compo with garage band connected to a digi keyboard. Again even that was difficult, well at least to produce a well composed electronic tune.
Yeahā¦ I have about 60 something published electronic tracks and more coming and run a digital record label. This will feature my own music. Pixel art is tedious as hell, but working with 64 colors (NES - every color has dark, medium, bright - then a bunch of shades of grey) is a lot easier than dealing with a crazy palette of the Genesis, and Iām not a huge fan of hand drawn side scroller art. 3d animation is over my head. I originally got into Unity and was making first person shooters, after school I fell in love with indie retro games made by āone guyā in a lot of cases (Axiom Verge is probably the best case of this) because I knew I could do this by myself without other people - not that I wouldnāt want to - but people gotta get paid or work pro-bono and be on the same page.
I remember watching a video by virtual riot who makes a track in ten minutes and I was like dayum. For me, I just use garage band to create ambient sounds etc. Thatās about as far as I think my music production skills go. If I could afford it Iād probably purchase projectSam.
Yeahā¦ without listening I can see heās using Serum, Massive (I use Massive in all my stuff), Battery, a sidechain signal and some pretty simple notes. They are basically āVirtual Instrumentsā or plug-ins. Think of them as expensive assets. I canāt listen to Dubstep or my blood pressure will get high. I make Techno. You can do that in two minutes, but any/or most good songs are like gamesā¦ you can get an idea down or a break, but you still have to make a polished 7 minute track with a lot of automation and effects.
I can make a Dubstep drop in 10 minutes. Or a Techno drop. Or a house drop. A drop is just when the beat ābreaksā and is usually like a 32 or 64 bar cue for the DJ to wait for the beat to come back - open up the song. It happens typically around 1:30 into the song. Sometimes before, sometimes after.
Yeah, I suppose it what kind of music you like, I donāt mind techno dubstep or power strings. I think the game ā140ā has a good track if you youtube it. Well I enjoyed playing that one. Very simple graphics as well.
After listening - that sounds like shit and the guy doesnāt even know how to use Massive. Heās using bad Dubstep presets he probably pirated. This is from a guy who is 30 and that has used it for 3+ years. Donāt take any advice in that video.
I donāt disclose my professional life on here but I am verified on social networks and am on Beatport, etc. Didnāt want to make this post about music - Unity is my escape. lol
OK fair play, well I donāt know anywhere near as much as you do in regards to music comp although I was trained in piano comp up to grade 5. It just staggers me at how much effort seems to go into something like that.
I really like projectSam though. Again, if I could afford it I would probably buy the pack for garage band and hook it up to my digi keyboard.
