Narraesthetics
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

If I was to give advice to other indie developers, I’d have to go with this:

Build first, design later

Beginning my journey of an indie dev as a game designer wasn’t the best thing to do. Of course, I didn’t know any better and I’m glad I’ve taken this journey, but it’s dawned on me that I’ve made things much more difficult than they needed to be.

I’ve heard advice similar to mine stated as “just start doing stuff.” How I took that advice (since I was looking to design a game) was “Start designing games NOW”…which of course isn’t a terrible assumption but flawed nonetheless.

See the reason I say “design later” is because when you’re learning a craft, it’s typical to not understand a lot of the fundamentals…but…in order to design and build something, you need to understand the fundamentals. So mixing a beginner and a master mind doesn’t really work and yet I’m trying to do just that.

Building things up out of fundamentals is known as “bottom up design” and it’s how most people create art. For example, when I’m making music, I typically start with a blank project in FL Studio and just start messing around with sounds until I find something I like and then start building on top of that. I DON’T go into the project with a preconception of how my song will turn out. Though, with this game I’m currently developing, I’m starting out with a design and am trying to find out how to make it all work from the “top-down.” In this kind of work, it gets remarkably discouraging.

So if someone were to ask my advice about how to get started in game development, I’d tell them to just learn the engine and create. Don’t write up drafts, don’t follow tutorials, don’t make a clone of some already existing game. Learn the fundamentals, then just start making things. See what’s interesting, see what works and what’s fun. Follow your inner drive and just create STUFF. Then, when you’ve made several things and gotten comfy with the atmosphere, start trying to make a more focused game. After you actually understand what you’re doing and you feel good in your environment, you’ll be able to start focusing techniques and fully realize ideas.

)
Narraesthetics

Written by

We tell stories through players