Dec 03 2007
Design phase
Filed under Game development by Jussi Lepistö
First, thanks for the encouraging comments. 
Even a comment or two will help me keep motivated about the projects, especially since there isn’t anything concrete done yet.
Lately I’ve been spending some time on thinking about design, of both the engine and the game. Specifically:
New name. Now that I pulled the plug on Spineless as a public open source project, it’s the perfect time for a name change. Spineless was meant to be an ironic name, but I got a lot of questions on why I chose the name, and probably lots of negative associations. Although the engine won’t be public again for a while if ever, I want to make the change now.
Engine layout. Also connected with the “death” of Spineless, I’m going to restructure the engine again based on my experiences with the rewrite. It’s more or less just moving things around, not really rewriting anything. I want to get the layout and especially plugin implementation right from the beginning to save major headaches down the road.
Red Nebula roadmap. I now have a rough idea on what to work on first, and what’s important for the overall goal of the game. I want to get something pretty (well, at least screenshot-worthy) and interactive together as soon as possible. Unfortunately I can’t get started on that yet since the renderer isn’t ready, but I’ve been doing some research and design so I can get started as soon as the engine is sufficiently done.
Teasers! Red Nebula will be 3D, it’s going to be a long project with no clearly defined “finished” state, and I’m going to develop it incrementally, with ever-increasing scope and detail. As long as I’m interested and have faith on it being fun, that is.
There are scarce few more dangerous phrases than “ever-increasing scope”.
I really recommend setting a fixed scope for your project, at least in the design phase. This is especially important since you’ve been out of the ‘gamedev loop’ for a while, but really for any developer. Writing a game of small scope is difficult enough without wanting to make one with a scope that you end up setting for yourself such that you can never attain it. It’s fun to think about making something of such a large calibre, but just not practical if you ever want to get a real finished game out of it.
I’m not being a pessimist, but just reminding you to keep your vision for this game firmly fixed in reality so that the odds of it succeeding are the highest. I think all of us are guilty of getting more than a little overambitious at some point.
Well, the point of this particular project is that it’s supposed to be “everlasting”. I will set some milestones for myself of course, to get sense of reaching something, and this will definitely not be my only game project. But it’s still something I want to experiment with and concentrate on at the moment. Let’s see how long it lasts.
“Everlasting” games make me edgy, which is why online games (in addition) make my edgy. The term sounds pretty, but usually translates to “tossed into the garbage heap after you’re really sick of it”, unfortunately. Still, I look forward to watching your progress.
Same thoughts as Stephan here; but are you at least going to set milestones? I mean sure, you want to keep working on it, but I guess if you have no idea of progress then you’re going to get demotivated pretty quickly.
As I said in my comment, yes, I have milestones exactly for that reason. I’ll elaborate on my plans in a future post.