Building ideas across multiple projects
Climbing the Mountain
Have you ever thought about how to make large-scale games as a small or solo team without getting burnt out from the sheer scope of it? Do you ever marvel at the indie developers who made a surprisingly large-scale game all on their own and struggle to think how you will ever get there? These are all pretty common thoughts and problems, and the truth is, some of us just aren’t built like that. That’s not to say it’s unachievable, though. You just have to be smart about how you approach the problem.
You must walk before you can… Whirlwind Sprint.
For those like myself who also struggle with this problem, I want to propose a solution that I have been experimenting with that has been helping me manage project scope to something that is achievable for me, but also work towards some of those larger scoped projects that I dream of being able to work on. This idea comes from observing some of my favourite games and some of my favourite studios. Now I’m not sure what kind of games you enjoy, fellow reader, but I am a big fan of RPGs. With the scale of RPGs, this becomes a little more obvious between iterations, but you should be able to observe this on any of your favourite games and their sequels or even just other games from the same studio. What I’m talking about here is iteration. If you look at games like The Elder Scrolls Series and Fallout, or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, you can see a sense of growth that happens from one game to the next, even when they aren’t in the same series. Fallout borrows a lot from the Elder Scrolls. Mass Effect and Dragon Age both borrow aspects from each other and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
When I was studying my Bachelor’s Degree in Games Development, the common piece of advice was “Don’t try to make Skyrim, make something smaller”. This, on its own, is good advice, but I want to dive into it and show how making something smaller can build into you making something like Skyrim over a long series of projects. The idea here is to iterate over each project and build a framework of understanding and competency to enable you to create something on a larger scale without burning out. It’s about building yourself up to the point where you can work on larger projects because you have already solved the problems that the bigger project contains, but in a smaller and safer space.
1000 steps, one step at a time
The key here is to build a roadmap of really small projects that build your skills and understanding towards your larger idea. For example, let's say you want to build a game like Skyrim. Skyrim wasn't built from scratch; before Skyrim, there were Oblivion, Morrowind, Arena, Daggerfall, not to mention all the Fallout games. Now, I'm not saying before making Skyrim, you have to make Daggerfall and work your way back up in that order, but what you can do is reverse engineer the mechanics and systems that make up Skyrim and make different small-scale games around them. Just pick a single mechanic and turn it into a really small standalone game. Maybe you want to replicate the Smithing and weapon upgrading system, so you make a simple game out of upgrading weapons. Maybe you want to implement all the different skills that you can level up by performing actions related to that skill, so build a game around that. The idea here is that you are tightening the feedback loop between projects while building towards creating something that you want to build. If you use the same technology for each of these projects, you will likely be able to combine them to make slightly bigger projects directly, and then you will be creating that same sort of snowball effect that got Skyrim to where it is.
Legendary
This is a really important perspective to have when it comes to building games because you will learn so much between projects that, by the time you work on your big game idea, you will be able to do it not only quickly but more efficiently since you will have solved most of the problems already. Working in this way will not only give you a large list of projects that you can release and learn from, but it will also make you into a better developer.
You’re finally awake…
So how do you get started? Well, that's easy. That game idea that you are sitting on, maybe it's your dream game or just something you are working on, and it's feeling a little bit too difficult for you at the moment. Take that idea and break it up into smaller pieces. Take individual components and see how you can implement them on a smaller scale. Maybe your game has a multiplayer component, but you aren't quite sure how that works yet. Try to make multiplayer pong and send it to a friend to play with. Keep things small and simple and work on the skills that you will need to finish the project you're working towards by releasing more often, but be smart about what you are releasing and have that goal in the distance. After building towards this idea, the insights you will have will help you better understand the problem. Maybe you'll realise that you actually want to build something else along the way anyway, but at least you have picked up these skills and released some actual games. I hope you found this post helpful and you enjoyed my awful Skyrim puns. Good luck on your next project!
