How Bad Design is Ruining My Indie Game | devlog

[@byronmorley2907]

Look at it in a good way. if you look back at old work and don't find any issues with it, you haven't improved

[@GarnetKane]

Oh completely agree- so easy to get stuck on those systems though and never move forward with actual content. But definitely an overall positive thing :)

[@EinfachMichii]

@@GarnetKane That is really my main reason why I stopped making games by myself. I can only concentrate on optimizing for some reason, so other parts of the game like the art, game design, audio etc. will get lost. So I decided to only work with other people to implement single systems or editor tools, thats what I can do best. I am defenetly not a Game Developer

[@GarnetKane]

Hey! Don't sell yourself short - at my job, my role is actually Tools Programmer, so I'm definitely in a similar boat of skilled in creating systems/tools, but I definitely still have enjoyment in other areas even if I'm not incredible at them just yet. If you enjoy making a game, and can find some balance between creating systems/developing the game and optimising, then definitely never drop that! You may be able to create some incredible things in the future :)

[@EinfachMichii]

@@GarnetKane Thank you

[@Skeffles]

Great video. I think everyone underestimates the planning stage but taking the time to make a plan always helps adjust. There is never a point where you cannot stop, reassess and make those plans properly. Good luck with the content and level editing!

[@wobblinthetree]

I'm not a developer at all, but I related so much to this entire video. I started my own business about a year ago, and my hyper fixation on optimizing each process to achieve a cleaner, better client experience, reduce redundancies, improve data visualization, streamline workflows, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It's been an exhausting year... I will say that I'm starting to feel content with more areas as of late. So, I'm hoping my obsessive iteration processes are beginning to approach a point where I can just do the work, instead of the work multiplied by whatever amount of time it takes to refine the whole system. I hope the same for you with your project! Good luck.

[@GarnetKane]

First off - congratulations on the business side, that sounds like an insane leap so hats off for even jumping into entrepreneurship. Really respect the respect you have for clients as well and focusing on their experience, that would definitely make you stand out in any business and I imagine a lot of people would love to work with you. The perfectionism of every minute detail, even if it really only matters to you, as much as it can cost time/money etc., it's a testament to a lot of the commitment and care that you put in for your work as well. Thank you for the kind words as well, and best of luck on your journey! :)

[@natanmaia3575]

Implementation tip, and you probably already know this: remember to make good use of default / empty values for your object fields. For example, if a character's relationships are all neutral, don't make yourself declare every single relationship as neutral. Assume that's the default if the Relationship value is empty. Make relationships indexed by the other's name so if a name isn't found, it is assumed they're on neutral terms. An item's Attack starts at 0 so items that don't have attack don't need you to type in 0. Etc etc.

[@chaosmachines934]

this is some dedication

[@GarnetKane]

hahaha honestly, I’m having a lot of fun with this project. even if it doesn’t have much to show yet, knowing what’s going on in the backend is super satisfying and it’ll be really cool once it’s all put together… eventually :p

[@chaosmachines934]

@@GarnetKane i wish you the best looks like you structure you project in a interesting way .

[@DrTheRich]

To be honest, hearing your story, i dont think bad design is ruining your indie game, its thinking your design is bad (because its only 99% perfect), thats ruinig your indie game...

[@lorcanzo2498]

Yeah, indie Devs are known for their perfectionism

[@GarnetKane]

Hmmm that's definitely a good way to look at it. I talked a bit about the 'need for perfectionism' but yeah it's a lot of just what's going on on my own end

[@KWART_O_MANIA]

Experiment before you go into a big project, not while you are doing the project. I write songs and when a song doesn't work out I just move on to work on another song. Eventually I end up with 30 to 100 full fledged songs/jams/sketches. Then I start matching the songs to see if they work together on an album(around 12 songs usually). What that means is that I set aside and sacrifice a lot of cool ideas to refine the pieces that work(together). a couple of average ideas that really work together as a game is better than one great idea with less great ideas to make it work. Games have so many parts that need to work together, you can't hyper focus as a solo dev on one great mechanic.

[@AITools-s8f]

I find the best way to avoid bad design is just to take an open project (from github or asset store) as base and build on it. You might not understand why things were designed in certain way at first, but then you will learn its brilliance.

[@ZZaGGrrUzz]

this makes 0 sense

[@DrTheRich]

Ah yes, these open projects that you know for sure are totally perfectly designed by famous competent programmers..

[@AITools-s8f]

@@DrTheRich you have to choose the better ones, for example, open projects from Unity Technology are made by extremely competent devs.

[@jwnz2680]

Code is never perfect. If the code works for your game and isn't riddled with bugs in gameplay, it's usually good enough to keep. Code what you need and hack the edge cases. If the edge cases are too frequent, maybe there's an underlying problem. But at some point you have to accept it and put in the hard yards of implementing everything you've created. It's not glorious but it's necessary.

