Five Ways I've Grown as a Game Designer (This Year)
I want to take a moment to reflect on growth, because it's been a long week and I'm not keeping up with my regular content creation deadline because I want to give a little insight to what I consider my greatest successes.
Growth 1: Keeping Up With the Schedule
I have a whole lot of schedule issues because I've got a day job and I always have told myself the whole time I've been doing Loreshaper Games that it's my #1 priority.
Still, versus the previous couple years when I've been going at a pace of more or less nothing per day, it's good.
A lot of this comes from just being accountable to keep up with daily posts. There are only so many great ideas I can have, and the natural consequence of that is that occasionally I'm forced to just get work done to have something to post.
Growth 2: Learning from Others
I don't think that this is new, but it's something that's really gone into more of a way of living as opposed to a tool of last resort as it has previously been.
A few years back when I made my first really serious game, I was really big on using others as models and inspirations. There's good logic in that, but it leads to just throwing in random kitchen sink stuff rather than designing a game well.
However, I want to point out that I've started actually learning in a different way. Instead of following models and imitating exemplars, I've started looking at it more critically. Rather than choosing things that I saw in a game I like, I'm much more disciplined in building a core design.
Growth 3: More Social Interactions
I still haven't updated our main website in months, but I want to give myself a little credit here. I'm much more active on Twitter and the Steem blockchain than I had been in previous years, and it's paid off in actually having some interest in our games.
I also actually went to a convention, in defiance of my long term "no going outside" policy, and it was really cool.
It's also something that gives a possibility to form more partnerships and connections. I'm a little leery of a lot of this, because I'm always nervous about giving up control over stuff, but at the same time it's exciting to see what other people are doing.
Growth 4: More Failures
I'll be honest, there are a lot of things this year that have not gone well. For instance, a failure to launch on the Velotha's Flock advanced player guide, which is currently 90% finished.
Likewise, The Paradise Incident sort of fizzled out because I became convinced that the concept wasn't right (or, rather, not right for me; I think someone else could do it well, maybe even a future me).
I'm waiting to try to go back and do a big revamp of Velotha's Flock that will feature a complete merger of the core rulebook and the advanced player guide and a year's worth of polish after I finish Genship Exiles, and I think it'll make it a much better game.
Growth 5: More Attempts
I've worked on a lot of games in the past, many of which exist primarily as a handful of blog posts and scattered reference documents on the cloud. In the past I can think of probably six or seven as big as any of the projects I've done this year, and this year I've hit five major projects (Velotha's Flock, Hammercalled's quick-start and core rules, Segira, Hwaet, and Genship Exiles) without having too much of an issue with the workload.
Of course, a lot of this is sort of self-related (Hammercalled, Segira, and Genship Exiles are at least 60% similar), but it's a good amount of effort. I've also started a book on archetypal storytelling that I'm really excited to get finished, though it's in the middle of procrastination low-priority treatment and will need a major rewrite when I get back to it thanks to me doing a lot of great research on it.
I don't think that anything can really help you grow more than the constant effort.
Also, I've written something like 500,000 words this year, and I'm probably on track to hit a million next year. You can argue that my ROI on the effort's really low, but mastery requires practice, and I'm certainly getting practice.
The challenge is not to get complacent in your efforts.
I really need up my twitter game I never been into social media. I finally found a use for it today to do 1 thing lol.
I think many of us will go thought a few keyboards while using Steemit alone! I know I need replace my soon it has become rather flat!
My only gripe with Twitter is that it inevitably leads into politics, and in particular the worst kind of shouty-judging politics. Even though I try to only make "professional" ties, I find that many people to not conduct themselves professionally on Twitter.
I'm 100% into mechanical keyboards, except at work (because I'm not bringing in my own keyboard), so I've actually been lucky enough not to use any to the point that they stop working. Fifty-million keystroke lifespan (per key), you say?
I'm not using blues because people complain about the noise, but I might go back to them at some point. I'm running red right now, and used to run silver switches in a really nice keyboard.
I was hoping that the red would feel a little stiffer, but they don't. Then again, this is a Logitech, and while I love the general quality their switches don't necessarily line up with Cherry's lineup.
I kind of miss how quick silver switches were, but then I remember all the times I'd accidentally rest on them and wind up with a lot of extra keystrokes.
More failurs, More ateempts and keeping on the schedule... Three things I struggle to do. But hey, I think I'm better at them this year than any other year.
The thing about stuff like this is that you often need to consider the scale at which you assess yourself.
If you compare yourself to the most prolific person in the field, you're going to fall short, but you might find that the level at which you apply yourself to a creative endeavor matches the value you place on it. I'm not willing to sacrifice my day job for game stuff, so I have to accept that I'm going to see results in line with what I can invest.
yeah I agree, while it's simple to not set your scope too high, we tend to forget that a lot.
It's hard to keep up the creating schedule with a full time job/life for sure, I definitely respect the effort it takes.
It's difficult, but very rewarding. One of the things that goes into it is just plugging away and being disciplined without allowing yourself to develop a complex about failure. You'll miss days (heck, sometimes I write an article and then forget to click the post button before I wander off and go to bed), but getting back into the mode is what counts.