What is Your Biggest Challenge?

News & General Discussion
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When it comes to the art, science, and business of games, what is your biggest challenge?
Gigi

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Can I say all of it?

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Im with shadow. ALL THE THINGS

Staying focused/enthusiastic is a big one though. Especially the last 20%

Especially when you consider…

  1. you might not get downloads. All that effort for nil
  2. people give u shoddy ratings for the wrong reasons
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Working a full time job while I wait for my residence visa in a new country, while my game launch is so close :frowning:

I find this to be the most mentally challenging situation I’ve ever been in. It’s really hard going into work every day, working on stuff I’m not really passionate about… while everything I am passionate about takes a back seat in the evenings and on weekends, when I’m supposed to be re-charging and resting my body and my eyes…

Other than that, I love everything about game dev, the challenge, the projects, my projects etc. And I love the industry. I see those all as good challenges, not the frustrating type.

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Cutting through all the bullshit.

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Time.

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I fail at marketing. Hard.

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Actually finishing anything.

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At least you’re working with games. I’m using visual stupid 2005 to work on old sh*t that is extremely complex (and frustrating) and being military, wrapped up in red tape and horrible documentation requirements.

Ever tried debugging software with dozens of threads on vs 2005? Of course you havnt because its freaking impossible (and who would be stupid enough to put such misery on themselves…)

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Keeping off the forums.

But hey, I’m only a humble hobbyist. I have no obligation to actually ship another product. Ever.

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I almost spit out my coffee laughing. God that must be a nightmare.

There are so many challenges. If this is something related to a pod cast, here are some more general suggestions.

  • Accepting “Good Enough”
  • Knowing when something is actually “Good Enough”
  • Telling the difference between something that just needs polish and something that needs to be axed.
    (the confidence you need to push forward vs confidence leading to folly)
  • Dealing with an absolutely overwhelming avalanche of stuff you need to do and the gears you need to switch.
  • Approaching subjects that are weak spots in your skill set.
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Often it’s the hardest part, which will become the best and unique thing about the game.

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Tell us more.
Gigi

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What gets in the way of finishing?
Gigi

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What has failed, succeeded, or been tried?
Gigi

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^ This! OMG, this!
Gigi

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For me, it’s fully-realizing the potential of my designs.

I’ve had some interesting ones. Ignoring SHMUP: Orbital Combat (it was a cute first game to prove I could finish something, anything…), my two ties are Zombies vs. Knights and The Hero’s Journey. THJ was a bit obvious - I duplicated, but did not go out of my way to solve, the problems of the swordfighting mechanics from Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (the fact that my jumping was awful didn’t help.) The worst part is, I had actually referred to a dissection of Zelda 2 that outlined the problems, and tried to solve them by good level and enemy design. As a result, I fell for every single problem of the original, and succeeded in having fewer enemies, powerups, and abilities.

ZvK is something I’d like to revisit at some point. I built the game in a month. The problem is, I built it as I designed it at the time. I wanted to take the ‘standard’ RTS formula of ‘pwn the other dude’s base’ and reduce it down to the fundamentals. I think I succeeded on some level, because it’s my most-played game - where my other games are hovering at about 10,000-15,000 plays, ZvK has over 80,000 across portals. So, I apparently did something engaging enough to notice. The problem is, I’m not sure how to improve that concept for a sequel/remake/extensive patching session.

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What might it look like if you revisit Zombies V Knights? You’ve improved a lot, there’s tons more you could do with this idea, and there’s clearly a lot of improvements it could have. Here’s some thoughts:

  • Instead of choosing either Knights or Zombies, consider evolving the game by starting with Knights. You first have 1 or 2 units, and it’s only a moderate challenge. Then, you begin unlocking others. At some point, you begin unlocking the Zombies - in a sort of parallel story, seeing how the zombie’s perceive it (the entertainment term is ‘Unreliable Narrator’) - maybe they are fell like cast-off humans, trying to protect their new existence. Use the typical RPG style evolution.
  • Apply what you’ve learned about Feedback. The acrual of goal/souls is not quite clear. The spending of currency assumes players already know this genre.
  • Difficulty balance. The feedback, and structure of the game were a bit overwhelming at first. And, I never did win - though the challenge was actually kind of fun. I think people REPLAY your game, because they find it difficult - they want to see if they can win. So, perhaps keep the game quite difficult. That’s something few games in this genre do - maybe that’s a niche.
  • Add upgrades. There’s no reason you can’t add elements of an RPG in here. Accrue points/gold - which you could use to unlock new units, upgrade existing units, and even add Heroes (unit units). You could add spells, cooldowns, and all sorts of things. So many ways to take this.
  • Lighting - OMG, the game is so dark - I could barely make out the units. Even if you prefer a dark background, I think the units, the castle, and the buttons need to be VERY obviously visible.
  • UI - 'nuff said.

This was your biggest success. You may consider revisiting it - adding everything you’ve learned, and release Zombies v Knights 2, still keeping a modest timeline. Maybe 12 weeks.

Gigi

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Reminds me of the time in AIT we were students were trying to learn our MOS and I had some 100 or more lb piece of military equipment fall off the wall onto my back because it wasn’t bolted onto the wall while I was troubleshooting equipment as part of a test. And they gave me a dropped bug because I told them to get that air conditioner off my back rather than finish troubleshooting the bug.

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Hardest thing is to stop reading stuff online.

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