On Destruction

Posted byTex BarnesPosted inDevelopment, GardenTags:, , , , ,

Oh, hello!

I’ve had a weird und’ wiggledy few months! 

I got a little lost in the sauce experimenting with a cozy sheep herding game:

Herd little sheep across the rolling hills of Valais.

It was very relaxing to make, but ultimately I felt like it wasn’t working for a few reasons:

Reason 1 – Mechanics Vs Aesthetics

The aesthetic and camera was designed around close, characterful shots, where the actual gameplay is designed around long, wide, helicopter style camera.

The game was designed around these cinematic shots, with set camera angles, which reduces the players ability to effectively move and see the whole flock.

Reason 2 – Player Experience

The constant sheep movement added pressure, which detracted from the intended slow-paced relaxing experience.

When the day is done, and you go to bed, you would see little vignettes of your sheep’s dreams.

Reason 3 – Scope

The scope of the game was larger than I would like, especially considering I’m currently working on a major project.

The larger design involved day-night cycles, dialogue systems with various NPCs, and a long term progression over multiple days as the water level lowered to reveal more of the island.

But the big reason that I stopped working on it was because: 

Reason 4 – Voice

I couldn’t find a unique voice that I could bring to this genre.

Specifically, in order to fix the other issues, in reworking the camera, changing the game pace, reducing the content, the project would move away from the elements that made it interesting in the first place!

Effort Vs Value

All projects take a level of effort, and deliver a level of value (to you)!

When assessing what projects to pursue, it’s worth considering if the value (to you) is greater than the effort.

This is a graph by the youtuber Tom Scott.

I recently talked about how I’m trying to approach Games as Studies, and in that mindset I want to be doing something new with each game.

That’s the value that I’m measuring.

Is the game is exploring a new idea?

Or saying something unique?

Or producing meaning fresh to the medium?

And for this project, after all the tweaks and fixes, the answer was…

NO.

Get in the Bin!

You need to know when to bail.

So, I benched this project! 

But that’s ok! 

Tech experiments and prototypes exist to be destroyed!

I need to be willing to walk away from games, or ideas, that aren’t working.

I need to remember that if something feels like an uphill battle in the prototype phase, it will feel that way for the entire development!

There will always be new games, and new ideas, to explore.

I learnt things, I made pretty pictures, I increased my skillset, and now I need to walk away.

A Final Note on Words!

I say “Bench” rather than “Abandon” for a couple of reasons:

Reason 1:

It makes me feel less bad about stopping projects.

(I don’t feel like I’m throwing it straight into the trash.)

and, more importantly…

Reason 2:

I often do re-work or re-use elements or ideas I developed in tech experiments or benched projects.

For example, I spent a while making a fishing-based survival horror game:

The aim was to do world building through fish descriptions. Also, there was a big monster who slowly pursued you while you waited for fish to bite.

But I felt that the gameplay wasn’t interesting enough to make the scope reasonable, so I benched the project.

But then a few months later I came back, reworked the progression, changed the shaders, and made it into Midnight Ceiling, a tiny art-game about fishing up messages from other players:

I got to re-use all my level design, character controller, and fishing systems, so the rework only took a couple of days.

Or, for another example, I spent a Saturday making this photography horror system:

This is how the game actually looked. you had a first person character, but the camera would only update when you clicked.

But it was too confusing, so I benched the project.

But ended up re-using the camera systems in I thought You would write, my Play//Space game about taking photos and writing poems:

This game is hard to show in-play due to the dithering effects, but is designed to produce funky images so it doesn’t matter too much.

So that’s why I say benched!

…

Goodbye now!

I hope you have a lovely day!

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