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258 - When to give up

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 9:52 am
by matt
In game development, when is it time to cut your losses and give up on an idea that may not be working out? This is a difficult problem to face, so I discuss what I do in that situation.



As an update, I *think* I finished thing I was going to give up on. Here's the basic summary of what I did:
1) Implemented something as I envisioned it
2) Left it for a while until I finally acknowledged it wasn't work.
3) Tried tuning the parameters to something else.
4) It didn't work, so I changed the way it worked completely.
5) It still didn't work, so I changed it completely a second time.
6) I changed something else in game, which was actually causing the problems
7) I reverted it back to the way it behaved in #1.

It was a lot of work just to get back to where I started! hahaha That's the way these things go sometimes.

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 11:13 am
by evilkinggumby
For anyone curious, what Matt is testing and trying to implement is jiggle physics for boobs on the 2d characters.. hehehe...

Image

One thing you mentioned was the idea of getting funds for the game and then potentially pissing them away fiddling with experimental or potentially useless ideas and or tech for a game(and having the funders go hey yer wasting my money?!). It made me wonder if there was any ideas you had a fair amount of faith in, but nto enough you expect to try them out for the game, but could put in a special backer tier for kickstarter. The "innovator" tier where anyone backing that tier (which admittedly would be fairly high priced) would be able to fund a potentially awesome effect, feature, or addon to the game and maybe get separate credit for it.

Like if you wanted to add a special visual filter that makes the game look like 16 bit retro, funders for this innovator tier could get credit in the options menu or possibly additional mention in the credits earlier/separate from the general KS backers wall o names. As well for the next 1-2 games you produce, if you make use of this innovative trick/tech they would be credited with backing it in those games too (and possibly give them a free digital key for them). it would be a way to both pay it forward and open avenues to test some waters you wouldn't expect to test now. I guess it really comes down to how much time and money would be necessary to test any given thing, and is it realistic? like say testing the 16 bit filter would likely require 20 hours of testing and another 10 hours to implement and QA, at $50 an hour you'd want to shoot for an extra $1,500 , so you'd shoot to get 3-5 backers on that tier at $500 each (and have some overhead incase the tech runs long).

only downside is if the testing and work turns out to stink or not be possible, the money is spent with nothing to show except maybe still a credit to the backer. It would be a risk, but to not offer it at all would mean no chance for folk to choose to take it.

giving up is always going to be so situationally specific and subjective. I never considered it such a point of debate, but what you say here makes sense and is interesting to think about.

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2015 11:37 am
by Cridone
Got back to finally watching your Dev Diaries again (too excited for a certain game)
and woah, nice new diary location! Kind of confused me.

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 4:51 am
by miumiaou
arf I had the same problem in the game I am currently making once, I know it's hard and lower your mood significantly :?

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 9:02 am
by matt
It's tough to say. I think ideas that I really want, I try to get into the regular budget, and the ideas that I'm not sure if they'll really be worth it, might be better as stretch goals.

The way you described it, if only one person pledges to that tier, I'm kind of screwed, right? I promised them something, and I don't have the budget to deliver. With stretch goals, I can make sure I have the budget. An example of an idea where I really want to do experimentation but am not sure how it'll turn out in VR. Our game is very 2D, which presents problems, but I love the sensory deprivation of VR googles, so I think we could potentially do something cool there. How it would work? I'm not sure. I have a few ideas, but I don't even own goggles (other than a Virtual Boy. hahaha), so I can't really play around with it.

If it's a stretch goal, and I add in VR support (maybe post launch?), and it's not great, I don't think it'll be the end of the world since I don't think most people are buying the game for VR. I don't know. That's my take on it.

Sorry for the confusion with the change in location. I moved, so this will be the new location moving forward.

Miumiaou - Did you try moving on to something else and coming back to the issue that has you stuck? That sometimes works for me. :)

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Mon Apr 06, 2015 1:24 pm
by Cridone
matt wrote:Sorry for the confusion with the change in location. I moved, so this will be the new location moving forward.
It's alright, I enjoy changes like that. Can always spice things up a bit.

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 3:56 am
by miumiaou
well I abandoned the idea and replaced it by something else (I'll tell you what it was when I send you the demo(sorry I'm not comfortable with future time in english)

Re: 258 - When to give up

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2015 6:22 pm
by matt
Cool, I look forward to checking out your demo! :)