If you had only 3 days to create a game, what would you do?

Mells · December 2012

Hi,

I believe this is an interesting topic.
I have been working on several projects (day job) that delayed the release of my own app for weeks/months.

Now I think I need a new motivation to complete this project.
They say that finishing an app is the most difficult part, and this is true for me.
I've published books, negotiated deals, but never got stuck like that.
(For those who don't know, this is my project).

So here is my goal : I want to finish an app in 3 days. If I can put it on the app store, even better.
I don't want to make something too ambitious, but still I want to be proud of it.
Working under tight constraints will help me learn what the most critical steps in the app development/release process are.
That way, I believe I'll be able to get a fresh view at my samurai project to complete it.

Limits

Those who know me from the forums know that I'm not a programmer even though I have learnt a lot over the past months.
Also, I'll do it on top of my day job and will relatively keep a normal life (take time to sleep, relax and spend time with the ones I love, run in the morning).
Those are my priorities.

When

I would like to start it from thursday (this is not set in stone, I need to confirm I don't have important appointments during those days) :

Tokyo (Japan) Thursday, 6 December 2012, 06:00:00 JST UTC+9 hours
New York (U.S.A. - New York) Wednesday, 5 December 2012, 16:00:00 EST UTC-5 hours
Corresponding UTC (GMT) Wednesday, 5 December 2012, 21:00:00

I'll do what I can with what I have, and for those interested I'll maybe do some liveblogging to share my progress over the days.

Your experience

Indeed I have my own answers but I would love to hear your experience and help me to make it happen.

My question to more experienced devs is, If you had to create a complete app in 3 days :

What kind of game would you focus on?
Which steps of the project development would you focus on?
Which resources would you use? (art, music, paid or free)?
So far I know only about Audiojungle.

If you know some resources that are really worth the buy, please tell me.
I'm ready to invest.
What blocks would you try to avoid?
Other topics that I should consider?

Right now the only part that I'm really concerned with is the music.
I believe sounds and music are so important, it should be tailored for a particular project.
I'll figure it out.

So, how would you do?

(bonus, morning warmup)

gorkem · December 2012

From your 3rd paragraph, I had the feeling that you want to finish your samurai project in 3 days. So, instead of doing something new, maybe focusing on your current project and finishing it on time (e.g 1 week from now on) could be a more productive step (?)

I'm not sure whether 3 days would be enough for developing something good and be proud of, unless a group of very talented people work on it. It'll also push forward the release time of your samurai project, which I'm eagerly waiting for.

Mells · December 2012

Hi @gorkem,
I thought I needed to change a little bit from what I'm doing with my samurai project.
I can't see how to apply Pareto's law anymore, I have difficulties to see my priorities, I'm stuck.
About this "3 days for an app" project I know it's next to impossible for me, but I believe there is something that I can learn from that experience.
Will it work or not I don't know but hopefully this will help me to get back to my game and release it. (that's the plan).

zvardin · December 2012

I realized as I read on there was more to this, but the start of your post made me think of this:

http://experimentalgameplay.com/

Which is all about making prototype games basically in 7 days. However, I think from that there is something to learn too. Sometimes having something fully functioning that you can play is what you need to do. Make everything work, even if it doesn't look pretty and then start going through it to polish it up for sales. I have a tendency to keep thinking of more and more cool ideas and it's hard for me sometimes to say, 'ok enough is enough I need to finish something'.

Having something functioning although maybe not polished also lets you get feedback from a trusted closed beta user base or family/friends, which may even save you time later because maybe gameplay changes will change other things you will do.

Keep in mind my only experience with mobile games currently is still in progress and I'm having this problem now of picking a cut off point, although I think I've finally decided on some smaller projects to help motivate me and help me learn.

OZApps · December 2012

I have so many experimental projects that need a nice coat of paint and polish and they will do just fine as apps (mostly educational category or games). It is the experimental code that I have been working on. I guess I need to see read up on how to complete a project when you are 70-80% there... Damn, do I have to be so particular?

plamen · December 2012

@Mells This is situation i fall often. You are overheated. You don't need 3 days more rushing to do something new but a week away from technology. The stuff you do is awesome but i know from first person as long as you working on it and looking at it as much you start to hate it. Its just because of mental efforts and they lead to overheat. If you haven't discovered the fishing yet i will suggest to give it a try. Usually what other activities do in weeks, fishing can do in couple of days or just in single day. Get tackles, find river or better a quiet lake and go for a day or two. Then you will see what will happen. Just stay away from digital stuff.

techdojo · December 2012

I've lost count of the number of times I (and every other "honest" programmer) has been in this position.

