About devlog

The goal of the blog for me was, as I wrote in a previous article, to increase motivation in the development and completion of the game (and to feed graphomania a little more). At the same time, this blog will be interesting for you for the following reasons:

• I will tell you about the technical details in the development, it will be useful for developers. In general, it is part of our job to look for new technical solutions and convenient analogues to the options already studied. You can't stand on the same thing, do the same thing on the same foundation (hello, Starfield).
• I'll tell you about the development process, what I did besides writing code and where I got it. Modeling, rig, animation, voice acting, effects, game design, AI, localization, services, testing, well, project management, and later distribution. Have I forgotten anything? Actually, a lot has come out somehow, it may seem that game development is hard work. It didn't seem like it.
• I will tell you about the problems and solutions that have arisen. I will immediately indicate that I try to solve the problem immediately without crutches. "If you want to insert a crutch, immediately hit your hands," my supervisor told me at my previous job.
• Let's draw a little more outside of the project itself. For example, what kind of AI are there in games and what choice did I make.

Hard work. Regarding this, it is worth mentioning that it is not so difficult to make prototypes or small games, games that do not contain localization into other languages. Modeling, rig and animation can be assigned to another person in the team or simply taken as ready-made assets from the Internet. It's hard to make a game alone. For example, the developer Stardew Valley made the game alone. The developer took over writing music, drawing, and animation, and as he improved his skills, he redid the ready-made parts of the game many times. Let's not forget about the financial difficulties (I had to work as an usher in the theater) and the expectations on the part of the players and the publisher, who still did not see the release of the game. Eric Barone is a very creative person, but still a human being. And also making a game of one is a long time, the processes do not go in parallel, crunches (recycling) appear. At one point, he fell asleep right at the table. In the end, the game came out and received many awards, but it is unlikely that you would want to plunge into such a process knowing all these details. As in cooperative games, friends do everything better: if you don't do it alone, it's already good.

 Advise. Don't do everything alone, it's boring and long, it's really hard. Don't reinvent bicycles, use ready-made solutions, and reuse your best practices.

Crunches. I have not yet felt this word for myself, because I made the game quietly, which does not limit me in the duration of development. I want to do it, I don't want to do it. Of course, when publishing a project, no one still obliges me to do everything quickly. Let's look at this question from the other side: instead of stretching the process, there is a motivation to continue.

 Advise. Even if you are tired, do not abandon the project. Almost all the games that I started myself, I have not completed. It's better to do at least bit by bit: close a tiny task or correct one line in the code, download one sound or model and add it to the project.

When I once again abandoned one of the games, I thought it was worth taking something smaller, not making a full-fledged game. So I, alone, and often as part of a small team (even two people – a team), released several assets in the Unity Asset Store.

Is it interesting? In any case, I will continue to write articles and make the game, but if you have an opinion, advice or criticism, write in the comments. It will be good for both of us.

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