[@GarnetKane]

Definitely - and I think my struggle is/was largely knowing when to just accept it as it is and only touch it if it doesn't work. It's been a very repetitive process of, fixing something that's not actually broken. I'm still reevaluating parts of the project, but definitely taking into consideration what I need to prioritise moving forward hahah

[@natanmaia3575]

From my own experience, i think you can definitely fall on the opposite rabbit hole of over designing and under developing your game, but of course it's nice to be prepared. I think the key necessity is not trying to make your systems fit every possible use case, be perfect, if you don't even know every use case. I personally find it easier to make a simple hard coded gun, and 6 months later if the game needs 3 guns I can make an abstraction, then 6 months later if the game would be better with weapon mods, I can implement those with a more broad system from scratch... than trying to make the gun be super modular and have a gazillion stats I don't know if I'm gonna use or scrap. Of course, if the GDD says you can have 16 different guns I better reuse some code, but if it doesn't say anything, why am I trying to make a system that accepts a thousand guns... For the game 12 months in to have a single pistol and shotgun? My approach is a mixture of planning and practicality. This approach allows me to have prototypes sooner so I can judge the current state of the GDD, and if any changes need to be made. If I make the choices after I make the systems, then I'll throw the systems away. So instead of making all the choices then all the systems, I make tiny choices and tiny systems and iterate, and my scope cuts me off when needed. Again, that's my perspective from my own dev journey so far.

[@paulbenbrook5542]

As a game developer you likely have more insight than most and you mentioned that there are plenty of videos on yt of how to build design docs. Are there any that you feel stand out as particularly good examples?

[@GarnetKane]

Hey! Really great question - I've just linked some videos that I thought were particularly useful in the description of this video. I also linked an example of a simple GDD from a game that I found online - it is a very simple document, and I think a more thorough document (think 15 full pages +) would best convey the ideas behind the design, but it's a good place to get started to see how other people are doing it as well

[@cloudneer]

Hey, man, each project reset it's another lvl up for yourself.

[@GarnetKane]

Agreed! Seeing the state the project is in now and how each reset basically allowed for a super streamlined system now, I have no regrets! And of course, having learnt so much along the way too

[@TheVisualDigitalArts]

Dude same, Im going throught the exact same thing I Make something Get Better Then keep iterating.

[@GarnetKane]

Such a struggle hahaha - a testament to our own growth, but it takes the toll of never actually getting anything done!

[@lemonjumpsofficial]

LIKE... it sounds like you could use an ECS pattern lmao

[@GarnetKane]

I actually did a bit of research going into this project and somehow ECS never came up as a result. I had a read through the wiki for it and it actually does seem like a perfect implementation. Definitely seems like something that maybe Binding of Isaac had used

[@Selrisitai]

Gotta up the pacing, this video is just too slow! And this is coming from a guy who has recently finished a three-hour criticism of Starfield, and that was before a one-hour critique of Starfield. It's not a matter of me needing hyper-fast editing. I watch DevDuck, so. I think I make my case there. We just need more concision, I think. And I know all about meandering. Just watch any of the awful videos I made on my channel. Twenty-four hours' worth of editing to make mediocrity. That's gotta be like some kind'a lame-o record.

[@kantallive]

wow, I can see so many problems in here: - you're doing everything on your own - the art is bad - why no use of art pack / pixel artist? there are cheap ones out there - no use of scriptable objects from the beggining? ehhh - overscoped game size for the time beeing - without required skills you can't complete game alone - stubbornness instead of dropping this idea for something very small - like game jam game - recreating mechanics over and over and over - low skills issue - prototype first - simple yet engaging prototype is better instead of adding details to big game and later changing everything after first iteration of playtests 3 tips: - smaller games - take a part in the game jam - watch the video The 100 Games That Taught Me Game Design

[@PsychicMonkeyStudio]

Huh and here I was thinking the art looks pretty unique and cool

[@GarnetKane]

Hey! Really appreciate the comment and suggestions, and although I do agree with a lot of your points, I think it's important to remember that for some people, me to an extent included, the process of making a game and learning about different parts of development or what you can and can't do is the journey itself. I love the process of making my own art for example because its another skill that I'm constantly learning and developing, and for me, the second I outsource that or just purchase something from the asset store, then immediately the project will no longer feel like my own - and like I said, I'm just out here having fun and learning along the way so I'll definitely be making mistakes here and there but that's also the beauty of it!

[@GarnetKane]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you like it :)

[@kantallive]

@@GarnetKane sure thing, I will keep an eye of your projects :) good luck

[@pseudonym6895]

Another tip to add onto this: If you're still going forth with this current project, consider developing effectively a "cheat menu" so you can more efficiently test exact situations in this game. Be it, checking if simple things like all units or enemies spawn right to more precise combinations thereof, la-di-da. 'Course, also comment the shit outta yer code and perhaps even separate documentation so you always have a reference point for what's everything meant t'do.