Reflective Guide to Indie Game Development

Written by Jaynerson

This devlog will be sort of a mix of postmoterm and a tutorial for those who want to start on game development. 

Starting out in an indie team full of strangers, I had a sense of apprehension and awkwardness at the beginning. Everyone has different personalities, believes, and interests, it seems as if it would be impossible to achieve anything, much less creating a working game in a span of just 1 month. We needed about a few days for the ice to break and uneasiness to fade. It was also during that time we started to know our roles in the team (programmer, game designer, level designer, artist, game tester etc).  We started discussing the direction of our game, but not without any disagreements - our clashing ideas made it hard to communicate and be on the same page. It was at this time when we had our first major stragglehold, we spent a great deal of time debating different proposals until our plan for the game was unanimous. That experience wasn't all negative though. It had help increase our communication and collaboration skills, and also let made us look at something from another perspective. After that, our journey was almost a smooth ride - as we were able to plan our core game loop, main mechanics, art direction and even some level designs - until we had to actually create the game. Since everyone doesn't know how to use Unity or Unreal Engine, it was up to me to learn a new language and software as I'm the only one who has more expirence to programming. I picked Unity as it is easier to learn. Using Youtube, tons of articles, and some outside help, I was able to grab a hold of Unity. After that, the nights seem to pass in a blink as I was staying up rushing to finish delivering the game on time, while the others polished everything and supplied me with the game assets. A few nights before the due date, the game was complete, save for one part - the level itself. When creating the level itself, our team forgot to include decoration and apperance into the level design. So when I am creating the level in Unity, I was stumped, as I'm not a very creative person. I still tried my best making it look good though, but ultimately failed - it looked as if someone bleached the level, and it doesn't look promising.