How to finish your side projects

The Birth of a Side Project

A long long time ago, I started working on a new project. A side project. I decided I wanted to make a fan game for my favourite D&D show, Critical Role. If you’re a game developer you know how dangerous these side projects can be. I think most developers have a virtual closet full of unfinished projects and half baked ideas.

The “Honeymoon” phase

Like with any new idea, I got super excited and dove into it head first, abandoning all my other projects. I was painting my butt off, writing down all these ideas, and built a little prototype scene super quick. Heck, I even made a video about it. But somehow… at some point.. the enthusiasm faded away, and the side project began gathering dust on my hard drive.

The “Blocked” phase

Now this can happen for many reasons. Maybe you discover that we actually needed a lot more art than you thought. Maybe the code all of a sudden got really complicated in order to do what you wanted, and you hit a block. For me, I was struggling to figure out how I was going to make a game with at least seven playable characters… all hand painted.. by myself. 

I’m sure this happens to lots of people, even with our main games. we get so excited that we under-estimate the scope that we set for ourselves. Sooner or later we look up from our computers and realize “Holy cheese, I have so. much. ahead of me.” And with that realization, the passion vaporizes. I’ve been dealing with these feelings of on-again, off-again passion and over the past year I’ve come to a conclusion on how to manage this.

Side Project Passion Vaporization

The answer for me is this: When the passion goes, I have to drastically alter the scope of my game. This can be really difficult for a lot of people. Because when you work on a project you become very committed to it, it becomes your baby, and you become very attached to all of your ideas. But you have to realize, that if you want to keep progressing with the is project, you’re going to have to shrink it down. Make it digestible. The old phrase “don’t bite off more than you can chew” comes to mind. 

Side Project becomes a Mini Game

The idea of mini games really really helped me. If I can make a “mini game” it means I can really flesh out a single idea completely, and finish it. This way it doesn’t drag on for so long as this huge painful project, but instead can be a little burst of inspiration that I can get out of your system and feel accomplished at the end. So I turned every game of mine into a mini game.

Scope change is REVERSIBLE

Now keep in mind – this is a reversible step. Scoping your project down to a mini game does NOT mean it has to stay as a mini game. Your scope, your ideas, your dreams, and all of your work isn’t going anywhere. What this allows you to do is create a sturdy and fundamental base game to build off of. It’s so so much easier to extend a completed game bit by bit than it is to just keep building and building and not knowing when or where it will end. With a completed game, every time you add something new, it’s pretty much still completed. It’s like… you’ll always have a working prototype. 

Scope reduction benefits

There are SO many benefits to this approach too. Yes it keeps your passion fresh, progress seems more substantial, the end is actually in sight, and that is motivating. From an internal and mental perspective, it just helps you with consistency.

But also on the outside, you’ll see how quickly it is for you to actually get your game in front of people. We know feedback is so essential. We know marketing is so essential. The more you can push out completed work, the more people can actually interact and engage with what you are making. Screenshots, gifs, videos, devlogs – they can get you pretty far. But having an actual game that people can play – even if it’s CRAP – fosters so much more of a connection with the people who you will ultimately want to sell future games to. Build up a back and forth.

Ship it quick! Then Ship it again!

Don’t be afraid of “spoiling it” and don’t be afraid of someone stealing your ideas. This can happen even with a completed game. This stuff doesn’t matter. Get you work infront of your audience ASAP. Use everything at your disposal. Fail more. Ship more crap. This is how you learn! Then add your juicy ideas on top of your foundation bit by bit and you will make something SO incredible. Then Ship it again!

Progress levels MAXIMIZED!

To me, this is huge. This has helped me SO much in my game dev process. I turned my main game into a bunch of sequential mini games. Every level is a new game. Now I’ve turned my side project into a mini game too. I cut out all characters and just kept one. I used a scene from the show as my inspiration, and just made a small game to demonstrate that funny scene. And now, look. I have a finished game. Now my head is BURSTING with ideas for more fan games for this series. There are at least 7 characters. Maybe I can make a mini game for each character? Instead of trying to make a big fricking RPG where you play as a team or something. 

Good for new/beginner game developers (like me!)

I know a lot of people are really attached to the idea of making a big awesome long cool-ass game with a story and all these mechanics and blah blah blah. For me, I just want a consistent and ever-improving production of games. Why not just make a bunch of little ones for now? Especially while I’m still learning.

We’ve seen this model before

Think of it like youtube. You sit down and watch your favourite youtuber’s weekly video for like 12 minutes and get a wee bit of entertainment and education from it. Why not sit down and play your favourite game developer’s new game once a month or whenever they release it? And then you get your hour-or-so’s worth of entertainment. It’s no secret that we all have attention spans that are short as heck. Not to mention that the game industry is booming these days.. the competition of getting your game seen is becoming kind of outrageous. Maybe when we are just getting started it’s actually quantity over quality that matters. There’s a term often used in business building – “fail fast and fail often” – get your inevitable failures out of the way quickly so you can learn what works and double down on that.

What about MONEY, Julia? 

With that all being said, I cannot speak for the monetization aspect of this approach. It’s new to me, I’m still learning. I don’t make any money right now. I get like $13 dollars a month on patreon and have had maybe like $20 worth of donations on ko-fi. And that’s cool. I’m still figuring it out. But I do know that building an audience is a very important step to building a business. And that requires consistency, authenticity, and often a lot of experimentation. I’m definitely in the experimentation part. 

In Conclusion, Make More Games

OK so ramble over. I am done this mini game. I initially was just going to make a regular devlog about it but I felt like this conversation is more important, considering most of the people who read these blogs are fellow game developers who might be struggling with the same thing. Go and give my game a try and let me know how it sucks.

 
PS: I know it sucks to kill seagulls and crabs in a game. This was just a part of the story. The character went to the beach, and decided she wanted to kill a bunch of seagulls. She’s a goblin, what can you do. I apologize for any guilt you may feel in playing this game.

That’s all! I hope this helped you. If you wanna see what I’m up to these days you can reach out to me on twitter and instagram. Until next time, happy devving my friends!

Julia

This blog post has a video version