Game Project Completed How Successful Indie Game Developers Finish Their Projects By Thomas Schwarzl Copyright © Thomas Schwarzl, 2014 All rights reserved ISBN-13: 978-1490555454 Table of Contents Introduction .................................................. 7 Motivation ............................................................ 8 Audience ............................................................. 8 What You Will Find in This Book ......................... 9 What You Won't Find in This Book .................... 10 Personal Stories ................................................ 11 Gender ............................................................... 11 Going Indie ................................................. 13 The Dream of Overnight Success ..................... 14 Screw Small Games, Mine Will Be Epic! ........... 16 Beginning, Disillusion and Transformation ........ 18 Better or Different .............................................. 19 Choose the Right Idols ...................................... 21 Don't Think, Do .................................................. 23 The Nay-Sayers ................................................ 26 From Slave to Master ................................ 29 You Get Paid per Sale, Not per Hour ................ 30 Have Goals ........................................................ 31 Focus ................................................................. 32 Reduce Context Switching ................................ 35 Keep a Work Journal ......................................... 36 Restrict Yourself ................................................ 38 Seek & Destroy Bottlenecks .............................. 41 The Curse of Do It Yourself ............................... 43 Getting Better by Intention ................................ 44 Security ............................................................. 46 Agility .......................................................... 49 Scrum 101 ......................................................... 50 Accept Imperfection ........................................... 53 The Pareto Principle .......................................... 53 Parkinson's Law ................................................ 55 Get Yourself an Agile Mindset ........................... 56 Start Lean .......................................................... 58 Plans Are Worthless, Planning Is Everything .... 60 Software Is Organic ........................................... 60 Correct Methods vs. Working Methods ............. 62 Time Estimation Hell ......................................... 63 Prematurity ................................................. 67 Premature Optimization ..................................... 67 Premature Game Design .................................. 69 Premature Promises .......................................... 70 Premature Feature Integration .......................... 71 Premature Polish ............................................... 73 Stamp Design .................................................... 74 Mastering Emotions .................................. 77 Motivation .......................................................... 78 Procrastination .................................................. 82 Embarrassment Happens ................................. 83 Feedback: Cure and Curse ............................... 84 The First Step Is the Hardest ............................ 85 Start Somehow .................................................. 87 Price Shame ...................................................... 89 Don't Take It Personally ..................................... 91 Emotions Equal Sales ....................................... 93 Everyday Life Hacks ................................. 97 Knowledge Is worth Nothing ............................. 98 Discipline ........................................................... 99 Health .............................................................. 100 Speed Reading ................................................ 103 Singleton To-Do List ........................................ 106 Do First, Learn Later ....................................... 107 Expand Your Comfort Zone ............................. 108 About the Author ..................................... 113 Introduction People all over the world dream about making a living from games. Designers, programmers and artists form groups and enthusiastically jump on the bandwagon to game development fame. Unfortunately many of them are not aware that cranking out design documents, code and graphics alone does not take them to the finish line. A bunch of additional project-saving skills is necessary. This is why many developers suddenly see themselves in a death march towards game development shame, where no game ever sees the day of light. Issues like feature creep, missed deadlines, hubris and demotivation are common for inexperienced developers. Therefore they hardly ever finish their games. They may have the skills to design and implement a game. But what they are missing is the mindset to stay focused, remain on track, stay motivated and deliver in time. These are traits school hardly teaches. 7 This book deals with the underserved topic of how to finish a game project. Technical and artistic work are just the ingredients of the overall process. What makes them stick together and how to manage specific tasks make up the secret sauce to success. Motivation This book took shape while I was struggling to finish my own games. It wasn't the code, the design or the graphics of the game which jammed the process. It simply was my mindset and the way I approached different tasks which made me fail. I started reading books about self-management and self improvement. Additionally I started blogging about my experiences at www.blackgolem.com. Finally I searched for books about tricks to become a better (speak more effective) game maker who can finish his projects. To my surprise, there was no book dedicated to this specific topic. Or I just could not find them. So I took up the challenge and wrote such a book myself. Audience This book is mainly written for developers, artists and executives who want to improve their method of making games. But it is useful for anybody who works project- oriented in general. Most parts of the book can be applied to non-game projects as well. If you want to improve your entrepreneur life, boost your productivity, do more with less and have a good night sleep - 8 this book is for you. What You Will Find in This Book When you start out making games alongside your day job, school or even as a fulltime (indie) game developer you will encounter problems you have never had before. You may think of technical difficulties like annoying bugs, how to write AI code, animating complex 3D assets or compile errors. These problems will occur. But there is a more dangerous threat out there. It's called the human factor and it makes creating games quite difficult. This book is a set of tricks and techniques to prevent human nature from ruining your game project. Simple issues like embarrassment, procrastination or perfectionism can become death traps for your success. So you should be aware of these perils to avoid them or to cope with them. Here are the major points discussed throughout the book: • Going from hobby to pro game making • Thinking no longer as an employee but as an entrepreneur • Staying in time restraints and budget • Improving your work habits • Motivating yourself This book is aimed to give you the necessary mindset to successfully design, implement and sell your games. Finally, it's your mind and willpower which make you successful. They make the difference between a thriving game studio and 9 a bunch of hobby developers. What You Won't Find in This Book Topics like game design and game technology are already discussed in other books ad nauseam. Therefore it would be a waste of time to tackle them here again. Instead I assume that you are familiar with the different disciplines of game production. You don't have to be a designer, a coder, a marketing guy and a music composer. You just should be one of them. Here is a list of topics you won't find in here: • Game development technology • Game code • Game design • Graphics and sound • Artificial intelligence • Marketing and public relations • Team management • Game business If you're looking for any of these topics it's time for you to close this book and head over to the “... for Dummies” book shelf. Acquire the single knowledge pieces of the game making puzzle there. Come back to this book when you feel overwhelmed by putting together the 1 million piece jigsaw puzzle called “my game”. 10