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UnEarthed Games - action adventure fantasy rpg pc games: A Flurry of Work in All Directions

A Flurry of Work in All Directions · 2483 days ago

When you are working on a game, a large portion of your time is spent doing things that people don’t see or that you can’t show until months later. Getting anything out that’s publicly viewable is very exciting.

Over the past week I’ve been wearing the hat of web designer, and I finally have something to show for it. It feels great to get this website up.

I’m doing a self business review once ever two months and just finished one yesterday. One goal from the last review was to have the website up and running.

For each of these business reviews I

  • review my goals from two months before
  • go over my source control comments. I keep almost everything in my revision control system so this is a good way to get an overview of what I’ve been working on
  • look at which goals I accomplished, and which I did not
  • list things that work well, try to make sure I keep doing these well
  • list things that do not work well and try to find a way to not do these in the future
  • review my biggest risks and decided on something I could do to make each one a little less risky
  • get together my goals for the next two months

At each review there are two common things that always go wrong.

  1. I didn’t stick to my schedule as much as I planned. Spending too much time reading e-mail and checking forums
  2. I spent more money than I wanted to.

Not to shrug them off as they both have to be dealt with, but this time those were the only things that really went wrong, and much has gone right. Over the past two months, UnEarthed Gods has gone from something that felt like a prototype to an actual game.

Some recent additions:

  • character creation
  • save/load
  • melee system
  • skill system
  • multiple creatures modeled, textured, skinned and animated
  • extensible AI and path finding
  • new environment models, structures, and plants
  • new spells, new spell system
  • this website presentable
  • newsletter in place and working

I think one of the reasons things are going faster for the game is that I’m letting myself have a bit more fun with it. I was getting to a low point a few months ago where I felt like I wasn’t getting enough done, which in turn puts me in a bad mood and then I really don’t get enough done. So I’ve given myself permission to work on things that might not be on the schedule or might not be as important as something else, but still need to be done and I’m itching to do.

It’s definitely a balancing act, you can’t let yourself go too far away from your schedule, but you have to let yourself enjoy the process. Otherwise, why the hell are you doing it?

So much has happened lately I could go on forever, but I’ll end this now and get back to work on the game.

I’ll leave you with an idea stolen from an old man in Alaska, but very fitting for indie game developers. I don’t remember his exact quote, but it went something like: So many people today work on parts of things, they never do anything from begin to end. It gives you a sense of mastery and fulfillment to know that through lots of hard work you’ve done something completely yourself.

I want that sense of fulfillment.

Taxes are done, the website is up, things are looking good with the game.

Happy Spring.
-clint



  1. Hoowah!
    — Bob amd Shel Tater    Apr 21, 12:59 AM    #