Design Identity Crisis

I've been going through a prototyping process for a while now. My game has evolved into something that is very different from my initial vision. It's currently being pulled between 2 styles of play and I can't seem to figure out a way to balance it out or bring it into focus. Its getting to the point where I'm considering starting fresh with my initial core mechanics/ideas.

So, I guess what I'm asking is How do you guys and gals deal with this kind of problem? How do you decide what to cut and when to start over? Is there a process that you go through when prototyping to avoid this situation?

 

We tend to lay the "ground rules" first. Anything that conflicts with those, or doesn't add value to the actual idea of what we are trying to accomplish, gets cut ruthlessly.

 

A well thought out game design document really helps. Get all your ideas, story, mechanics, and pretty much everything down on paper. Then draw some concept screen shots with UI and all, so you can feel out what your doing and decide if it all makes sense together.

Then - try like hell not to stray from that bible of your game. Come back every few days and update / revisit the documents and decide if everything is going according to plan. This strategy keeps me focused and on point.

I also usually psuedocode any new stuff before I start writing, and when I do start writing I skeleton everything in at first. This stops me from getting my scripts too messy.

And lastly, I prototype tons of stuff on dry erase boards, so I can visualize ideas before even thinking about actually implementing them.

That's my thoughts. Good luck!

 

Heard the expression, "Less is More?" You keep adding more, and what you need is less. Maybe you have 2 games, or even 3 games here. Figure out which game you want to build right now, and finish it with a Minimally Viable Product (MVP).

Good luck,
Gigi.

 

I think @Gigiwoo's right - sometimes, we try to make a game into too much. This is the reason I don't play StarMade, or The Elder Scrolls Online anymore; they're too much to the point of failing at all of it. This has actually killed some of my prototypes, and nearly killed my current project before I took the pruning shears to it.

What do you want your game to be about? And, how do you want to convey that to your player?

EDIT: Another way of thinking about this - I recently began re-watching Babylon 5. Getting over some of the hammy and cheesy acting, there's a bit where a character meets with these super-beings called Vorlons. The first thing these Vorlons ask? "Who are you?" "Why are you here?" They don't ask that in the conversational sense. Ask those questions of your game like a Vorlon would.

 

My original design doc could fit in a tweet when I began to prototype. I thought I could get away with adding some additional mechanics... I guess that didn't work out too well... I'm going to step back and use the original doc as my "Bible"

I need to get "Less is More" tattooed to my inner eye lids.

I've started a fresh Unity project file and moved over all the base scripts and assets that I started out with. I've cut everything else... which turned out to be 3/4 of the project.


Thanks for all the help and advice!

 

Just wanted to say you are not alone. It's easy to go down this path. I wrestled with the same thing in my current project. The only thing I have done with it in the past month is pruning. I think all great games struggle with it to some degree based on all of the game dev interviews I have read over the years. Part of it is the desire (or need) just to try out different stuff. Good luck!

 

Will Wright said it thusly: "Your garden is not complete until there's nothing else you can remove."
Gigi.

 

This is all important after you know enough to figure out and document what you want. This is about the prototyping phase, though, before that's all known.

 

Some of the best games ever started out as something totally different than how they ended up. I've learned in a lot of postmortems that often the developers don't even know what they're making in the beginning. As for your question: My game is finally taking shape but I'm still not close to finishing, so I'm just going to offer my experience rather than 'advice'. I've honed my design so far in a few ways:

Implement and test: Sometimes I will realize a thing isn't gonna work before I'm even done implementing it. Maybe the actual implementation forces one to acknowledge the nitty gritty details, and then one sees why it won't work. Sometimes it actually has to be in before I see its stupid, or is at odds with other more promising systems.

Think: I think a lot about my game. Pretty much all the time actually. Sometimes stuff just hits me. I don't think it would have hit me if I wasn't thinking and receptive to it. I've found it just takes me time to come up with a solution.

Prepare to cut: I try to always be on alert with the chopping knife. I even consider game-changing gut-wrenching cuts on a daily basis. I'm always trying to think of things to cut. I have a list of things I mean to cut if things start to look really grim.

As far as starting over I almost never consider it. I'd sooner do a massive cut. Sometimes I consider doing a super tiny game as a break, but I get the feeling that tiny game would grow quickly, and I'd sooner just try to make my current game tiny.

 

gameplay gameplay gameplay... the montra we live by.

Absolutely right.

We here make one quick sentence which the game revolves around and anything that doesn't support it directly ends up on the wish-list.. not gone forever, but reduced in priority. The more time you get to focus on the core the better it gets.

Sometimes you may not know right away what that is so there's nothing wrong with finding the fun. Ours is "Why play a game built for millions, when you can play a game built for you." This translates directly to our platform which analyzes how the player plays and then changes the game accordingly. Anything not "that" gets demoted.

We made the theme about robots which can configure themselves while you play.. swap limbs, different silhouettes.
We made the items upgradable in a way that they unlock more and more customization
We made the way you shoot and destroy things able to tailor your robot bonuses
We made items powerups combo with equipments in tons of ways so they load the slot machine the way they want.
We made the loot system able to modularize the equipment and make dynamic combos
We made a bonus system which can put any of 100 configurable bonuses on any of the 300 items at run time.
Everything is about how to customize the game for the player while they play it.

Had to of course chop up the baby...
We demoted several different types of crafting systems
We demoted base construction
We demoted destructible geometry
We demoted several enemy animations
We demoted bouncing lasers
We demoted pushable puzzle blocks
We demoted ...

Best way we found to focus is to make the sentence "Players have fun _{doing}__{what}_". Then honestly analyzing each system to make sure it supports