Thoughts on remaking your game after it's finished?

When your game is finished and ready to release, it would be nice to spend a few months rewriting everything with the benefit of knowing exactly how everything will work and what things you will be adding to it in the future. If you don't have time constraints and can afford it, is this a worthwhile thing to do?

 

Depends how small is the game.

If it is working better release the game and create new one on the previous code base.
It is that time when you can clean the source.

 

If there is a problem that is going to solve in the future...

 

And most of your bugs have been eliminated. Ask yourself if your would like to repeat the debugging process.

 

Instead of remaking it, I would just update it and add what I want, and change what I want. In my opinion, there's no real reason to remake your game from scratch unless you are releasing it on newer-gen hardware, let's say 20 years from now, and the original is incompatible with newer-gen hardware.

 

What benefit would it bring?

Weigh that against the fact that it's delaying release of this and your next project.

Also, keep in mind that you'll end up fenced into a lot of your old decisions unless you want to update your content as well.

And did someone already mention QA..?

 

I don't see a point.

You'll make the exact same thing and slightly smaller amount of time. That will not bring any sales (it is the same thing) or any joy (as you've done this before).

So why bother?

 

It's also very likely that to feel like it was worth the trouble, you'll rewrite something perfectly good for no reason and possibly lose track of what the game was supposed to be.

If you want to delay and polish, OK but use every minute of that time to market the hell out of it.

 

I only do game jams and freeware, but my experience is generally- once the game is finished, I never want to see the code ever again.

 

I think doing this, but making it a sequel instead of remaking the original game, would be a better use of your time and still scratch the same itch.

 

Why the hell would you waste the time to re-do something? Did you not plan your workflow correctly? Yes we all have "hind-sight", but changes can be made. You are "second guessing" yourself, Confidence problem is my guess...

 

That is the definition of insanity. Make a new game, learn and move forward. Reworking/redoing existing games without a clear and justified reason is a massive waste of time. That said, it happens all the time, in big companies and small teams. Everyone knows it is a bad idea and everyone will tell everyone else not to do it. But is still happens. A heavy handed producer can help prevent this. But is one of those weird things that seems core to game developers, wanting to fix their old work just because. I have certainly done it, and know it is bad idea. So you 100% should not do it... but you probably will, so good luck.

 

I recently picked up a sequel to a game I really enjoyed. The initial game was a buggy mess on release, and was patched over a year or so to be rock solid.

The sequel obviously rewrote the entire user interface... because nothing works exactly anymore. Hit indicators that were flawless aren't accurate. Movement indicators that felt perfect are jagged and feel bad. Etc.

All indicators that they did a rewrite despite the ux having the same exact look of the previous.

The code might look much nicer, but the game suffered for it.


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I think rewrites are generally most common when you're first learning a new problem set. You are learning new stuff really quickly here and the work you did a few weeks or months ago ends up feeling really bad to you by the end. If your goal is 100% just to learn and you have no constraints, then there's nothing wrong with a redo just to try out new stuff you've learned or experiment.

 

There's definitely a place for rewriting a program to work well, just not in a first release of a game today. You see all sorts of 4 or 5 star reviews where people write how a few quests/abilities are bugged, it tends to crash after an hour... , but it's a good game and the reviewer is confident problems will be fixed in the next patch. Basically gamers are forgiving of a few bugs on the first release, and the cost of putting out a fix is low. I had a friend who, years ago, explained that was why PC versions were always so buggy compared to the PS-II versions of the same game -- you can't send out new discs to everyone, but you can make PC users download a patch.

At some point the game will probably need a rewrite. But ideally it's after the game has caught on, and when you have a better idea of what changes and new features players want (or you want to port it, or internationalize it... ). In those cases the rewrite is more obviously a time-saver (since it takes longer to add features to your old jury-rigged junky code). I'm pretty sure you'll even see Patch 3.2 of various games saying "we completely rewrote the system for X"; and players are very excited (everyone knew X was wonky, and was preventing them from getting cool new features).

 

I would much rather rewrite a system in the game, not the entire game. e.g. Quests are buggy (extremely buggy or not, still buggy,) I'd proceed to rewrite my quests system, not the game itself. That's what updates and patches are for.

But for tremendously huge updates, e.g. "I want to expand the game world, I want to add a whole bunch of new features, etc." I'd be much better off just making a sequel to the first game, with those brand new changes.

@Owen-Reynolds said,

"At some point the game will probably need a rewrite. But ideally it's after the game has caught on, and when you have a better idea of what changes and new features players want (or you want to port it, or internationalize it...)"

..if you are going to completely reprogram a game with changes and new features players want, wouldn't that be better as a new game altogether, a sequel?

 

That depends on the sales model. If it's a $4.95 mystery in an old house that takes 6 hours to finish, sure, you make a new game -- no one is going to replay the already solved mystery with a nicer UI. But even then, say you've got 8 of them, popular, but new players finding your franchise are leaving bad reviews on mysteryGame#1 you made 3 years ago that it feels dated. That's when you upgrade the system -- but now it's easier since you waited.

I'm thinking of the freemium model, or at least pay-while-you-play systems. You've got a dungeon game which gets popular. People have upgraded stuff, spent on things ... they don't want to start over at "My dungeon Game 2". Plus those "other good games by me" page never works as well as you hoped. So that's when you can redo the pet AI, do the small rewrite to enable a restart+ feature, redo how poison works so different types can stack, fix the occasional 2-second-freeze-up glitch... . Your existing players will now keep spending money, hopefully also making it easier for new players to find it.

 

You have a good point, in dungeon games where people have already upgraded stuff and spent money on things, it would be a very poor choice to have the players start over and just make "My dungeon Game 2". But, you could possibly work-around this, by simply allowing the player to transfer their save from the first game to the second? Maybe it would a perk for those who bought the original game.

I agree though, that updating the existing game would be better than just creating a brand new game altogether, at least in terms of freemium or pay-while-you-play systems.

For example, Destiny 2. If they came out with Destiny 3 out-of-the-blue, after I spent lots of money on the expansions and upgrades, I would definitely be pretty upset. In fact, I'd probably quit the game series if that were to happen.

 

Stuff you learn goes into the next game. Don't be a fool.

 

I remember in a Extra Credits video (back when they made videos about making games still), they mentioned that all good devs have a 'For the Sequel' book. AKA, a compendium of things you want to do or add to the next game/sequel. Large rewrites no doubt go straight into that book.

 

This can't apply to all situations though, can it?

I agree, large rewrites would no doubt go into that book ('For the Sequel')

 

If it works and it's good enough, ship it. That is what everyone actually shipping games does.


Actually shipping.