The way I approach game development is a very strange one. I am not really a programmer. If you guys were to see my math grades from high school, you would probably laugh(there was a nice curve of decline as we got into algebra). I still managed to learn a lot thanks to game maker's graphical interface, which is very important for a visual person like me.
I never abandon a project. Whenever I hit a wall, I know it's a temporary setback, and I turn to something else, and I often learn something useful along the way which allows me to come back stronger and obliterate that wall. Meaning I have a few prototypes/engines floating around my hard drive, some 1/2 years old, that I revisit every month or so, to see if I can make some progress.
Coding is one thing. Graphics are another potential wall; for me, it's the hardest one, since I have a stronger graphical background, I tend to be more demanding and picky. I have found techniques to avoid getting stuck on artwork over the years, but the bottom line is, art can take a while, the more complex it is, the longer it gets.
A year ago, I posted this picture
I had whipped up a little puzzle game and had started devising pixel artwork for it. The engine had some rough corners, but it was a fun little game. Pixel art took me a long time though, because I was approaching it in the way I usually draw. I got discouraged at the amount of artwork needed to make the game I wanted, so I put it in my freezer drawer, and waited.
A few months later, I decided to go back and see if could do something about it. I changed the visuals to something simpler, and Gemzard was born. But it took me too long, I estimated, to draw a tile, never mind the character animation(4 sides, my god). And coding wise, I wasn't satisfied with the square tile look. I wanted to add a lot of things I simply did not know how. So again, it went into a few months hibernation.
In march, I did a test using tiles for someone. I used my usual painting style to do it quickly. I found it worked well enough on smaller tiles(32x32 or 20x20). So I decided to try it on my game. Lo and behold, it went pretty well. I managed to replace all of my older graphics, and fix the code, even added a few elements to the game. There was still something bugging me about the square tiles, so I tried fixing it; added the special effects...started to see a day soon when it would be done.
But I only had one full tileset, that wasn't even final. I had started a second one, but it took a while to do and the way I was making it was not very practical. I made a few maps, the game is really fun, but it takes a while to test the maps(most take about an hour to test, with one taking 3 hours, but I was tired at the time). And I wanted at least 10 tilesets to make a proper game. Two weeks ago...
...I had a lot of free time to blitz it up. My goal was to polish the gameplay and put in more tilesets. I have 10 now, and a much better way of applying them. I could at last concentrate on putting the final polish on graphics, making an intro screen, adding the small quirky detail that I love. I still need maps, but it's the final lap for this one.
I was browsing the abandoned project thread the other day. There were a lot of potentially awesome games on display. I think you should never give a project up for dead, especially when you're going at it alone or in a small group. Sometimes it's a matter of being better organized, or sometimes it's a feature that is blocking the rest of production. Big studios can manage around these hurdles with money, hiring more people to do the job. You only have yourselves and your passion for game making to get you through it. When I was younger and taking swimming lessons, I had the opportunity at the end of a class to dive in the deeper part of the pool. But I was tired, and panicked 2 meters from the ladder. I started drowning, in a friggin public pool. Afterward, I avoided diving, and in the deeper part, I would always swim near the side of the pool. Then, one day, I climbed the highest diving board and plunged right on. Since then, I swim in lakes, crossing them, the fear is gone, because I understand that you drown in your mind first.
So take heart, and carry on creating!
ps: I changed the name of the thread to better reflect the haphazard way I'm going into indie game development. I have a day job, and work on my personal stuff during whatever scrap of free time I can manage to find during the day. And a lot of the games I've started, which some of you might have thought abandoned are pretty much alive and kicking in some form or another(my failed compo entry for the Lovecraft theme is shaping up quite nicely too, coming soon
. I'm also transferring my rpg artwork to my 'Sad Tale' prototype).
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