Scope

So, let's talk about scope. Scope in game development (or really any task that can be arbitrarily long based on what you want to put into it) means keeping something within a reasonable schedule and group of tasks that you are able to accomplish with the team you have. This is something someone new to game development might not understand at first because they have been dying to make all of their ideas become a reality and have finally decided to dive head first into the process. But it's important to try to be realistic with the constraints placed upon you. The fact of the matter is if you are just starting to develop games there is so much you will learn during the creation of your first piece that halfway through you are going to start using almost all of your time trying to saddle new knowledge into old workings. Add on top of that having not scoped out the project or solidified any game concepts beyond the 'wouldn't it be cool if' and you have a recipe for a game that is essentially incapable of getting finished.

Okay, so, now let's talk about my game. My project name was 'Loot & Shoot'. My design document was all in my head. Scope was something I want to think I at least understood but did not apply in any way. This kept me doing large amounts of work that could not be used and as a one man team doing large amounts of work that you can't use not only makes development slow down to a crawl but destroys any motivation you may have had. But, I pressed on, because I really wanted to play the game I was making. There are other FPS roguelikes out, sure, but so far not a single one has been what I'm looking for and I think that's because the scope of the project I'm looking for is far larger than what a one or two man team would be able to put out in a year or so. I'm gonna say that I think I had a lot of cool and interesting ideas for L&S, and it will be revisited, but for now I've decided to let it simmer while I learn more about and get more experience with the many required skills and tools of someone that wants to develop games.

So, what does that mean going forward? I've been working on a new project, a small iOS and Android game. Originally conceived as a game about a viking boat in space, the boat was soon back on earth and dodging whales on the ocean. This game is smaller, much smaller. There's a main menu, the main gameplay screen, a screen to buy items and a screen to unlock treasure chests (more on all of these in another post). The gameplay involves using taps anywhere on the screen to move the character around and dodge the obstacles that get in his way, or grabbing the coins to buy items from the shop. Simple. Scoping my project has led to my ability to get together an almost fully working game in a matter of a couple of months and that's not only a huge boost to morale but an undeniable proof to myself that I have improved from the development of L&S. Since the game already has a lot of stuff to show I'll be making posts twice a week documenting the progress from start to finish, starting with older assets and ideas that won't be in the final game and eventually moving to the release on iOS and Android systems.