The Death Of A Frog-

Introduction-

I come into this month from what might be my greatest failure as a game developer and artist- "Frogs vs Ghosts". Based off artwork by Jake Hall and developed for the "A Game By It's Cover" jam (a game jam where you pick from hundreds of imaginary Famicom game cartridges made months earlier).

This article will cover my mistakes while sharing my lessons during the development of "Frogs vs Ghosts". It took two months to make it realize it wouldn't ship and will continue to go unshipped. It reached the finish line (without polish), but it was not a good game. The two greatest reasons for this were: OVERSCOPING and LACK OF GAME-CORE.

Overscoping-

The worst mistake was made during the most critical part of the art process, choosing which project to pursue. I went over all my options, and chose the one I wanted to make the most: "Frogs vs Ghosts". I did not consider the amount of motivation and time it would take to finish my grand turn-based brawler/collect-athon with 16 characters (this sounds silly in hindsight)... That's a lie. I assumed I could replenish my motivation, and do more work in less time. This is a textbook example of overscoping.

Motivation in games is like jet fuel. We chart our trip and hop into our plane. Only halfway to our destination do we realize that we are running low on fuel. Upon realizing the stupidity of our plan, we must now choose a closer destination or worse- Crash. The solution to this is to pick a destination we can reach from the get-go. This may seem disheartening, and it is. If we don't want to go somewhere then our motivation will already be low when we start. My solution? Pick a project you WANT TO MAKE and CAN FINISH. All potential games fall somewhere on this graph:

However, when you put your project onto this graph you will most likely lie to yourself about "can finish". One solution to this is to examine the motivation-consumption for your most similar finished project. Another is to peer review your idea and the feasibility of it.

Something else to keep in mind; most of the time we see overscoping as preventing the completion of a game, but keep in mind that overscoping can also prevent the completion of a quality game.

Lack Of Game-Core-

The second worst mistake I made during the development of "Frogs vs Ghosts", was not implementing the game-core ASAP. The game-core is the foundational gameplay a game is built on (similar to game-loop). "Frogs vs. Ghosts" did not have a game-core until the final days of development when I added in characters with their abilities. Although this could also be labeled a byproduct of poor planning, one thing is for sure: The game was unfun to play partially due to the fact I was unable to tune up the game-core.

My justification for this through-out the project was viewing the game as the intended final product instead of what it was during the moment. In the future I intend to amend this by ensuring I pick a project that is easily game-core-able. Where it only takes at most a week to finish the game-core.

If I Could Go Back-

If I could go back in time to the first day of the AGBIC jam; I would pick a few cartridges based on how much I liked them, and a few which I didn't hate and facilitate easily made games. I would then draw up more in-depth concepts for all of them and see where they go on the graph. Finally picking the idea with the highest complet-ability and highest motivat-bility, I would have my project.

Conclusion-

However, the Delorian is not coming to my rescue. The awful truth is that I wasted two months and countless hours of sleep on an awful game that was never shipped. Do not be like me, ensure that you are planning a game you can finish.

Thanks & Outtie 5000-

Thanks for reading!

If this article is received well I'll consider writing a weekly dev blog during the month of September where I will:
-Participate in THREE game jams
-Make TWO personal projects
Can I do it? Probably not, but I'm bummed and feel like trying! See you then, and have a good one.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
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A very interesting read - thanks for posting

This was a very good write up. Thanks for posting it. Some really useful lessons that I recognise in some of my past efforts that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, and am applying to my current project right now.

Also, I would say that you didn't waste two months if you learned how to approach projects in the future. Two months is a pretty good time to have learned so much. Some people work for years on a project that gets cancelled, and don't reflect on the failure as well as you have.