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I just took a peak at SimAirport... just insane. As someone whose coding has amount to little else but a few small webapps here and there, it completely and utt

I just took a peak at SimAirport... just insane. As someone whose coding has amount to little else but a few small webapps here and there, it completely and utterly boggles my mind that a single person would be able to accomplish something like that. I was aware of the RollerCoaster Tycoon person, but I figured that was an abherration. Completely amazing and awe-inspiring. How on Earth do you get going on something like this?!?!

rolha-capoeira 4y ago
Well, 1) we have no idea how long it took to develop SimAirport. I'd be curious to know! And 2) Rollercoaster Tycoon IS an aberration, since it was written in Assembly by one person!
- ChicagoBoy11 4y ago
  r/suddenlycaralho ?
adanto6840 4y ago
Initially, thought it would be easy -- it's all simple logic, right? Will be far less tedious & mundane than doing web/app development, right? Haha. I was in for quite the rude awakening, but luckily the challenges ended up being a pleasant and enjoyable surprise (at least on the whole). Lots of work is the answer, though. We actually got to Early Access release in ~11 months (~20 man-months). We had to learn a new programming language & learn a game engine during that time, too (and learn what a game engine really was/what it meant). Really though, I think the most difficult (and important) part was more about learning the nuances of game development, even just understanding the (understandably high) UX expectations that a player has from a game -- it took a while to really "get there" and I'm still learning, every day. It's also worth mentioning that SimAirport was really not very good when we initially released it -- definitely rushed to release, far too early, and it was a mess at that point. After the EA release another ~3yr of full-time development went into it (and more dev resources), and it became a much better game/product in that time. I wish I could work on SimAirport forever. That's the downside with the games industry; it's ultra competitive and the amount of competition is increasing every day. Much of "the money" is heavily concentrated at the "top" of the pyramid, amongst a relatively small selection of titles. It's not the easy way, I can say that with confidence.

rolha-capoeira 4y ago

Well, 1) we have no idea how long it took to develop SimAirport. I'd be curious to know! And 2) Rollercoaster Tycoon IS an aberration, since it was written in Assembly by one person!

ChicagoBoy11 4y ago
r/suddenlycaralho ?

adanto6840 4y ago

Initially, thought it would be easy -- it's all simple logic, right? Will be far less tedious & mundane than doing web/app development, right? Haha. I was in for quite the rude awakening, but luckily the challenges ended up being a pleasant and enjoyable surprise (at least on the whole). Lots of work is the answer, though. We actually got to Early Access release in ~11 months (~20 man-months). We had to learn a new programming language & learn a game engine during that time, too (and learn what a game engine really was/what it meant). Really though, I think the most difficult (and important) part was more about learning the nuances of game development, even just understanding the (understandably high) UX expectations that a player has from a game -- it took a while to really "get there" and I'm still learning, every day. It's also worth mentioning that SimAirport was really not very good when we initially released it -- definitely rushed to release, far too early, and it was a mess at that point. After the EA release another ~3yr of full-time development went into it (and more dev resources), and it became a much better game/product in that time. I wish I could work on SimAirport forever. That's the downside with the games industry; it's ultra competitive and the amount of competition is increasing every day. Much of "the money" is heavily concentrated at the "top" of the pyramid, amongst a relatively small selection of titles. It's not the easy way, I can say that with confidence.