So, it's been a bit more than a year since I've started development of Fountain of Life.
I still have a long way to go, but I think that now's a good moment to look back and see what I've done right and what I've done wrong. But first, what did I do?
This Year’s Progress
One of the main things I concentrated on this year was making a good prototype. For the first 6 months, I worked on one line of prototypes that concentrated mainly on the search for people near death. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't what I wanted. But as I tried to make it what I wanted it to be, it got worse and worse. I eventually realized that it wouldn't work, and thus, I decided to throw away this first line of prototypes. Thus started the second line, with a higher focus on speedy and productive combat. That's what I'm finishing at the moment, and so far, I like it a lot.
The other thing I concentrated on this year was getting an art style. One thing I had clear from the start was that I wanted to create an art style that mixed waterpainted greyscale with small touches of color. I did a lot of experiments, and I was quite satisfied with the results, even if they weren't particularly liked wherever I posted them. The other problem I had to resolve was my drawing skill. I'm not that good at drawing, but I didn't want to revert to something cartooney or pixelarty. I developed a somewhat weird but fine looking style for drawing the characters which is easier to draw. The final thing to do was to test this in movement, which worked nicely. The colors flicker in a way that's actually quite charming.
I also touched other parts of the game, but not as much. I've been going in circles trying to decide aspects of the story, but I got most of the main ideas in place. I've worked on the design of the main character and enemies a lot too, but I haven't finalized anything yet.
What did I do right?
Willingness to revise and scrap
I've had a lot of ideas that I've liked, but ended up not working and being scrapped. That's something pretty normal in gamedev, but throwing away work is something I don't like and haven't done much before. I managed to get used to it though, and it's helped me improve a lot. The prototype I have now is much better than the one I had 6 months ago!
Getting used to working in my free time
I've done gamedev on and off since I was younger, but only recently have I tried taking on bigger projects that have meant working constantly in my free time. This was pretty hard for at first, since usually I never had more than a hour or two to work, which always felt like little and I never got anything done. I slowly learned how to be more productive though, and I started to use the little time I had efficiently.
What did I do wrong?
Lack of trust in my own opinion
One of the problems of working alone is not having anyone to show your work to. I didn't face this problem particularly well, as I obsessed on getting a second opinion from people I didn't know. This is not bad, but the way I tried to get this second opinion was highly inefficient. I wanted to show people the art style so what I did was make different pieces of fanart to show different people. These fanarts took extremely long to make since I wanted them to look as good as possible. The reception was mostly negative (lots of downvotes at Reddit), and I can't say I learnt anything. I just kept on going with the same style because I liked it. Only in the end did I trust in my own judgement. The fanarts ended up becoming a huge time sink that wasn't worth it.
Not sticking to deadlines
I'm used to working deadlines set by other people, but I'm a mess when it comes to self imposed deadlines (in part because they're harsh, but that's a different story). I guess that I can't take them "seriously" in a way. I have the notion that if I give myself more time, I'll get better ideas and end up with a better result, and this is true. The problem is that if you keep on hanging on this belief, you'll never get anything done. My list of objectives for 2013 currently stands 41% complete, and although there's other reasons involved with this, not reaching deadlines is the main one.
Not reaching the balance between planning and "just doing it"
There are some people who insist on planning out every detail if what they're going to do while other don't really think about it and just start working. I fall into the former category, but sometimes I trust my instincts and just go on ahead. The problem is that I jumped between both extremes without ever staying in the middle for long. For the art style, I perhaps stayed too much on the planning side; I did a lot of experiments to decided how I would do it, but it wasn't until later that I started doing tests to see how it'd be in-game. And even then, I currently still don't have a solid idea of how a normal scene of my game will look like. On the other side, I "just did" the first line of prototypes; it felt wrong, so I just kept changing it as soon as I got a new idea, without even taking a step back to consider how that idea could backfire. I kept on going like that for various months until I finally admitted I hadn't gotten nowhere and took the time to look at what I've done and plan what to do.
What now?
I learn from my mistakes. Show what you're working on, but just keep on going, whether people like what I'm making or not. Plan out what you want to do, and do it, but seriously, control your impulses and just do that. And finally, a new deadline: finish my "2013 To Do" list by March.
And this time, I'll make it.
