Plan for Adam Beaumont

... actually seems like it might be working out ok. I've been working on my games stuff on a very restricted basis (low single digits number of hours per week) but in a funny sort of way it's actually helped moved things along more quickly !

When I sit down at my PC I know from the outset that I don't have the time to spend 14+ hours getting lost on some parameter tweaking quest until things are 'just right', and I certainly can't convince myself that rewriting this or that piece of code is a worthwhile exercise.

Looking back on when being an indie was my day job I can identify sooooo many times when I ended up spending a ton of time 'doing' things because the doing seemed to justify the effort. Like spending days and days rewriting some part of the engine to do exactly what I wanted in the way that I wanted it to, and hey, it must have been worthwhile cos it took 3 days to do and now its exactly how I want it.

Whereas now in my cut down, stripped back, minimalist approach, I'm like, hey forget about the technical pyrotechnics cos the engine works pretty much ok as it is and tinkering is just an excuse so I don't tackle the real work; what can I make better in the game? I'm not here to reinvent the game engine wheel, I'm here to write games. I guess its something along the lines of not focussing too closely on the fingers otherwise you miss all the heavenly beauty (probably a mis-quote but its the right idea)

In fact, whenever I fire up devstudio now I have to find the simplest thing I can change in the shortest amount of time to move my game forward the farthest. It's actually quite a cool habit to learn - its much more about focussing on whats going on 'outside' the code - what people are seeing on the screen, how they are interacting with what I'm showing them, and are they having fun? Concentrating on keeping the game side of things moving forwards rather than piling up the number of lines of code I write is making a difference. I guess it sounds really obvious but it's way too easy (for me) to lose sight of this simple fact.

My game is actually starting to take shape and I can begin to see a way of getting it done. The end product is maybe not going to win any technical awards but with a bit more work (and any map makers or musicians reading this then feel free to get in touch to help out!) it might actually entertain people who end up playing it !

(Writing this used up my coding time for today (I wasn't kidding about how little I have) but maybe sharing the idea is a worthwhile thing to have done...)