I tried to fix my indie game in a week | SRS Devlog 4

[@victorianomas89]

Fantastic conclusion. Will keep it in mind. I think it can be applied to most long term projects.

[@makebreakrepeat]

Nice work! Love what you're doing with the rhythm! Scratches that geometry wars or super hexagon itch.

[@SDGGames]

Thanks! I'll have to revisit those games again :)

[@aaronschneider7191]

Keep up the amazing work. Quick question. My girlfriend is into video game development (wants to make a point and click adventure) Any good ideas on encouraging her as she works on it? Thanks

[@SDGGames]

Good question! A lot of the advice would overlap with advice for healthy communication in general. If she's really excited, share the moment. "I clicked on this rectangle and a text box appeared" sounds silly, but a lot of game development breakthroughs aren't glamorous. If she's stressed/self critical, offer encouragement. Sid Meyer talks a lot about the "Valley of Despair" partway through development. The game WILL suck, probably for a long time. It takes a lot of faith and determination to make it through that phase to the other side. When she's thinking critically and looking for honest feedback, give it. Specific things like "Did you notice that that text box isn't aligned" is 100X more valuable than the generic "Yeah, it looks good." I usually ask my wife for one positive and one negative. I want to know that she likes it, but I also want to make it better. Also, this is a later in development thing, but if you have the ability, you should definitely try to bring her game to life in some way. Physical memorabilia is just so special, even a card with a drawing of her character on it (or something similar) would be pretty magical. I designed my own channel logo, and I keep asking my wife to get an Etsy shop to put it on a hat for my birthday :)

[@maraudingmudlarker5318]

Could you please explain your approach on unit testing and how you go about doing it for your games?

[@SDGGames]

I'm using unit tests for large or complex systems. While it's technically possible to test everything, I find things like player controller easier to just test manually. For systems with clear jobs (for example, saving and loading, or game state transitions), I write the unit tests first, then fill out the function so the test passes. For big, messy systems, I'll often do a prototype first, then re-make that particular system with a Test-Driven Development approach. I've found that it's quicker to throw away the prototype than it is to try to find and fix all of the bugs in a first draft