Random thought: slog is a cool word. Anyways, I digress…
I have a graveyard. Of dead or dying software projects that were so cruelly abandoned for no other reason than me losing interest. I’m sure many software developers can sympathize. So what was so different about Solar Smash? It certainly took a fair amount of elapsed time, as mentioned in my last post, 1,000 Hours. I’ve mulled this over a bit and narrowed it to a very nontraditional top 4:
- Having a 2nd person – Granted, this wasn’t really intentional. Conor and I just happened to end up on the same trains as well as shared the same interests. Having someone to bounce ideas off of and having an entire second brain to conjure up new ideas was so essential in helping define what Solar Smash became. It was also neat to see progress happen as if by magic, as the other person finished up some interesting development. By no means is a 2nd person critical though. Just look at what my friend Griffin Bryant accomplished solo with his game Gravebound.
- Small Tasks – Breaking down work into small tasks that can be worked, and more importantly, closed, imparts a great deal of satisfaction. Does it matter that the task only took 20 minutes to complete? No way! Bask in the glory of task closing!
- Fast Feedback – Creating very early releases and sharing them with friends is a great way to both feel accomplished and get valuable feedback… feedback that can help mold your game while there’s still time to change it. Find some friends you can trust to give you honest feedback, then listen. After all, once your game is publicly out there, you’ll find the general population can be both extremely kind as well as just plain nasty. Learn to take it.
- Ruthlessly narrow the scope of work – Knowing that any software will take a long time to deliver, narrow the work down to what’s really going to be valuable. Items can always be added later. In agile terms, this is, *gasp*, MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
After failing to complete so (too) many other projects, I needed to prove to myself that I could complete something of non-trivial size. These four items kept me motivated, and perhaps they can be of use to others. Happy Coding!
– Matt from http://www.railwaygames.mobi
railwaygames's Blog 
Thanks for the link to Gravebound! While I did do all of the coding solo, I actually felt like I had that positive peer pressure because we talked about each other’s games so much. I think if I had tried to keep the game secret until it was perfect, I never would have finished. That goes to the point about feedback as well. Having you and others test out new builds of the game not only helped improve the game, it kept me motivated to work on it.
LikeLike