So I’ve been taking forever to finish chapter 1 of my horror game (over 1 year now) and it’s really starting to bug me how other devs of my same genre who began working on their game WAY after me are finishing theirs first. I feel like that could be me but my workflow is just a bit unorganized here and there thus taking ages to finish the game overall. What recommended habits would you recommend for a dev like me so I can finish everything much faster yet the game doesn’t feel like it was rushed? There’s so much that goes into making a horror game such as map design, sound design, scripted things such as puzzles, occasional jumpscares, lore, AI design, and last but not least trying my best to make the game stand out as much as possible.
I really want to know what order shall I do these things to finish my game much quicker in the future? I have most things written out on Trello.com on what I would be adding to the game but it’s just not enough still to know exactly what I’ll be doing. I’d appreciate some opinions!!
Yeah now that I’m pretty far into development I’ve learned these things and has been feeling very weird to get things done much faster now as I’ve made myself use to taking forever and perfecting things as I don’t want the game to feel rushed at all. This isn’t good in the long run though as updates would take forever especially already being solo with a bad workflow.
We all see what the developers have now. But we’ve never considered what they’ve been doing before the release of their game. They may have already spent two years in concept and planning for their game, giving them a clear structure and target for what they want to achieve.
Their characters might all have background stories to assist the developer in creating the right effects within the game. Or they might already have 10 stories done, lined up waiting to be released month after month.
If you’d like to improve your workflow, you’re going to have to organize concept and your actual work. Timing yourself to the minutes to what you want to finish today or tomorrow in accordance to your experience and skills. A developer of the same genre may have already been developing their game for months or longer periods of time before they decided to publish it.
They would also not be working alone. They have a group of talented and trustworthy developers working alongside them, each responsible for an individual task to speed up the entire process.
Developers also shouldn’t compare with each other as everyone’s style of developing is different. Nobody is developing “correctly” nor is anyone developing “wrong”.
If your time to develop a chapter is going to take a year, so be it. As you acquire more skills and experience throughout the year, gradually your speed will be faster.
Nope, I’ve been working on my game WAY before the many that are out right now (big ones too) meanwhile mine still has not released yet which I’m missing out from all that. It’s ridiculous how long it’s taking me lol.
Actually, the developer I have in mind who’s workflow I admire is a solo dev. They always livestream on YouTube the next chapter of the game being made and it looks like they knew exactly what they were going for the whole few hours of streaming (very fast dev too). Something that I could also be doing but my workflow has to improve first, thus why I’m asking for some advice on what habits should be taken in consideration in the future.
Yes, no one is developing correctly neither wrong and you shouldn’t be comparing BUT there’s always many experienced devs that know how to finish things much faster yet the game still looking well made which is something many should learn from. I’ve seen people with much larger maps than mine that have finished them in a matter of months.
Shouldn’t be taking this long, definitely could’ve seen myself finishing much faster.
in all honesty, what i do is simply try to get the game out in its most playable version instead of fully fleshed out. having a goal of just getting the game released and playable is way more manageable compared to a full complete game