Leila Johnston has a 6-minute video presentation she did at Ignite London recently about “Making Things Fast.” Not about speeding up stuff, but about making things very quickly.
It’s worth a watch, and it’s only 6 minutes long, but if you absolutely hate Internet video, here are the highlights, as interpreted by me:
- Let go of your standards and ambition (Let go of the future.)
- Let go of your ideas and collect them all the time so you always have new ideas. (Let go of the past.)
- Over time, motivation drops, so do things quickly and be inspired quickly.
- Improv. (Stay in the present.)
- Let go of credit and statements of intent.
It’s like a how-to be an ENFP. You know us– we’re the ones who start a project and get bored withing 6 months to 2 years and need to move onto something else, whether the previous project is finished or not. Believe me when I say this, deeply and sincerely– Leila’s views will not work for everyone. In fact, if not for the vast parts of humanity who need to analyze, drill into details, be perfect, and pay great attention to the whole project all the way through, no bridge would ever have reached completion.
I’m putting it here as a reminder to myself that the “14 in 2014” challenge is about the process of making games, not the product of 14 games. I think my Game Designer Meetup group doesn’t understand “process for the sake of process” except in a learning environment, so I find myself repeating that this is a method for learning, not (necessarily) doing.
Making Things Fast – by Leila Johnston from chichard41 on Vimeo.
I just started dipping my toes in the Game design space as well. I’ve got a 2-page zombie survival game I’m fiddling with. It’s definitely better for me to keep switching projects, and take the pressure off.
Out of curiosity, what kind of games are you looking to make? I like your musketgears game, along with other micro-rpgs like Everyone is John, Ghost Lines, or Lasers and Feelings. Do you think there’s a market for making bundles of micro-games? especially since they don’t have much replay value on their own?
Well, I don’t really worry about marketability, but I do follow some other micro-game designers, like Grant Howitt and Nathan Paoletta, both of whom have fairly successful projects on Patreon. I’m not sure micro bundles would sell as well as single, low-cost games, the way Nathan publishes them (his microgames are about $2/each for PDFs).
Also: Thanks for the kudos on Musketgears! I’m hoping to run it soon and see how it goes!