Post-mortem

October has ended, and this Devtober project for me… Not exactly at the end, no. Far from it, in fact. Going in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to complete that fantastic game I described in my second post, but I still hoped I would at least have some kind of complete game loop: doing missions, piling cash/credits, upgrading the war machine… In the end, what I have is more like an embryo of a game engine.

That said, it’s not all bad. I learned a lot in this project, both on the technical and personal sides.

What went well

Daily accountability

I gave myself the objective of working on the project each day and report on it by the end of the day. To be fair, it really kickstarted the thing gloriously, and there was real and visible progress for the first two weeks or so. There was always something new to do, enough so that I didn’t even have a proper to-do list/Trello board at that point. Ideas were flowing in, and the motivation and energy were there to make them real.

It also helped, at the end of each day, to think about what I could do the day after. That way, if I was not inspired, I would just have to jump on that thing that I knew was ready to be tackled.

Choice of tools

In retrospect, Godot was indeed the perfect game engine for this project. It’s easy to use, fun to learn, and powerful enough for a game like Privateer, even in its expected final form. There’s also a large community around that game engine, and since the game I’m trying to create is not breaking any technological boundary, it was easy to find the help I was looking for (most of the time).

Using free assets also helped in not spending too much time/energy in creating them, considering this is absolutely not my forte (nor is it a pleasure for me). And since the assets came in a pack, it made the whole look and feel consistent, which was another nice win.

What went not so well

Daily accountability

Yup, this concept belongs to both “good” and “not so good” categories, at least for me. While daily accountability really helped to get the project going, it began to feel like a burden around the middle of the month. Fatigue from the project started to settle in, the initial motivation drive dwindling, and the rest of life still happening. After a hard day at work, where I gave it all, my mentally-drained self still had to work on my Devtober project. The initial tasks, full of discovery and concrete impact, were replaced by very specific bugs or features that were harder to implement and had less visibility in the game itself. The excitement was slowly replaced by some sense of dread.

I consider myself “lucky” to have fallen sick toward the end of the month. Nothing too bad, just enough for me to miss a day at work, and two nights on this Devtober project. Taking that forced break, having to rest for a little while, gave perspective to the whole thing. Sure, I already felt this project lost its fun and appeal some time before, but that pause gave me the permission I needed to just stop before I burn myself and this project out. If I am to see this to the end, I need to make sure I listen to myself and adopt a better/saner pace. There’s a reason why we do not (or at least should not) work seven days a week, for multiple weeks at a time.

Unclear goal and no plan

I described my ideal game in my second post, and already decided it would not be feasible in a month. As such, I targetted something smaller, complete, and doable (at least in my head). However, that something was not exactly clear, and I made no concrete plan to achieve it. Each day, I was just putting some more work in, working toward some unknown final state.

With a plan, I feel like I could have spent less time on some features (e.g. the viewport thing I was working on in the end), and focus on the targetted game flow. Yes, it would have been flawed and riddled with odd bugs left and right, but at least, it would have given me a good idea of the game in its entirety, and maybe would have helped with the motivation.

Takeaway & the future

The main takeaway, at least for me, is that there’s a limit on how far the excitement can carry a project. For something that large, I need more than “a good motivation and a kick in the butt”. I need a plan. A flexible plan, but a plan still. I also need to take care of myself. When I feel like it, I must take advantage of it and put the work in, but when I’m too tired, from work or otherwise, I need to rest a bit. In the end, I’ll get up and running faster that way, which is good both for me and the project.

As for this game, I still want to work on it. I think it can be fun to play, and fun to create. Not having a rigid development schedule, like the one I imposed myself last month, will help me bring that fun back in Privateer.

In the end, I am glad I participated in this game jam. I now have in my hands the very basis of the game I had only in my head for the last couple of years. Now, let’s see where it goes from there.