Flexibility means being able to change your plans; being an indie game designer, this is one of your greatest assets. If you see something isn't working, you can throw it out, and there's nobody to convince but yourself. Likewise, if you feel that an idea or implementation idea has lost some of it's lustre, or isn't big enough, then you can throw it away and replace it with something else.Staying in Touch means keeping to concrete, small ideas which together will lead to the complexity and fun you ultimately desire. As a well meaning game developer you can plan any number of game systems that don't work in the end; and in fact I have done this on a number of occasions. It's so hard not to think ahead, to envision even just something semi-grandiose! But that never works. You have to to stay in touch, do things one step at a time, and try always to make the best decision for now, not for later. Because by the time you get to later, things are rarely coming together as you'd hope.This is what it means to break new ground. If you're just implementing a tried and true formula, the rules change. But that's not the point of doing indie games, or at least, not for me.To this end, I'm going to sort of only stick loosely to the original game plan that I had, at least in terms of story. I think that the castle that I've implemented, which is huge, is an excellent and fun parallel universe. So why give it the minor role it had in my original plans? Instead, I'm going to start the story here, in the real world. The basic premise for the game will not change, and the many gameplay ideas and story elements I've sketched out over the past year or so I'm sure I'll end up using, but ultimately I'm going to just look at this concrete, fun gameplay environment I've created and ask myself, "What should I implement right now?".I'm going to ask myself that, and keep answering it, over and over, until it's done.

2008-08-06

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