If I had three days, nothing more for a finished project... (think of what you could accomplish in a game jam).

I'd start with a decent set of resources (probably the Lost Garden Planet Cute set), then I'd look at creating a SIMPLE 2D puzzler / arcade game, something with a single simple play mechanic, preferably a single press to start of a chain reaction or a touch / hold to activate kind of thing.

Mega Jump, Canabalt, Circle Chain, Tiny Wings are all good examples of this kind of thing, once the core game is done, ship it and ask for feedback then decide how to progress next.

The thing is you CAN get a prototype up and running easily in three days, what takes the time is the polish and tweaking, so the simpler the concept the less tweaking should be involved.

In true Pareto fashion it's the last 20% of the game that seems to take 80% of the total effort!

ar2rsawseen · December 2012

Completely agree with @techdojo, you can easily creating a prototype. In our team it seems that the graphics is what taking it the longest. To find a proper style of the game, so it would feel ok and come together with gameplay.

Then it gets polished, adding new things and features, you can't polish it, until you have a proper design or at least idea of design.
Then with the visual design also the sounds and music comes.
Then you just keep iterating through design, features/gameplay and sfx until you get what you desire and that stage is the longest. You collect feedback, etc because all those decisions must be based on something, you can' really decide alone and hope others will like it, at least not without experience.

If you want to work on something completely different for couple of days that's completely ok, just take an interesting idea and create a prototype and maybe someday there will come a cool game out of it, but don't get your hopes up on getting something publishable.

But well maybe if you work as developer and designer, things are much easier, cause you can see the full picture from the start, I don't know.

john26 · December 2012

Well it would have to be a game with random level generation, or "survival mode". Designing levels is the most time consuming thing in many games.

How about a game with lots of flying timebombs which you to tap to deactivate. But each one has its own time to explode so you need to prioritize. That might be doable in 3 days... (but set aside 1 day for the menu system!)

Regarding sounds I used free music from Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) and www.pacdv.com/sounds (music and sound effects). I credited them both in my game: they are both copyright free.

Scouser · December 2012

@john26: I also use Kevin MacLeod's music.

john26 · December 2012

@Scouser, he's a great guy! I got my title screen music from him and 4 other music tracks from pacdv.com. Those 5 tracks eat up most of the APK size but I think its worth it! BTW, did you try publishing on iOS? I planning to do that but need to buy a Mac first...

Scouser · December 2012

That's the thing John, Pay for a Mac to develop on, but then you also need at least one iOS device to test on. Eventually but currently way out of my budget

Mells · December 2012

Great answers, thank you

@zvardin
ExperimentalGameplay.com is an interesting site.
I think (in my own case) I'd like to focus a bit more about "what the market wants".
I already have my other project to experiment, so what I am looking for is more constraints.

@OZApps
So you mean that even as an experienced developer you still face the same issue?

@plamen
You are right, I often work outside (parks, rental office, rental apartment away from the city) where I create art and manage my businesses and I've always tried my best to work away from a desk, but this is not enough. I'm still "connected".
The thing is that we (devs, artists) have a tendency to feel guilty if we take many days away of our TODO list. And that's something hard to deal with.

@techdojo

Mega Jump, Canabalt, Circle Chain, Tiny Wings are all good examples of this kind of thing, once the core game is done, ship it and ask for feedback then decide how to progress next.

That's a mindset that I try to develop

@ar2rsawseen

If you want to work on something completely different for couple of days that's completely ok, just take an interesting idea and create a prototype and maybe someday there will come a cool game out of it, but don't get your hopes up on getting something publishable.

That's the spirit for the challenge

In our team it seems that the graphics is what taking it the longest. To find a proper style of the game, so it would feel ok and come together with gameplay.

The funny thing is that it is exactly what I enjoy and I'm the best at (compared to my other skills). A few days ago I came up with this and this in less than 20min, which is enough to have a (mental) view of what the final game could look like.

But if you ask me about programming tons of features... @-) .

@john26

Well it would have to be a game with random level generation, or "survival mode". Designing levels is the most time consuming thing in many games.

