Author: Gianfranco Berardi

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 576 (previous three years) + 98.25 (current year) = 674.25 / 1000
Game Ideas: 775 (previous three years) + 3 (current year) = 778 / 1000

I decided to take it easy this past week. I’ve caught up on bills and cleaning, but I still managed to get a little bit of work in on Sea Friends. I’m learning PHP and MySQL, which should help me do more hands-on development for my current Facebook app as well as prepare me for future apps. Sea Friends seems to be slowly but surely gaining a following, and I’d like to see what I can do to give people more incentives to tell their friends about it.

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 576 (previous three years) + 93.25 (current year) = 669.25 / 1000
Game Ideas: 775 (previous three years) + 3 (current year) = 778 / 1000

I have been a bit busy these past couple of weeks, and as of this past Saturday, I can finally show what I’ve been up to. If you have a Facebook account, please take a look at my latest release, Sea Friends! I’ve taken Walls, and I’ve added a theme, a ranking system, and a way to protect coral reefs while playing.

Now that the game is released, I expect to have a good post-mortem up shortly. I’ve learned a lot in the past month. And the best part is that this year I’ve already released two games! I wanted to be more productive when it came to game development, and I’m finally seeing what that would look like in my life.

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 576 (previous three years) + 53.25 (current year) = 629.25 / 1000
Game Ideas: 775 (previous three years) + 3 (current year) = 778 / 1000

I had another fairly productive week, but I had to take massive action at the end to have something to show for it. If you check the Walls page, you will see the latest version of the game in Flash format, as well as downloads for Windows and GNU/Linux with the updates.

This past week I learned a lot about the perils of outsourcing, but I also learned that even when your project looks hopeless, you can still do things to get the project on track again.

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 576 (previous three years) + 38.25 (current year) = 614.25 / 1000
Game Ideas: 775 (previous three years) + 0 (current year) = 775 / 1000

I think this past week has been my most productive week! Since I’ve released Walls for Windows and GNU/Linux, I’ve been interested in having a web version of the game made available. I’ve been working with someone else on integrating it with a website, and it’s amazing the progress that has been made so far! What’s more, I’ve also been outsourcing significant parts of the work, so even more work is getting accomplished than the hours above would make it seem. There’s only so much time in a day that I can make use of, so leveraging the skills of others can help advance the progress of a project much more than going it alone. After another week, I expect to be finished with this project, and I plan on writing up a post-mortem about the experience.

I will say that out of all the business books I’ve read, I’ve always skipped past topics involving management since I never planned on hiring employees. Now I find that I need to brush up on the skill.

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 576 (previous three years) + 18.25 (current year) = 594.25 / 1000
Game Ideas: 775 (previous three years) + 0 (current year) = 775 / 1000

I spent this past weekend working on my submission for MiniLD #6. The rules were pretty cool: each participant will be making a level for a larger game. There will be an overriding theme for everyone, and each person must claim a unique secondary theme. I wasn’t sure how well the combined game would work, but the primary theme was Monochrome, which I thought was a brilliant way to make all the individual levels seem like part of an integrated whole. For my secondary theme, I picked Guardian.

You can see my submission at the Ludum Dare website.

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

For this week’s Thousander Club update:

Game Hours: 576 (previous three years) + 6 (current year) = 582 / 1000
Game Ideas: 775 (previous three years) + 0 (current year) = 775 / 1000

The first week of 2009 was a short one, and I’m off to a slow start. I spent the majority of my time working on using NSIS to create a Windows installer for Walls, which is otherwise a finished game. NSIS turns out to be a lot less straightforward than I expected. While I understand scripting an installer, it would be nice to have it automatically create the uninstaller that will completely remove all trace of the game regardless of where the player installs it. The installer would know more about what its doing than I would, but I’m expected to write a full-proof script? People keep suggesting Inno Setup, but since my build environment is my Debian machine, I’d like to keep my build process as simple as running a single command and waiting for the GNU/Linux and Win32 builds to get created automatically. I want no manual steps, and I don’t want to require a Windows machine to be involved in the process.

I know I’m just learning what NSIS is capable of, but I’m still surprised there isn’t an Easy Script option that says, “Anything you install, this uninstaller will remove, no matter where the player installs it.” I’ve made significant progress, and just a bit more time will see a finished installer ready. Still, with all this hassle, I can see why web apps are so appealing. Installing is just uploading to my own server. B-)

[tags]game, game design, productivity, personal development, video game development, indie[/tags]

In the last three years, I’ve been participating in The Thousander Club. Scott Hsu-Storaker started in back in 2006 after reading my blog post called Action vs Waiting, Practice vs Talent, which focused in part on the idea that to become an expert on a topic, you need to put in a lot of practice. Expert chess players have put in thousands of hours over many years to hone their skills. They don’t necessarily have natural talent. They couldn’t have been born knowing what to do. They simply focused their time and efforts on getting better. They practice. A lot.

From my old post:

10,000 hours over the course of 10 years might make you a master, and it sounds daunting. Well, yeah. It is. That’s a lot of dedicated hours. But 1,000 hours is doable within a year if you work full time, and you can be an experienced expert. Already have something taking up your full time? 100 hours can be done on the side, and you can still be somewhat of an expert. 10 hours could be a dedicated weekend or spread over a few of them, and you’ll definitely learn enough to be dangerous. Even dedicating an hour to a task will give you practice with the basics.

Scott is a 3D artist, and so he records how many models he creates. His goal is 1,000 3D models. I liked the idea of the club so much that I participated, and I’ve been keeping track of the number of hours of game development I’ve put in. I’ve also been keeping track of the number of game ideas I come up with.

Over three years, I’ve managed 576 hours of game development and 773 775 game ideas. It’s far short of the 1,000/year goal for each, but it’s progress. My first year I did 262 hours, and the second year I did only 146 hours. Last year I did 166 hours, which is a slight improvement, but I obviously still haven’t done as well as the first year. Using these numbers, I can measure myself against myself. I’d like to see 1,000 hours hit this year, but it is going to take a lot more dedication and focus than I’ve been giving in the past. Through 576 hours of game development over the past few years, I’ve learned a lot, and I look forward to the experience I will gain this coming year.

1,000 hours in a year comes out to about 3 hours per day. That’s doable if you are focused. You could even skip a day or two and double up on the weekends. Will you join the Thousander Club this year?