On Game Design and Sit-Ups Monday, October 16, 2006

"Juuso" of GameProducer.net posted an article last week entitled "Game Production and the Art of Making Sit-Ups". It's a philosophical piece drawing an analogy between working out and working on a game, though it's so basic it can really be applied to anything. As I'm starting to discover, the most productive way of approaching a long-term task is to work at it steadily, over time, and not trying to make it happen all at once.

When I first started working on Space Avenger, I was so impressed with my ability to get something done quickly that I expected things to continue at this same rate. Naturally, as the design has evolved, there's an awful lot of refactoring and refitting that needs to be done to keep the game together and keep the code organized. This is, of course, exacerbated by the fact that as a development environment, Flash is way behind what I'm used to.

So, the game is going through some growing pains as I'm trying to move from a stat-based system to an equipment-based system. This has necessitated major changes throughout the code. So rather than staying up until 4 AM every night trying to get the changes done in a week, I'm trying a new strategy: putting in a few hours each night, and getting it done when it gets done. It'll be better for my sanity.