Why New Indies Should Start with a Small Project; or "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?"
Why New Indies Should Start with a Small Project; or “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
The One-word Answer: Practice.
The 700-ish Word Answer: I’ve always been an advocate of new indie developers starting with smaller projects before tackling larger, more commerical projects. A lot of other people have given the same advice over the years.
Unfortunately, in the past couple years, the advice “Do a small project first” has morphed into “Build a casual game first, to make some money so you can afford to make the game you want to make.”
It’s time for the former to re-assert itself over the latter.
There are plenty of very good reasons to build a small game as your first indie project:
In other words: While your first project might make money, that’s not the point of the project. Your primary goal with a first project should be to get experience–in everything. Being an indie is often the same as being the chief-cook-and-bottle-washer of any small business: If it’s going to get done, you’re almost certainly doing it.
If, by some stroke of luck, you get rich off your first project: Rock on. If not: Who cares? This project served other purposes.
The focus on building a casual game first, on the other hand, intentionally or unintentionally, puts the emphasis on making money. It also puts an artificial limit on possible projects. Casual games are/were a good fit for a first project, since they usually have a simple design and the resource requirements aren’t extreme. But there are far more games that can be made than will fit in the “casual” or “core” categories. Why limit yourself to match-3 or card games?
Further, focusing on the monetary return (where bigger is the only possible definition of better) puts a burden on the project, and on the development team. The project moves from “Let’s give this indie thing a try” to “I better clear at least $25,000 or I’ve just wasted 6 months of my life.” This is the same difference visible between investing and gambling. One is a calculated risk taken with resources that you can afford to lose. The other is a mad dash for the end of the rainbow, sink or swim, with no pot of gold and sinking being the most common outcomes.
Being an indie doesn’t have to be a gamble, and you can learn as you go. “Practicing” on a simple, yet still complete and salable, project can provide you with valuable experience that you will be able to use and build on with the projects that follow.
-David
I agree with what you say. I had to be reminded about the purpose of my current project when I got discouraged about my progress. I had planned to have it finished in a month since it didn’t seem that complicated. Of course, when I started, I anticipated that it might be more complex and expected delays, especially since I don’t have any experience with planning schedules.
My only other experience was June’s Game in a Day, and that was an arbitrarily hard limit on my time. I was supposed to get as much as I could done within 24 hours, whether I was successful or not.
Another thing I realized was that doing a clone, no matter how true to the original, would also make for good practice. I had always avoided clones as my own projects because I thought I could do better. But everyone does “Hello, World!” when they first program. Everyone draws fruit on a table when they first learn to be artists. So obviously there should be some projects that everyone does to learn about game development.
Of course, if you are going into business as an indie, your clone better not be too clone-ish, but that’s just practice in dealing with trademarks and copyrights, right?
My plan at one point was to knock out a really simple game in just one week, borrowing an old arcade game concept as GBGames recommends above. And then make a crude web site and set up order and payment processing, just as if I actually intended to sell the thing. (Of course nobody would ever want to buy it, but that’s wasn’t the point.) The only thing I wouldn’t be getting a taste of is marketing.
The only reason this isn’t my plan now is simply because I’ve changed directions and won’t actually be making games in the near future.
Funnily enough, earlier today I was reading about the Agile “Spike Solution” concept. Very apropos, I’d say:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?SpikeDescribed
“Thumbnail: You don’t know how some domain works, so… Build a minuscule, core solution – discover what the domain really consists of.”
Joe Indie on starting small
A good post over at Joe Indie about why indies should start with a small project before moving on to bigger things. He states the main benefits of this approach as:
Experience with the entire software development process.
Experience shipping sof…
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