Please FINISH Your Game…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on March 17, 2010

I discovered Chris Hecker’s indie game rant from last week, and I was pretty impressed. Of course, Chris is always a fun speaker to listen to.

He also summarizes a bit of it on his website.

This was kind of an interesting talk for me. I’m not quite as plugged in to the Game Jam / Ludlum Dare / Game-In-A-Day scene, so I guess I didn’t recognize the problem. I just got jealous about how these guys can totally crank out games in less time than it takes me to write a design document. And I write tiny, simple design documents!

Here, Chris makes the plea for quality over quantity, which he defines as, “Exploring a mechanic to the depth that it deserves.”

As for me — I think there’s a big difference between a project and a product. I think the Game Jam concept is an exercise in awesomeness and has value for any game developer regardless of skill level. There’s a lot of skill carry-over between that and creating a full-fledged product fit for public consumption (whether commercial or not).  It’s the difference between a test of concept and a finished work; between making something for yourself and making something for others. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with stopping at the first level – but as Chris suggests with the scale animation, a lot of that doesn’t have as much value as a single well-made example of the other.

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



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