One-Week Projects

Starting September 10th, I've begun a series of one-week game projects. I've shipped two so far (Super Offroad Remake and Cube Folder) and, though I've gotten quite distracted this week, don't have any intention of slowing down.

Eight games total is my goal.

So what's the deal, anyways?

It turns out my motivations are legion; making these prototypes is just exactly the thing I need to be doing right now:

• The last project I was working on of my own design was incredibly ambitious. And so was the one before that. And one in the middle (Zombie Minesweeper) was supposed to be small, but blew out of proportion anyways. I want to get better and being concise in my design. So doing a series of small games seems like a good way to practice this.
• Due to the same events, I haven't actually shipped anything since last summer, when Zombie Minesweeper went out the door. I want to ship something again. Even if that something is really small, I'd just rather be active and prolific at this stage, as far as the rest of the world is concerned!
• I have opportunities coming in from all directions for projects, contracts, partnerships, and so on, but nothing is on my plate today. I spent a few weeks sitting around weighing options at the beginning of summer, and I look back on that with regret. So right now, I want to remain productive while being flexible while I wait for pieces of life to fall into place.
• It's always been my experience that great concepts are discovered, not invented. You really don't know if a game design is fun until it's in the flesh. Everyone talks about prototyping, but I so so so so rarely see this happening around me. So I want to prototype ideas and choose the strong candidates. I have no qualms with abandoning something that I've spent only a week on, and at the end of this I can continue work on the strongest idea, knowing that — at the least — it's stronger than 7 other ideas I could have been working on.

All Protoland Waits

Unfortunately I'm kind of off the rails already; this week, which should have been game #3, has turned to working on Zombie Minesweeper for Android. That's something I really need to get done too, and I fully intend to get back into gear next week, but for now, zombies await!