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These are great points, many of which would apply to indie software development or side projects too. Your point on Iteration time (and tangentially scope, work

These are great points, many of which would apply to indie software development or side projects too. Your point on Iteration time (and tangentially scope, workload and never finishing) do you think agile practices can help? I'm thinking of the concept of focusing on a vertical slice, not a minimum viable product (MVP) or any particular capital "A" Agile framework. In a CRUD webapp this concept could be a user login, on its own it doesn't do much but its a functional part of the app - vertical slice in the sense that it cuts across all parts of the tech stack - UI, app server, and database. In game development maybe this could be something that focuses on building something functioning that involves artwork, music/sounds, animation and data (state of some kind). For example, a fully working character model that can jump, shoot, collect objects, whatever.

dietrichepp 5y ago
The three things I see in game development are prototypes, vertical slices, and MVPs. All exist to get quick feedback on something. Prototypes let you test out some particular gameplay mechanic or a bit of core gameplay to see if your designs are viable (or you could prototype something else, like graphics, of course). Vertical slices are a small but complete section of the game with polished assets and everything works, but it might be very short, and these exist to help you get funding or make publishing deals for the complete game. MVPs are there to test out the market. As an amateur, I think prototypes are just the bee’s knees. They can be as ugly or as unpolished as you like, and you can just print debugging information straight to the screen. Even if they don’t turn into real games they’re often valuable, because prototype #10 might refine various ideas from prototypes #2, #4, and #7, and turn into a viable game.

dietrichepp 5y ago

The three things I see in game development are prototypes, vertical slices, and MVPs. All exist to get quick feedback on something. Prototypes let you test out some particular gameplay mechanic or a bit of core gameplay to see if your designs are viable (or you could prototype something else, like graphics, of course). Vertical slices are a small but complete section of the game with polished assets and everything works, but it might be very short, and these exist to help you get funding or make publishing deals for the complete game. MVPs are there to test out the market. As an amateur, I think prototypes are just the bee’s knees. They can be as ugly or as unpolished as you like, and you can just print debugging information straight to the screen. Even if they don’t turn into real games they’re often valuable, because prototype #10 might refine various ideas from prototypes #2, #4, and #7, and turn into a viable game.