I’ve touched on this subject a bit before, but I’ve been thinking lately how designing this new Flash game is taking a bit longer than I originally thought it would. I think that the experience is pretty much the same for any game designer, however.
I first created my file on April 17th and I’m now estimating that it will be another 2 weeks before I can begin to pitch it to sponsors. Based off of my previous game designing experience, however, I’m sure I’ll have to add another week or two to that number…
In thinking about why my estimates are off, I’ve been able to identify the following areas:
1. Not having enough experience. This usually applies to when I’m trying to do something new. For example, when I first learned to to draw an object in Flash with a certain alpha amount, I figured it would be as simple as Game Maker’s method. While it is a simple idea now, the actual process of LEARNING how to do it added about day to the project. Since I’m not the brightest guy in the world, I pretty much had to search on the web for the solution and an example which took a while.
2. Social stuff aka LIFE. I’m a sucker for not working so any time that my brother or a friend wants to hang out, I’m there. Obviously, the more I’m hanging out, the less I’m working…
3. Waiting for other people. The most common cause of this seems to be art. For example, I’ll be finished with the code and just waiting for art to come together. This is always… fun…
4. Play testing is slow. It’s hard for me to get people to play my games and give me GOOD feedback on what they like and what they don’t.
Hmm… that’s the worst of them. I’m not quite sure what to do about them however.
