Hi all! Posting from my alt account on lemmy.blahaj.zone because it’s been brought to my attention that we have users here from Beehaw and of course they can’t see anything I’m posting with my main account @TeaHands@lemmy.world.

Sorry Beehaw folks, I’m still getting to grips with mod duties here.

Anyway. As part of the “try things and see what sticks” approach to community engagement, welcome to the new weekly chat thread!

Whether you have progress to show off à la Screenshot Saturday, a Monday morning gripe about unreasonable expectations on your team, or a Wednesday win, this is the place to share how your gamedev week is going.

You know game devs, if there’s one thing we love more than making our own stuff it’s living vicariously through others, so share away and let’s see what everyone’s been up to!

  • TeaHands@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPMEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Hey no worries, we all need a good rant on occasion. Welcome to the community and also to Lemmy! Lurking is totally acceptable btw, albeit kind of a foreign concept to me 😄

    We were just talking about scoping in another thread recently and I’m gonna straight-up quote @hodgepodgehomonculus@lemmy.blahaj.zone because honestly their advice in that thread was great. Basically it was to break down your scope into bronze/silver/gold like so:

    • Bronze is something you are sure you can complete in the time frame.
    • Silver is where you think you can get to if you really push yourself and nothing bad happens
    • Gold is where you can go if everything goes right all the time.

    That’s in the context of a game jam and the time constraints that come with it, but I think it’s great advice in general. Whatever your personal limitation might be, whether it is in fact time or maybe it’s budget or even your own skill level, there will be a “bronze” level game you can make without too much trouble. Focus on that first, and have your silver and gold stretch goals waiting in the wings for if you complete your original plan. Maybe add a diamond tier for the real pipedream stuff, or whatever works for you!

    A lot of solo projects I follow tend to sort of splutter out and die after a few months and it’s almost always because the dev finally stepped back, took a lot at how long their ideal scope would take, and understandably noped out. A bit of planning ahead and being realistic with yourself works wonders.