This week has not been a particularly productive one for me as far as game development goes. There are a few reasons for that. First of all, I spent a fair amount of time installing Linux Mint on two of my computers. It took up a good chunk of a day. I have a particularly slow internet connection as well, which only made it worse. Second of all, I took a bit of a detour to work on a pong clone. I was thinking of putting together some small stuff to put in a portfolio so I could apply to freelance jobs. Working on the pong clone led me to making that sweet fire effect I posted up top. (Tutorial coming eventually!) Third of all, I was spending a lot of time re-examining my approach to game development.
This is going to make me sound like a lazy bum, but I'm under the impression that the current model where a developer bangs away at a game for a few years and then releases it and hopes for the best is a model that can be improved upon. The difficult part comes from the question of "how." My experimental approaches have grown as my familiarity with game development grew. My first model was to build games to the point where they're playable and have a core gameplay loop, then rapidly release and iterate. More recently, that model changed to be a little more focused. Basically instead of releasing and then rapidly iterating, the goal was to release with a core loop or feature, polish the entire game to a professional shine, then add a new feature, then polish again, etc. I think if I was working with a team, that's the method I would attempt to implement first.
I'm not working with a team though. I'm on my own. I realized rapidly that I couldn't polish something to that level with my limited skillset. I'm just a programmer. I can barely manage on art and sound effects, and I'm completely hopeless with music. Attempting to polish a game and add all of those things would result in a lot of time spent pulling my hair out and getting nowhere.
I honestly never expect to be the person who can finish a game on his own. If I were trying to build a great game all by myself, I would go down that route and pull out my hair until I had something great. But instead I'd like to build the best pieces of a game I can. Then (ideally) if I make those pieces incredible enough, other people with specialized skillsets will come along and we can team up to finish all the parts that we could never do on our own. To put it shortly, my goal isn't to build the best game I can, it's to build the best team I can that can make a game better than anything anyone could make on their own.
So basically my development mindset morphed once again. Now my plan is to make the really cool complicated stuff that I like even if I can't really do anything with that stuff. We'll see how that works out.
I'm aware that I'm guilty of bloviating here. Until I've accomplished anything I'm just an idiot talking away.
I have an idea of where I'll be taking Princess of Monsters. Next week I should have some stuff to show off. See ya then.
