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Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

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Re: Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

#12
post #4

Based on the timestamps on the video it seems like 2 months were spent building the core game functionality. The remaining 2 months were pretty much used to polish the game. Is that the case with most indie games? ~50% core gameplay and ~50% polish.

I would say the 50/50 rule holds true for most software, not just games. Although most people usually express it as the 80/20 rule where 20=the other 80%.

Re: Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

#13

It's interesting to me that the thing you started with was the flipping disk. Reminds me of some blogposts from a year or two ago about 'juicy' interaction, and why it's important.

"Juice it or lose it" is the best presentation I've seen on the matter. It's really funny and it clearly show how adding some bouncing or some particles can completely change the feel of a game (or UI) http://youtu.be/Fy0aCDmgnxg

Awesome talk! Thank you for sharing.

Re: Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

#14

It's interesting to me that the thing you started with was the flipping disk. Reminds me of some blogposts from a year or two ago about 'juicy' interaction, and why it's important.

"Juice it or lose it" is the best presentation I've seen on the matter. It's really funny and it clearly show how adding some bouncing or some particles can completely change the feel of a game (or UI) http://youtu.be/Fy0aCDmgnxg

That sounds a lot like what Tim Rogers calls "friction".

Re: Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

#16
post #11

Fascinating way to view the development of an app. I'd love for more developers to do this!

Do you think it would be better with commentary and unedited?

For instance, imagine watching a 20 minute video of the dev trying to get the discs spinning with the textures? It'll be like the Let's Play[0] videos on YouTube of people playing a video game with commentary (usually unrehearsed) except this time the person is writing code and switching between their IDE and StackOverflow.

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya2mm6iwiKs

Re: Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

#18
post #11

Fascinating way to view the development of an app. I'd love for more developers to do this!

Do you think it would be better with commentary and unedited? For instance, imagine watching a 20 minute video of the dev trying to get the discs spinning with the textures? It'll be like the Let's Play[0] videos on YouTube of people playing a video game with commentary (usually unrehearsed) except this time the person is writing code and switching between their IDE and StackOverflow. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch…

Maybe not unedited, but definitely commentary would be cool :)

Re: Show HN: Four months of indie game dev

#19
post #4

Based on the timestamps on the video it seems like 2 months were spent building the core game functionality. The remaining 2 months were pretty much used to polish the game. Is that the case with most indie games? ~50% core gameplay and ~50% polish.

I would say the 50/50 rule holds true for most software, not just games. Although most people usually express it as the 80/20 rule where 20=the other 80%.

"Writing the first 90 percent of a computer program takes 90 percent of the time. The remaining ten percent also takes 90 percent of the time and the final touches also take 90 percent of the time." -- N. J. Rubenking
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