06.05.07
Hardest Part of Making a Game? Finishing It
At least this is my case. As many hobbyists game programmer I have started a lot of games, always trying to start small and as my skills were improving going to harder game designs. My biggest problem is still to maintain my motivation high enough to finish the game / application / web / whatever I am currently trying to make and it is a shame, because this last part is probably the part to where I can learn the most.
I’m not saying that setting up the framework (let it be DirectX, OpenGL, SDL, ClanLib, etc…), figuring out a data structure for my little sprites or 3D models, making up the code that follows the game rules I have so carefully crafted, or any other task you can think of are boring or easy to learn. The problem with these tasks is that normally they are done at the beginning of the project when my motivation is at highest and I feel that I will make the greatest game ever known to humanity (or something like that, you know what I am trying to say ;-)), so normally I tend to do these task almost for every project I start, so I have come to understand them well and I’m not feeling like I’m learning something new.
What have finishing a game that is so interesting? Finishing a game, as most of you know better than me, is a very hard part of the game. I don’t know you, but I lost count of the times I think myself: “That will work for know, I’ll make it better later”. It is not that I make a hack and I forget about it, it is just that the feature works as expected but can be done more beautifully.
For example, in Amoebax, the first implementation of the falling pair’s rotation was done by computing the next pair orientation and then perform the movement at the next frame. It worked as expected without the need of any hack or poorly designed code, but now the movement is performed gradually by computing the positions between the origin and the destination orientation, it looks really nice and, over all, more polished.
Other examples of this “beautification” that I can think of are transaction effects between screens, options menu, installation scripts, manuals, a proper web site, smoother animations, etc. These parts does not add actual value to the gameplay but are really important to make a finished product that looks professional. That’s why I think it is the hardest part.
What do you think?
Àlex said,
June 11, 2007 at 9:47 pm
In my opinion, when you believe that the end is near your project, it’s only an illusion.
Close a project is always harder than start it.
Best regards!
Jordi Fita said,
June 12, 2007 at 11:15 am
That is a very good point. At least when doing a game it is never finished, always there is something more to do, some small improvement, some little detail to polish, etc.
Emma’s Software: eBlog » Amoebax’s first final version released! said,
August 9, 2007 at 7:42 am
[...] This version has a lot of improvements from the previous version, but that is because during this version we focused in polishing the whole game, and this is an almost never ending process. [...]
chiz said,
February 26, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Good post. You make some great points that most people do not fully understand.
“At least this is my case. As many hobbyists game programmer I have started a lot of games, always trying to start small and as my skills were improving going to harder game designs. My biggest problem is still to maintain my motivation high enough to finish the game / application / web / whatever I am currently trying to make and it is a shame, because this last part is probably the part to where I can learn the most.”
I like how you explained that. Very helpful. Thanks.