[HN Gopher] Joys of Small Game Development ___________________________________________________________________ Joys of Small Game Development Author : ingve Score : 90 points Date : 2023-10-07 06:08 UTC (16 hours ago) (HTM) web link (abagames.github.io) (TXT) w3m dump (abagames.github.io) | justinlloyd wrote: | Read it. I cannot say whether the concept of a manifesto for | small games is a worthwhile endeavour. It sounds like an | ideology, a stricture on creative thought, and then you start the | endless debates as to what qualifies, and audiences bifurcate | into "but what does it _mean_?" | | That said, I like to make what I have often referred to as "$10K | games." If I was being paid a realistic hourly rate to implement | an idea, what could I do for $10,000 USD? $10K is one month of | household burn rate (for me), and so I can aptly weigh the | decision of "outsource this or do it myself?" It gives a very | clear budgetary limitation. | | And sure, you could "work for free" or "get a friend to help out | for a pizza" or "well if someone in a LCOL country could do it, | that's like two years worth of income." | | But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point. | | The question is "could _I_ implement this idea for $10K, if I | were being paid the $10K? Would _I_ be willing to set aside all | other possible endeavours to work on this, if _I_ were being paid | $10K for it?" | | And so we get in to how to make a game that has a definite end, | that somewhat fulfills the ideal of the small games manifesto, | but still gives you enough creative freedom to achieve your goals | whilst still shooting yourself in the foot by spending too many | hours tweaking the individual pixels in a piece of artwork. | | A $10K game, for me, could be a day's worth of work writing code | and $9000 worth of outsourced artwork to make it beautiful. Or it | could be two or three weeks of intense labour, flying solo, | creating the art, music and code because you simply need that | itch scratched. The game then becomes secondary to the importance | of the creative endeavour itself. | usea wrote: | $10k budget is no less arbitrary than anyone else's definition. | TerrifiedMouse wrote: | Only read the first page but is this a manifesto? I read it | like a guide on how to start programming (what the author | considers/calls) small games for fun. It's just guide, you can | do whatever you want. If something isn't working for you just | deviate from it. | bobthepanda wrote: | The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao. | sillysaurusx wrote: | I love how you quantify your burn rate. I've been living off | savings in much the same scenario. Mine is $6k. | | Do you want to compare notes? I'm really curious to ask for | details on where your burn rate adds up. Mine is half mortgage | at around $2700/mo, but I've been surprised and a bit dismayed | that an additional $3k per month seems inevitable. I've been | trying to trim it as much as possible while still living life, | but a lot of it is just... life things. | | It's ok if you don't want to go into details. | justinlloyd wrote: | I would state it in person, but not on an indelible public | forum. | | In descending order of expense: Insurances > food > mortage > | utilities > rent > hobbies > travel > cleaning > maintenance | > takeout. | meheleventyone wrote: | TBH this sounds like exactly the same thing it's just you've | put an economic lens on it. Has all the associated problems | with bike shedding and 'what does it mean'. | ckmiller wrote: | This appears to be by Kenta Cho, a.k.a. ABA games, who has a long | history of writing wonderful small games in D. His work is well | worth checking out. https://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/ | silenced_trope wrote: | Yes! I know this guy's work. | | I haven't visited this site in years though. I wonder if mobile | games are the reason why. I stopped playing a lot of | web/flash/html5 games a long time ago when gaming (for me) | moved to the app store. | | But I recognized the name and remember playing a lot of these | games back in the day. | | I always thought they were delightful. Building off a single | game mechanic or two and then moving on to the next concept. | The dev has a good system in place for shipping :) | jncfhnb wrote: | I feel like HN is on a kick right now with this concept of | "small games". | | But folks are tripping over the definition of small. There's | the small as defined in the link you have, small as in low | mechanic and low content like "Gone Home", small as in asset | flips, small as in just not AAA, small as in really intricate | but not large, small as in procedurally huge but limited | visuals and simple mechanics, small as in just a dating sim or | porn, and then small as in old school "small games" like Doom | Guy's Commander Keen which is cute and good at the time but | laughably unpolished for todays standards. | TulliusCicero wrote: | I assumed small was referring to how much time/effort it | takes to make them. | bobthepanda wrote: | Since the beginning of the industrial era, people have been | looking for side artisan-gigs to distract from how droll | their day job is. This isn't particularly different than | woodworking, gardening, knitting and the legion of other | hobbies used for this purpose. | mejutoco wrote: | I do not think at the early industrial revolution people | looked for artisan-gigs, considering the hours, child | labour, and general lack of safety. | | Happy to be proved wrong, I find that period very | interesting. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-07 23:00 UTC)