Some People Just Won’t Listen to Good Advice

Phew, I’ve had an exhausting few days getting a project back on track, and am kicking myself.

You see, I ignored my own advice. Simple advice I’ve mentioned many times, solidly based on direct and indirect experience:

Unless you have a big budget and loads of time, avoid developing games that require numerous manually-created, carefully-designed levels. It’ll always take far longer than you think and sap your will to live.

— Me, on numerous occasions

So of course, when considering the concept for a sequel to a successful little Flash game, I proposed an idea that demanded dozens of hand-crafted screens (the original had 5), over 100 illustrations/animations and gameplay that needed to be carefully-balanced to avoid becoming tedious. I’m an idiot.

Anyway, the finished game contains some great work, but it was a hard slog and the overall result is lacklustre. It’s a typical sequel, trying to be better by being bigger while losing sight of what made the original appealing. To put it in simple geeky terms, I was hoping for Empire Strikes Back but ended up with Phantom Menace.

I’m now considering having the quote above tattooed in reverse on my forehead so I have to read it in the mirror every day.

Wed 2nd Nov 2005, 10:08pm GMT

Filed under: Client-side Coding, Design, Games and Multimedia, Rants and Grumbles