July 2019 Review

timbeaudet

  • Total income: $262.79 without personal investments
  • Total income: $4640.54 with personal investments
  • Total expenses: $29.99 + unspecified amount
  • Total hours: 178.25

While May and June were months spent skill building and planning out a new game project, July was focused on bringing that game into the world. The actual development started July 2nd due to the 1st being a Monday and practicing marketing skills. The first two weeks of the project was focused on physics and there were some real struggles. I desired the physics to be driftable but easy to pickup and drive and it took significant effort and many attempts to get something I was OKAY with. I still want to adjust slightly but at least it can work. The process went very smoothly after the physics bumps. The game, while remaining a small idea, is shaping up very well and players of the very first alpha test version played for days after, which is an amazing sign. The process went so smoothly that I was capable of starting the stretch goal of working on ghosts, however this will delay the alpha development slightly into August. It should be worth doing as it provides fairly significant value to competitive players. For a more detailed breakdown of finances,

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What was Learned

Good Process is Good The

Finish Good Games that Sell course that I took in May and June zoomed out to the overall picture of independent game development as a business. It reminded me about the purpose and idea behind various stages of development; like alpha being to reduce risk and prove the concept is fun. Not creating reasonable or good quality assets during the alpha development cycle GREATLY sped up the development.

Physics are Funky

Almost half the month was spent fighting the physics of my desired feeling of driving/drifting. Mixing custom physics with a physics engine, Bullet, is very difficult. For future projects I will need to schedule more time and be aware that it is a very frustrating period. I was tearing my hair out and annoyed with the lack of progress every day during the development of the driving physics.

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