Game a Week: Week 28

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Idea

My original idea for this week was to create a dungeon crawler about fighting goblins. This was mostly based on a dream I had a few weeks ago about eating dinner in a mansion that was eventually taken over by a hoard of goblins that I was able to fight off with a machine gun. It seemed like a pretty cool concept, and I really wanted to make a game about it.  I started working on it early in the week like a responsible human being, however I just couldn’t get into. Every time I tried to make something, I would realize how bland and unoriginal the idea was and just how un-excited I was about it. By Thursday, I completely scrapped the idea and had to start from scratch.

The second idea for this week was to create a simple game about pressing all of the keys on a keyboard. Basically, I wanted letters to fall down and you had to press the corresponding key in time to avoid losing the ability to use that key forever.

What went right

I made a game. I accepted the fact that I had to start over again three quarters of the week through and did so. The second game that I made worked how I wanted it to, and created the experience I was going for.

What went wrong

I should have realized earlier in the week that the first idea wasn’t going to work. Even though I did start working on the original idea earlier in the week than normal, I didn’t really delve deep into it until later in the week. By the time I realized that I couldn’t finish it, I only had two days, again, to finish this week’s new idea. It was particularly demotivating and didn’t allow me any time to test the game out on anybody before the week was over.

What I learned

Don’t base the entire week’s game on a fragment of an idea. I need to start actually designing the game fully (or at least a lot more than “Hey, a game about goblins would be cool!”) before dedicating my game a week time to it.

I think I’ve also learned that I need to take actual breaks every now and again. I realized this week that a lot of my “break” time consisted of me sitting on my computer and half working on things – this is a completely draining way to approach a “break”, and pretty counter-productive. Even though these games are small and incomplete most of the time, I’m still creating A LOT of content on a consistent basis, and I think it has finally drained me.  Brains need rest, and I keep forgetting to let my brain rest <3