My January Project: The Perfect Example of how NOT to Build a Game

“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad” - Shigeru Miyamoto

So against the spirit of that quote, I published my first rushed game on Roblox: a randomized obby.

To give a bit of background, I’ve been on and off Roblox development for a couple of years, but have never released anything. I’ve also started talking more about game development, with the goal of helping people build better games. However, not having anything to show for it doesn’t help my credibility, does it?

So I decided on challenging myself - every month, I will be developing a game from scratch, by myself. How did that turn out?

Without further ado, I’ll go over what I did, week by week.

What’s the Purpose of This Post?
Simply put, I want to have this post for myself (looking back later to see how far I’ve progressed), as well as document my journey for others to see. Hopefully some of you will find it encouraging that there are others who are also starting on game development. Critique and advice is also welcome, whether it’s related to the game project or my overall workflow. :smiley:

Week 1-2: Error 404, Work not Found
Simply put, I wasted the first two weeks. While I did draft out an initial game idea and did some minor work, I didn’t do much in the way of actually building the core gameplay loop. At the end of 2 weeks, I had a very, very small portion of the game actually done.

Week 3: Crunch time, Part 1
Week 3 was when I started to realize that mid-development hell was real, and that the game, at the scale that I wanted it, was not going to happen. School picked back up, and balancing multiple things wasn’t the easiest of things. I worked on the core gameplay, and got quite a bit done, but the project was nowhere near what I wanted it to be like.

Week 4: OH NO
Week 4 was probably the most productive week. I had a bit of time every day to finish as much as possible, but I knew that certain things would have to be cut from the game. Tonight marks the release of my game (midnight PST), whether it was unfinished or not.

So what’s the final product? A mediocre randomized obby game.

What did I learn from this month’s development cycle?

  1. Minimum viable product is first priority. Focus on details later.
    I had too many things that I wanted to add as “fluff”, and spent a lot of time worrying about that when the game I had in mind wasn’t even functional yet.

Topics That I Explored

  • Datastores (I still need more work on this, as it’s pretty much a “must have” in every game on Roblox. I still struggle with simple saving and getting, so this is a high priority target)
  • Looping/Iteration (While I’ve done my fair share of for and while loops in the past, iterating through tables and arrays are still a foreign concept to me)

Questions for the developer community
February has begun, and I’m planning on starting anew with the lessons above in mind. Do you think I should continue working and updating this project? It would be nice to see it expanded upon (I still believe that the foundation is great).

As stated above, any and all critique/advice is welcome. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

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This is great! Just like you, I’ve been on and off developing games and have never released anything decent, although I do have quite a knowledge about Studio and its functions.

I think I might give this a go! Thanks! :grinning:

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It’s definitely a struggle to get things out there. One thing that’s constantly bothered me is feeling like a game is never finished or isn’t “fun” enough.

One of the reasons why I set the monthly deadline for myself is that I wanted to make sure that I release it, no matter what. When you’re developing, you only have one perspective of what’s good and what’s not. Once you release it, you have a lot more.

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I feel the same! What’s your main motivation to actually finish games? I never could finish mine since I keep doubting my self!

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My main motivation to actually finish games is that I am very public during the development. I’ll post updates around various social media sites, and that makes others aware of the project. Once I feel like I’m letting people down if I cancel it, that’s when I really kick it into high gear.

Other than that, I myself am trying to get out of the mindset that a game isn’t good enough when it hasn’t been played by other people yet. How do you know if others aren’t gonna like it if they haven’t played it yet?

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My close friend n_arc built a game in a week with 40 concurrent players the day of release. @n_arc Want to give us your story?

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Too busy pushing updates. :sob:

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Yeah,

That’s what I’m scared of, that used to be my main motivation aswell, I till u had the thought that people might steal it.

I don’t care too much about that - if they “steal” the idea and do it better, more power to them. I’m fine just knowing that I was the first one to inspire them.

Take a look at the games on the front page. Legends of Speed, Ninja Legends, and quite a few of the top games aren’t original ideas - they just find one and do it the best.

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I have a lot of respect for people like @n_arc who manage to accomplish things like that. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to put your head down and really focus on getting a game finished in that short of a timeframe, and find some success with it.

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It is very important to realise that you are your own biggest critic. You know all the flaws, issues and the messy code your game has and it will be floating in your head for a long time. That’s why I highly recommend testing your games with friends or family, because those are the people that will (hopefully) provide you with raw, unbiased feedback. It’s great to see the perspective of a new player once in a while, as it helps you make your game more fluid and sorted out. Nobody wants to deal with cluttered GUI or an unfinished mechanic.

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Of course - it’s hard to really get a good perspective on how good or bad your game actually is when you’re emotionally attached to the game and aware of all of its flaws in the backend. Having people that are able to provide an unbiased feedback is a bit more difficult when it comes to friends and family as for the most part they don’t want to hurt your feelings, but there are other avenues to get playtesters and such beyond that.

Having people try your game that have never played it before is a great way to really see what you need to work on vs. cleaning up that script that nobody notices.

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Exactly. That was the exact point I was trying to convey.
I wish you luck for your future monthly game projects. Hope everything works out for you and your games. Cheers!

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Thank you so much for the advice and well wishes! I’m excited to see all the accomplishments and mishaps that will happen in the future.