Gamedev tips : Getting Things Done

So you have this idea you’ve been planning in your head for so long, talking about it to your friends like ‘I’ve been thinking about making a cool game, or shooting a short film, writing on the blog, updating a game, buying a book’ etc etc but never really done anything about it. It’ll remain that way unless you kickstart it. You see, that whenever you sit down to start working on it, you feel headaches, your mind goes blank, can’t think of anything, you might as well see some movie, check facebook or twitter or hang out with some friends and postpone this to another time. So here’s the first tip to getting things done.

Stop Talking. Start Doing. Now. (courtsey:someecards.com)

1. Force Start

Yes. You must force yourself to get over that urge to back out, to cross over that mountain of procrastination, to get that inertia. If you are making a game, just start with a background and a character and a basic interaction. This won’t count for anything for the final game, but just the output you see will likely to get you going on to the next stage, then to next and finally in that flow of mind where you keep adding final touches, which brings forward the next tip, ie.

2. CheckLists

Check lists are awesome. I prefer to have checklists on paper. Its like you divide the tasks into smaller tasks (smaller the better) and you just tick off the things after you done. I was not a fan of checklists in the past, but looking back at the checklists in my notebooks, i can see how incredibly useful it is in getting the tasks completed. It also keeps your focus on small things, when without it you might have the whole game in your mind, but might get confused about the task at hand. So start making lists and tick them as you complete it. It gives you a whole lot of motivation and feeling of things are finally becoming reality.

Here’s one of the numerous lists i made during Cut-it Game

Cut-it : Alpha Version

Top Priorities

– Tutorial for updown/freeze mode
– Cutit Teaser trailer
– HUD Click sounds
– Fix flickering centre anim & color
– Handle lost context

Mid Priorities

– Fix gem collect between tween
– Reduce bickering sounds
– Medal got sound
– Gravity reverse sound

Low Priorities

– Plants for kids mode
– Level complete Text change
– feedback form
– Scissor smooth
– indicate no cut sign in precut

Hope this helps 🙂