So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything for #iDevBlogADay, or indeed this blog in general. But it’s a brand new year, and thus a chance for new beginnings!
This post is going to be about my indie game development New Year’s Resolutions; three things that I’ve resolved myself to doing in 2012 for Tiny Tim Games. If nothing else, it’ll give a sense of where I would hopefully like to go this year, and also possibly motivate you to make your own indie game dev resolutions.
1. Release at least one new game in 2012
So 2011 was a rough year for Tiny Tim Games, as we had no new releases, lots of false starts, and lots of things to distract us from working on games (daughter, day job, etc). The thing is, these things are still here, and until we make bajillions from one of our future breakout hits, that situation isn’t going to change.
But I still have the passion to be creative. I still want to create my own worlds for others to play in and enjoy. So my first resolution is to release a brand new Tiny Tim Game in 2012. Hopefully, giving ourselves an entire year to accomplish the goal will help the time not be so stressful. After all, our 9 month old daughter is about one step away from walking, so finding additional development time isn’t going to come easy.
2. Work on the game I WANT to make
This sounds like a natural thing to do. I mean, isn’t that why you become indie? To make the games you actually want to make? Well, after the very modest success of Sheepstacker and Word Monkey, I had wanted to make a few games that were quick and simple and could possibly generate some cash flow for us to work on some of our more ambitious projects.
The problem with this is that I didn’t really have any passion for those projects. Safety First, Sol Defender. While they each had some interesting qualities about them, and I may want to return to parts of them in the future, there has been one game I’ve been wanting to do since mid-2009.
It’s always seemed too ambitious though, at least from an artistic standpoint. We’ve already spent quite a lot of money trying to bring the game to life, only to end up with 1/3 of the art we need, and no way of funding the remainder of the project. But it’s the project I most want to do and have wanted to do for a year and a half now. So I’m committing myself to finding some way to make it happen.
One thing I’ll be doing to make this happen is to leverage pre-made art from online sources. Personally, I’d rather have completely original art, but as I’m not an artist and I can’t afford one, I don’t really see any other option. I’m guessing the greater population of iOS gamers don’t browse TurboSquid or the Unity Asset Store, so the chance of them running into these assets in the wild is pretty small.
3. Be more social
As I’m quite shy, I’m really bad a networking. I just don’t have the ability to walk into a room full of people and join in on a conversation. Unfortunately, if no one knows about you, it’s really hard to get the word out about games.
So I’m challenging myself to be more active in the indie game dev community. I haven’t been to any of the conferences over the past few years (partially due to lack of funds), but I never really placed them as a priority. My plan this year is to hit both GDC and WWDC, and maybe a smaller conference here or there. I’ll also be trying to blog more regularly (with the help of #iDevBlogADay), especially about the new project.
That’s all for this time. Hopefully, my next post will have some tantalizing information about the new game. See you then!
