We finally released our second beta of Amazing Brok. This release cycle took about twice as long as I had planned (4 weeks, instead of 2). I think the issue was we planned on too much for this release. We completed everything we planned, but it was just too much for a 2 week time frame.
With that in mind for the next release, beta 3, I’m just looking to add 1 new stage and to address any issues that came out of this build. I’m going to schedule 3 weeks for this release. Let’s see how this goes.
(Note: The article was originally published May 4th, 2011 on nerdnightgames.com)
I’ve switched gears a few times in the last week. I found a guy that is helping with art and ideas, which has been incredibly motivating since he is as excited about making something as I am. The cool thing is we come up with lots of ideas together. The bad thing is we come up with lots of ideas together.
I’m sure this is a common problem; it certainly has been for me. In a typical scenario, the ratio of ideas to implementations is huge. Even if we could magically filter out the bad ideas (magic because how else would you know they were bad ahead of time), we would still have more ideas than implementations.
We have, however, been able to refine the idea for the game we’re working on now. And the design is really coming together. We have a simple game concept, a silly backstory that gives us good room to expand on mechanics, and a few types of motivators that (hopefully) don’t feel forced. There is also a continuous discovery process for the player to engage in, that I think will be very fun.
All this wrapped up in a simple interface and some cartoonish graphics. I feel like we have a successful game design, now it’s all up to execution.