My team and I have been working on our game for about 3 years now. We’ve scrapped it and rebuilt from the ground up a number of times in that time and we just seem to get nowhere…
I think the issue is, we rapidly become overwhelmed by the code itself. As the code piles on, and we begin to navigate multiple scripts and modules, we start to become disoriented and then we end up scrapping the code and refactoring it to clean it up.
Now, through the years, I’ve seen our games code go from something that belongs in a trash can to something I don’t mind looking at but we still tend to lose focus as the game grows. So in three years, we’ve really gotten nowhere.
I’m at that point now. Where the code is starting to look a bit messy and my solution is to just take it all, and rewrite it.
It’s a little bit tough as well, because there are 2 programmers working on all the same scripts. Things tend to become spaghetti.
My question is, how do you guys organize projects with multiple programmers and how do you stay on track as the game grows?
How do you keep yourself from getting overwhelmed by the sheer size of the game.
For context, my team is only 2 strong. Myself and one other.
My strongest suit is coding, where my teammate’s strong suit is probably asset creation.
Neither one of us enjoy 3D content creation and I can’t afford to hire someone to do it all.
Frequently use #help-and-feedback:code-review to acquire feedback to modify the efficiency of your code. Program one chunk at a time, and visit #help-and-feedback:scripting-support if your code encounters errors. Always ensure a script works before tinkering the next one—the categories listed above are places you generally want to visit when you evaluate script errors.
I’m not actually interested in evaluating script errors here.
The code we have works and we can generally solve the bugs. I’ve been programming with lua for over 6 years.
My question pertains more to game design, and staying focused as the game progresses.
I am no professional and I am sure many others have better solutions, but here is my take.
If you’re working with multiple programmers, these programmers should not need to see each others code often, just documentation on the functions/methods you provide them to use on their task in the project. Such as what is returned, what must be passed along with their types. You’ll also want to keep code modular and it is better to have excessive commenting than no commenting to reorient you to that part of the code. Try and keep your works separate; one person works on data, the other does UI, then one can do weapons if applicable to the game, and so on.
Have you made any previous projects? Perhaps the sheer size of the game is only an issue because you have no experience in publishing a finished game and maintaining it? Perhaps try a smaller project.
Finally, do not seek perfection at the start. You will not get perfection, you simply want something that works and can be tested to get published. At this point, you take feedback from testers and rework systems and assets because you are not the one who is meant to play the game and enjoy it, are you? Feedback keeps you motivated which is crucial in programming.
It helps to have as much of the game planned out (I like Trello) as you can along with having assets ready before programming. Set small goals, check of cards in trello, this way you get the sense of accomplishment that comes with making progress.
This shouldn’t be an issue unless you’re aiming for top tier designs. If neither of you are passionate about 3D modeling than settle for what your skillsets can achieve without stressing yourself out.
Roblox’s main targeted audience is children and they’re the least judgmental when it comes to quality,
here’s a few FP examples with outdated level designs that managed to obtain a stable player base
If your team is fixated on quality over quantity, you’ll struggle to remain motivated to be productive knowing you’re releasing content that isn’t up to your standards. There’s only four potential solutions to this problem:
Lower your standards
Offer % as compensation & hope a reliable 3D modeler will join the team.
Determine why you’re turned off by asset creation. Is it lack of creativity, aiming for originality, or are you dissatisfied with the final result produced?
Save up till you’ve obtained enough robux/USD to hire a 3D modeler. Programming is high in demand so opening commissions might be a service that could potentially benefit you, it’s possible you might even get lucky by having a 3D modeler as a client.
I have done a couple of projects for other people and released one game of my own that has since been rendered unplayable by platform updates. We’re actually remastering that game but at a much higher quality. We’re also trying to focus on making sure that something as stupid as a platform update won’t render the game completely unplayable.
I’ve been trying to convince my other programmer to document his code and use comments to explain what he’s doing but it’s hit or miss. Sometime he will comment and other times, he’ll write a couple hundred lines of code with absolutely no comments. He is still learning the project workflow, he’s never done actual game design so I’m trying to cut him some slack there.
I am a bit of a perfectionist. And not just in game design. Even with my full time job, if something isn’t perfect, I’m not happy with it. Definitely something I need to work on.
That’s the main problem, you’ve got to break that mentality. Hypocritical of me to state yet I’ve become self aware that I won’t release a game until it’s to my standards. Unfortunately my present skillset is mediocre and I’m locked in at a 1,000 USD budget which hasn’t been enough to assemble a reliable team.
Thanks for the advice. I will definitely try and lower my quality standards especially with asset creation. I guess my problem here is style. I want things to look uniform I don’t want one thing to look like a cartoon while something else looks extremely rigid and sharp. Generally, it takes me a full day to design one weapon for the game which to me, feels excruciatingly slow.
We are definitely quality oriented. I have been my whole life. I’ve quit full time jobs because there was a lack of quality in the product we we’re creating. I’ll work on this as much as possible.
I have offered percentage of profits for 3D modelers but this tends to attract low quality producers who don’t want to do any work but expect profits as soon as the game is released. Learned my lesson once, not doing that again.
I have done commissions in the past, however, my full time job is extremely unstable now and I’ve had to quit doing it to maintain my already small reputation. Hopefully soon this will change and I can begin doing it again. This also comes with it’s share of people who expect you to put 100% of your time into their project while paying the absolute bare minimum.
All good advice, I suppose I just need to learn some of it and put it into use.
If you’ve got tips on finding good commissions, I’m all ears.
It sounds like your friend may be the cause of the project being held back? Either you need to get your teammate to properly document and organize or you need to stop being a perfectionist until the project has progressed enough to be cleaned up.
If in three years you have not got anywhere, then I think thats when you know that you need to ditch the project. Your average project should take 1 month - maybe a year to complete, if you are surpassing that that something is definitely wrong and its best just to drop it.
From what I’ve seen behind the scenes, it’s mainly due to the game design not being polished + lack of funds being able to hire a good 3D modeler since the team is fixated on quality over quantity.
The average project published on this platform, with all due respect to those that work on them is typically generic garbage recycled throughout the years. Even if it’s not a simulator, it’s typically a remastered edition of an outdated concept. Original projects with AAA quality take years to create even with an entire team behind the project. So because the team refused to sellout or lower their standards production was delayed severely.
Long as the demo execution isn’t flawed, I’ve discussed the possibility of investing up to 1,000 USD into this project. This project to what I’ve been told has 2 dedicated programmers obsessed with the visuals being top tier quality, if that’s the only issue than I’ve proposed a solution to their problems. Instead of a 0$ budget, the projects budget will be increased to 1,000 USD + %’s for long term contracting which’ll benefit them greatly.
While this response should’ve been handled in DMs considering it’s OT, I wanted to remind everyone that no matter how hard it may be. You don’t have to sellout as there’s alternatives out there. Never stop being imaginative developers, stay true to yourselves even if you believe there’s no way out.