This is what I had in mind.
Thanks for the music links

@Scouser
About the mac purchase, maybe you can remote control a friend's mac when he doesn't use it and borrow an iphone when you are testing your app?
You develop 1 week with the simulator, then ask your friend 2 hours of his time on sat. so you can use his apple devices?

From what I've heard there are not many differences between what's on the simulator and on device, and if you need more testers (and devices) testFlight would be a solution?

OZApps · December 2012

@OZApps
So you mean that even as an experienced developer you still face the same issue?

@Mells the issue could well be about being "experienced", The quest is for pushing the limit of the platform, not repeating the simple tasks and getting the best output. Thereby, disturbing the balance between pumping out apps vs trying to create that one good app. There are some developers (developer = anyone that has created an app, here in this context, it has nothing to do with the skill) that have created apps with Game Salad and C*SDK that are just with a changed text, more so like a template, like how dumb are you, how repetitive are you types and have a large number of apps to boast. That is not what I would be after. So, each unfinished project is actually a showcase for some cool technology, but never put into production due to the lack of decent graphics or polish to put it together.

I don't know the issue with other experienced developers, but I feel it could be similar.

Mells · December 2012

@OZApps
What I meant by saying "experienced" was a little bit different than "skilled" (I mean, I correct my own words).
More like : ok for last app I got stuck around 80%, this is what I made wrong, this is how I should have done it, this is what worked for developer A, B, C, so I have a plan to be sure it doesn't happen again.
It seems that this happens anyway whether the app is a simple one or a more complex one.

But I agree that this is hard to know when we are overworking in order to push our own limits vs creating products that we can be proud of + that can sell well enough.
If it was not to make some profit (at least to cover expenses) maybe we would not think about putting it on the market first.

OZApps · December 2012

@Mells, I guess the answer would still be similar, the "experience" bit can be the issue. While the projects that remain open are personal projects, one cannot be working on them while in the middle of a client project. So the learning applies to the client projects, while personal projects get neglected and suffer.
There are many other factors that affect these, but this is the major one.

Mells · December 2012

Hi all,

just a quick follow up :

I found a way to get unstuck and I have been very productive on my Samurai game. The fact that several people contacted me (here or by mail) to tell me about their interest for my game had a big influence. Thank you a lot. ( @gorkem, I have heard you
Once it's over I will run the experiment of trying to make a game in 3 days. I want to see what can be learnt from that.
We had a big earthquake in Tokyo, and a tsunami in Sendai. I won't give details about the situation. If you are in Japan (and I think I've seen a few people in the forums that are in Japan), keep safe.

I still have some work but I am now wondering if releasing before Christmas would be a good idea (app store locked -> No update possible in the case that a bug is found between... dec 20th and january 3rd? something like that).
In that case I would say that it's better to release in january.

ar2rsawseen · December 2012

@Mells, but on the other hand, people will buy most on holidays, so more possible sales than in any other days of the year. Do you really want to miss this opportunity?

Mells · December 2012

@ar2rsawseen
I certainly don't

but I am not sure I will have enough time to test the app (TestFlight) before release and I'm afraid a critical bug would make more harm than anything else, but there this is my lack of experience speaking.

When would you say is the last day to submit and have it in the store? Around dec 13 if everything goes well? After that I believe it's already too late.

ar2rsawseen · December 2012

For the first time apps, yes 13 of December would probably be the last day.
If you are unsure, then probably it would be better to skip this holiday, no pressure.

gorkem · December 2012

@Mells - very excited to see that you again started working on your title. To be honest, I and Atilim were so interested and talked to each other about the graphics you bring on the table, and would love to see this game released. Click on that damn submit button and let's download your biggest pride :-)

Mells · December 2012

@gorkem

I and Atilim were so interested and talked to each other about the graphics you bring on the table, and would love to see this game released.

It's very nice to hear about it

I am aiming for :

beta 1 by dec 20th (probably only few people will have time to test, it's Christmas after all)
beta 2 from january 3rd (to see if I can get a few more testers and take time to create marketing materials)
and hopefully I can release around january 10th

Now is the time when all pieces come together (story, music, sound effects, artworks) and the feeling is amazing.
Ok, back to work.

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If you had only 3 days to create a game, what would you do?

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If you had only 3 days to create a game, what would you do?

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