87
votes
Accepted
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
It's not unusual for workers to be less than 100% engaged in task work for the entire duration of the work day. Humans have a hard time focusing on one task for longer than 20 minutes without some ...
- 136k
44
votes
Accepted
How to know if one game idea is more worth pursuing than another?
Your first test should be to pitch individual ideas to a few random people from your offline or online social circle or to a few interested online communities. See how they react to it. This can ...
- 122k
28
votes
How to know if one game idea is more worth pursuing than another?
Everyone is different so take this advice with a grain of salt.
If you care about each of the projects equally, I would recommend going with whichever project has the smallest scope. That way, you'll ...
- 381
27
votes
Accepted
Anxious about possibly hitting bugs i can't solve and having to cancel my games
It's not unusual to worry about whether or not you have the ability to finish a technical task.
Minimal Working Examples
Your main problem boils down to how you develop... by adding bits and pieces ...
- 30.3k
24
votes
Anxious about possibly hitting bugs i can't solve and having to cancel my games
Use version control
I think major stress relief comes with version control. More so when you really care about tracking features in separate branches and commit often with each task completion. When ...
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21
votes
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
Good grief, reading this question stressed me out. You don't think your employees should be allowed to send personal messages and attend to their life during work hours? The top answer says it better ...
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18
votes
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
I think that strict working hours is generally not a good idea. For example I belong to these 20% of people who are much more productive at late hours. I worked in startups and big companies as well. ...
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16
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Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
I think apart from the above mentioned views, I guess one has to take the region/country where the company is located. The culture has a major impact on these kind of stuffs too.
For example. I have ...
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15
votes
Method to size game content
I think you pretty much answered your own question there yeah. Depending on how important the story is to the game and especially the gameplay, you write the entire thing first, then cut out the ...
- 416
14
votes
Anxious about possibly hitting bugs i can't solve and having to cancel my games
Engineer's answer is a solid answer to the title question, but it sounds like in your specific case, you just need more practice understanding what your code actually does. Working from tutorials and ...
- 541
11
votes
Can polishing the GUI be ever considered a part of making the MVP?
Remember, these terms we throw around like MVP, agile, ECS, vertical slice, etc. are not absolute laws of the universe. They're just ideas that some folks have found helpful to their process.
Where ...
- 136k
10
votes
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
There are some red flags, but probably not the ones you expect
This
I set down a project roadmap with a lot of good documentation on what needs to be done and deadlines.
Both were asked to produce a ...
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9
votes
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
Having managed several studios for a few of the large game companies, I could write you a large answer about productivity, etc but the problem is rarely there:
First, you can't expect people to sit 8 ...
- 211
8
votes
Anxious about possibly hitting bugs i can't solve and having to cancel my games
This is just intrinsic to software development. You've got a bug. Software always has bugs. Major games ship with them, and end up profitable enough anyway. It's a game, it's not hooked up to a life ...
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8
votes
Anxious about possibly hitting bugs i can't solve and having to cancel my games
Personal projects never cancel, they just are put on hold
i might have to possibly cancel a project that i really cared about
Nothing can force you to cancel a project you care about. Even if you ...
- 536
6
votes
Can polishing the GUI be ever considered a part of making the MVP?
TL;DR: The idea behind creating an MVP is less about the precise definition of an MVP and more the general principles of:
Not starting to polish until you have something you can actually play
Not ...
- 475
6
votes
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
A few things you need to know about creative types:
Programmers love being 100% engaged for hours at a time. This allows them to achieve deep flow. To gain the benefits of this, you need to provide a ...
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5
votes
Working hours and productivity expectations for game artists and programmers
Adding to other answers, it's worth noting that on top of the average office worker, most creative work like art and programming certainly does not benefit from monitoring over the shoulder and ...
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4
votes
Our designer refuses to work because of job official title
Job titles and responsibilities vary greatly from one place to the next. The duties for a particular role at a particular place depend on what the two relevant parties have agreed upon. The ...
- 12.5k
4
votes
Why are some gameplay systems set up to `exist in the world`, with full collision and kinematics, whereas others seem like `complex event timelines`
One cause for this that I think it is worth noting is that, in many cases, the people making the different parts of the game that you find to be clashing, are different people, using different tools.
...
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4
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Anxious about possibly hitting bugs i can't solve and having to cancel my games
Fixing the bug and solving the problem aren't the same thing.
In this case you were able to fix the jump height calculation and that's great, but sometimes you may find that something really can't be ...
- 141
3
votes
Accepted
Game build in unity3d project transfer from a previous developer
Assuming that your game exists in a single Unity project, the bare minimum that you'll need from them is the project folder that the project belongs to. This is enough to build and run the project and ...
- 627
3
votes
Method to size game content
One approach is to go with at it in a hierarchical fashion.
Write a simple outline for the whole story. Put only the important stuff, the things that affect the rest.
Then, dig down into one part ...
- 306
3
votes
Method to size game content
The "design first, cut later" principle can be fun at first because it doesn't impede creativity too much with concerns of what you can realize. But it leads to frustration later when you realize just ...
- 122k
3
votes
Going from a solo game project to a team project, how should I organize the new team and potential revenues?
According to John Romero (minute 3:50 https://youtu.be/na4KHCO9lO8) you should prefer paying the artist directly for the job you need, and should not found with him/her a company unless you know him/...
- 408
3
votes
Accepted
Does an average professional game development project have a higher rate of bug occurrence than other fields?
There is no answer to your question.
First you need to define what is a bug.
Say I write a feature. I'm done with the code, and I start testing it. I find something that is not quite what I expected. ...
- 16.4k
2
votes
Our designer refuses to work because of job official title
Most job descriptions include a final catch-all clause that says something like "and any other duties as assigned or required."
It is one thing to say, "I don't have the skillset to do ...
- 141
2
votes
Can polishing the GUI be ever considered a part of making the MVP?
If your game is very UI-centric, then reading and navigating the UI can actually be the core mechanic of the game which you need to demonstrate in your MVP.
But it seems to me like you are already ...
- 122k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible