Just don’t do it
12 05 2009I’m working on a new game. A game with new gameplay mechanic. Maybe not the whole new genre, but something that hasn’t been done this way in this genre. The thing is that I am really tired of this experimenting. A lot of indies want to create innovative games and a lot of them blames others for making clones. But if you are just starting your game development career… if you don’t want to get frustrated by trying solutions that for most of the time don’t work… if you don’t have a strong team and faith in your project…
Just don’t do it.
Find a game that you like to play and would like to develop and clone it. Really! It’s so much easier and you’ll get things done so much quickier. And when you’re small, you shouldn’t waste to much time on research. It’s not that you won’t be able to develop new and fun gameplay mechanic, but the chances are minimal… and you’ll either find it on the first try or give up in the middle of the project.
This is my third innovative game (after Runes of Avalon and Pony World). We will make it fun. It’s fun already, but can you imagine how much effort it took to make it fun? How many times I wanted to quit and would quit if my partners didn’t push on me to move further?
Generally, innovative games are too risky… but may be also very rewarding as everything that is risky (have you put your savings in stocks lately?). What’s your take on this?
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I’d say just the opposite: “just do it.”
Sure, creating an innovative title greatly increases the challenge of making the game “fun,” because there aren’t any real-world examples of what works and what doesn’t if your idea truly is new, but not doing something because it’s going to be difficult seems like a bad excuse.
Nobody said pioneering was going to be easy. :)
Agreed, for learning and getting up to speed, making a clone is the best way.