
A developer's journey to create 100 games in five years - Impossible
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/276511/A_developers_journey_to_create_100_games_in_five_years.php
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dharmon
I remember as a 14 year old reading André Lamothe's _Windows Game Programming
for Dummies_. I think in one of the Appendices he has a tip, something like:

"Your first 10 games are going to suck, so get those out of the way as quickly
as possible."

That advice has stuck with me through the years when learning new things.
Don't freak out about perfection, just get something "finished". Repeat N
times and watch yourself improve.

I guess this guy went for N=100. It would be cool to see an analysis, even by
a friend, of his games to see at various points where he goes from derivative
games to sparks of creativity to ruts and so on.

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MildlySerious
I am a perfectionist, and so far this has been holding me back massively. To
the point where it's getting frustrating. I am trying to enter the Open Source
world and that's only making it worse. Showing off things you aren't entirely
proud of.

I never considered quantity a worthwhile alternative goal, but maybe I should
reconsider that. Thank you.

~~~
buzzybee
Another way to state the problem is "you have to do it badly before you do it
well". Not strictly true in every case, but software is in a broken state for
most of its development and then suddenly works at the end, which is really
weird and off-putting to human intuition. When the code just barely works then
it works forever(given the same environment and inputs), while with most other
processes it would be a improvement in success percentages or yield rates or
other measures.

It also leads to an issue with never really knowing what good code looks like,
because we have to consider both the "it's still in development and therefore
expected to be broken but easily debugged" state and the "it's in production
and should be fast, reliable, practical" state. It can be great at one and not
the other if the stakeholders aren't approaching it in a balanced way.

~~~
kiba
Don't know how you write code, but I typically fix all visible bugs before
moving on.

If I want to complete a project, I make sure to scope a minimal set of
features.

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foota
I read about the 100 10 1 rule that came up in an article about game dev a
while back, write down the first 100 ideas for games that come up, prototype
the best 10, and then pick one to build.

edit: source,
[https://nickbentleygames.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/the-100-10...](https://nickbentleygames.wordpress.com/2014/05/12/the-100-10-1-method-
for-game-design/)

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krapp
I think I've _finished_ maybe four games in my life. Three javascript games I
wrote ages ago, which no longer exist, and a Space Invaders clone in C++ which
I barely finished within a year (but to be fair, I started that knowing almost
nothing about game development, SDL, or anything.)

This year, I wanted to do something like this, but what started as my January
1 Game A Month project is still ongoing and is not even remotely done. And
it's literally going to be a slightly improved version of Berzerk. I probably
could have gotten several small games done by now, but I keep getting thrown
off on tangents and destroying and rewriting stuff for one project at a time.

My problem is, I think, I feel like I have to improve everything that can be
improved.

An article like this is both inspiring and incredibly depressing.

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danso
I'd be surprised if I've _cmpleted_ 100 games in my lifetime, and I've been
hooked since the original NES. I noticed in school that there was a _vast_ gap
in talent and achievement between those of us who got into comsci because we
spent so much of our childhood playing computer games, and those who spent an
equal amount of time on the computer but very little time playing games.

(Then there's Woz, who can be a world Tetris champ and also nearly-
singlehandedly create the Apple I and Apple ][)

~~~
tdumitrescu
Wait, are you saying that those who didn't play computer games as kids
generally made better programmers?? 100% the opposite of my experience in the
late 80s/early 90s, where the kids who excelled in high school cs courses were
invariably those who had been exposed to/attracted to computers from a really
young age thanks to games. Like everyone in class who wasn't a gamer was so
far behind the rest it wasn't even funny.

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usrusr
He said that amongst those who got hooked early by computing, the non-gamers
were superior at non-gaming tasks. Hardly surprising, given the lack of truly
successful regex-ninja games.

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arca_vorago
Not until you said that, brb, reg ex-ninja in ue4 coming up.

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treve
> "When I was little, I would smash the buttons on arcade machines during the
> 'Insert Coin' preview screen, believing I was playing the game. You'll see
> kids do it today too," says Cox.

I did this too. I was completely obsessed by arcade machines, but never had
the quarters to play them.

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violentvinyl
As a parent, I got away with this for years. Once you insert coin though,
there is no going back.

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caser
This is super cool. Love the quantity goal - I think that's super important,
as opposed to "I want to make the perfect game." Would love to experiment like
this with something like 100 products (digital / physical) in 5 years, or some
similar time period.

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xytop
People should more concentrate on quality than on amount. App/Android Stores
are full of such '100 games in 5 years', '1 game every week', '1 new app every
day'.. it sucks.

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jventura
Those guys are not making their games for you, they're doing for themselves,
for their learning or their enjoyment.. The fact that they allow you to play
them in the app stores is just a side effect, you should consider it as a
bonus..

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rmvt
well, i can see where he's coming from. app stores are so polluted these days,
it's kinda annoying. while i do love this X in Y strategy, there's no need to
publish them in the stores if these games aren't bringing much to the table.

