For the last two months I've been solo developing a game in Unity. It's called 𝗠𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗰𝗸𝘀, a typing game where you must send 'sober' text messages while you drink at a bar. The game is almost done, but to play it in it's early stages (and while it's free), you can find it here. PASSWORD: misclick

It's been a while. Here's what I've been up to. I led a development team of 6 for Manisha Wannibe's "Do You WANNA Jam?!" We ranked 46th out of 153 submissions. Here's a general overview + how I managed it. // My team consisted of the following: - 1 Designer - 1 Programmer - 2 Musicians (1 SFX + 1 Soundtracks) - 2 Artists (1 Environments + 1 Characters) Together we developed "Eyes on the Inside" // The jam theme was "INSIDE OUT!" On the first 2 days I facilitated brainstorm sessions. We generated 50+ ideas relating to the theme until we found one: Breaking out of prison. Our game's concept: "Play as both an Asylum patient and a security guard helping the patient escape" // I didn't encourage crunch. We were to meet each day for at least 3 hours only. Overall, we worked as a team for ~21 hours throughout the Jam's duration. // Takeaway #1: Scope Our game had 5 levels to do the following: - Teach the player how to control the patient/cameras - Establish a connection to the theme through gameplay - Challenge the player // Takeaway #2: What the game did well - The game teaches the player through level design and UI - The player controls 1 character on the 'inside' of the Asylum, and 1 on the 'outside' - The characters are symbiotic to one another. i.e. the player must use both // Takeaway #3: What the game didn't do well - 70% of our players stated they wanted to see more use of the camera. All it did was move and felt like an inconvenience. - The game wasn't challenging to players. // Takeaway #4: Opportunities for next game - For teams with gaps in timezones, it's important to plan the schedule ahead of time. That way I can pinpoint more opportunities for us to work together. // You can play "Eyes on the Inside" FREE on web browser Stay Consystent!

I’ve been looking for ways to improve my game development skills, and I’m really interested in 1on1 mentorships. If you’ve done one, was it worth it? How much did you spend and how much should I be willing to spend?

When my contract job wrapped up I started to work on a new game in Unreal Engine. After some play tests and 5 months of development I gave up. Despite making games for four years by that point I STILL made such an obvious rookie mistake: I gave myself an 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 and an 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞. // Why is it that in University we're able to finish the game projects we get assigned as homework? We may not like what we created, but we 𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 something. We may wait until the last minute to submit, but we 𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 something. Was it the pressure our professors put on us? Was it the weight of the money we spent on tuition? Perhaps. But let's entertain an alternative: We completed these game projects easier because the ideas we had were 𝒇𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆. // What makes a game idea feasible? As I mentioned earlier there's two things: 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 and 𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐞. The two check & balance one another but You really want to define time, and I'll explain why. // Scope is declared within the bounds of time. If You have a time limit of 7 days to work on a game, you have to narrow the scope down to something that is feasible in 7 days. Otherwise, your game gets 𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐝. Worse, your game 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝. Scope is also more difficult to quantify. If You often reflect upon your skills and have a good estimation of how much content You can develop over time, then perhaps You can quantify your scope. But that logic gets messy once You begin creating games with small teams, because to quantify the scope you'd now need to calculate how much each of your team members are capable of developing over time. // Time is the better choice to define, because no matter the team size everyone has to narrow their scope of the game to fit time. In all things time also creates a sense of urgency; a now or never situation. How many times have you shopped online and been ambushed by a One-Time-Offer urging you to 'act quickly' before this deal expires? Lastly, time encourages us to put the brush down and make us decide that our work is 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑑. We can work on a game for as long as we want, but it will never be a finished game until 𝑤𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠.

Are You a new member of the community? Here's a simple template to help You introduce yourself to other members: 1. First name/Nickname 2. Your specialty (programming, marketing, art, etc.) 3. Your goal as a game developer 4. The last game you beat // I'll start. My name is Daniel. You can call me Dan, Danny, Daniel; I have no preference. I design games. I also program in 5 languages (C#, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python) My goal is to help post-graduate game developers make 1 new game in Unity every month. The last game I played was Mega Man Legends 2 Comment down below. You might just find your next teammate :)