作者：David Maletz

独立游戏开发领域聚集了大批希望在此实现游戏制作梦想的幻想家与乐观派。最近，我发现不少悲观文章力图阻挠开发者制作游戏，它们清晰展示出游戏开发的阴暗与困难面。坦白讲，游戏开发并非易事，在此过程中你会面临大量障碍。本文意在列举我在过去五年发现的某些障碍问题，这些都是真实情况。可能有点残酷，可能如我所言的“打算制作游戏的都是疯子！”然而，本文并非旨在阻止游戏开发者。相反，你可以借此从历经大量失败的开发者身上获取启发，从而让自己少走弯路。

indie game developer(from thefilmstage.com)

你很可能失败，尤其是首款游戏

你可能曾听过这种说法，但大部分独立游戏开发者都未能完成游戏制作。在你听过的每个成功故事背后，都暗藏着你闻所未闻的大量失败经历。作为独立游戏开发者，你可能是个乐观主义者，你可能认为自己与众不同——并认为你会成为罕见的成功者。然而，这种想法往往存在差错，只有接受自己可能会失败的事实，你才会付出额外努力，摒弃那些失败作品，最终取得成功。

90%的游戏开发过程很枯燥

你可能拥有某个自己感兴趣的创意。非常不错。项目之初总是充满趣味性与新鲜感，而且似乎所有事情均进展顺利。但这种状况并不会持续多久。事实上，游戏开发需耗费大量精力，而且这个过程并非总是充满乐趣。有时在开发过程中，尤其在需要长时间的项目中，你会慢慢厌倦创意与作品，此时，你会想出一些新点子。它们似乎更加出色，以致于你打算放下手头项目，立马动手进行，但在此之前你应谨慎思考。在启动当前项目之初，你也是这样认为，可能当你转变到其它项目后，你会面临同样境况，最后，你只会得到一些未成型作品。你应时刻牢记最初创意的有趣之处，坚持下去。虽然有时你不得不因为某个项目不可行而放弃它，但更多时候，你只是厌倦当前项目，想要开始新历程。这时，你应停下工作，呼吸新鲜空气，接着真正地考虑下自己的项目与最终目标。也许，你会发现自己只是对其中某些部分感到失望，你仍具有强烈的完成意愿。

游戏开发所需时间至少是预期的两倍

5年后，我开始擅长估计游戏开发所需的时间。在此，我主要使用一个简单的计算公式：制定出自己项目所需的时长后，将结果乘以2。便能得到完成该项目所需的实际时间。事实上，你总会在开发过程中遇到某些意外情况。在预计开发时间时，你可能会忽视某些特性、漏洞、设计弊端。就算是专家型游戏也会在时间与预算方面超支。在某款早期游戏中，我原本预计1个月便可完成，最后却耗费了我1年多的时间。而游戏开发时间超过预计结果往往会扼杀人们的工作积极性——如上所示，你会开始感到沮丧与厌烦。因此，假设这是保守估计，你应制定一些额外时间。如果游戏项目需要大量时间，不要缩短预计时长，而应试图减少游戏性能。

性能膨胀

获得新型游戏创意会让你分心，同样，你也会想在当前游戏中添加新性能。如果你不够谨慎小心，那么该游戏规模会在开发过程中扩大好几倍，最终成为失败品。有时，为了修复设计方面的差距，增添游戏性能是不可避免的方式，但你应“保持游戏的简单性”。某个具备最简单形式的项目也有可能与堆积大量功能的作品一样杰出。

与团队合作无法避免争论

尤其在开发过程中遇到障碍时，即使是与好友合作，也会存在不同见解，最终引发争论。不擅长团队领导，或与陌生人合作都有可能摧毁整个团队。我强烈建议学会聆听（这是我还未完全掌握的做法）。你应听取团队建议，保持平静有效的讨论——即使游戏中存在某些重大危机。如果需要的话，你可以再次停下手头工作。而且，你应确保自己与团队成员之间建立信任感，因此当引发某场争论时，即使你竭力制止，你仍可以在内部员工不分裂的情况下，解决问题。

注意漏洞

不要自以为可以编写出完美代码。其中也会存在漏洞，而且数目众多。在发行游戏之前，游戏需历经大量测试、调试与修改的过程。包含漏洞或糟糕界面的出色作品将不具可玩性。如果开发过程需要1个月的时间，那么你需要再投入1个月时间用于测试、调试与修改。根据“游戏开发所需时间是预计时长两倍”的规则，这种时间量应逐渐累加，也就是说，本来你认为1个月便可完成，实则需4个月时间！但你不能因为超时或厌烦而省略调试与修改步骤，这会给游戏带来巨大变化。比如，经过调试与修改的游戏，其平均赞助价格已上升4倍！两倍的工作量可以换取4倍的利益！

成型作品仍可能失败

完成游戏制作并非意味着项目结束——有些人认为这只是刚刚开始。在你完成游戏并发行到网上后，可能该游戏只会吸引一些玩家。甚至可能会获得差评。为什么它没有按照你的愿景收获良好反应呢？你不能仅拥有一款出色游戏，你还应为它推广！利用网络上的出色网站，不断推广游戏！游戏门户网站上的陌生玩家可能不会帮你推广游戏，尤其当它获得差评时——他们可能会投入30秒或1分钟，并没有看到游戏的特别之处。你应聚集一批粉丝，让他们真正体验你的游戏，而后进行相关推广，你还可以联系评论者，鼓励陌生玩家真正地体验游戏。你应向大众“兜售”游戏（即使它是免费模式）。而且，你的目标用户可能是个小众群体。因此，你应尽力让他们发现你的游戏，而后继续制作下一个项目。

许多项目均会以失败告终

你的手中可能拥有遗弃项目、未成型项目以及已发行项目，它们并未获得玩家青睐。其实，并非所有出自你之手的游戏都会成为热作，尤其是首个项目。我已经完成五款游戏制作（还有大量未成型作品），而我认为只有一款是成功的（即使它并非热作）。你不能假定自己的游戏创意十分出色，它在“成型”后可以立马取胜。如果你想在最终成功，你应准备好迎接那些艰难时刻、障碍与失败历程。

这些言辞是否让你对游戏制作丧失信心？那就不要从事这一行业。如果只是因为我（或其任何人）所说的不要制作游戏而让你放弃该领域，这只能说明了你并不适合游戏行业。如果你真心具备游戏制作的热情，那就不要让他人言语影响你的行动，你应从失败与负面游戏开发故事中受到启发。如果你不具备开发激情，那么你可以需考虑从事其它方面。我只热爱游戏开发，虽然通常情况下，其他领域的编程工作可能会为我带来更多收入。然而，开发游戏并不是为了获取大笔收益，而是做自己喜爱的事情，无论遇到哪些艰难险阻，仍能坚持自己的梦想。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The Dark Side of Indie Game Dev

by David Maletz

The indie game dev scene is filled with starry eyed, optimistic developers hoping to make the game of their dreams. Recently I’ve read several articles trying to discourage them and make itclear that there is a dark, difficult side to game dev. And I won’t lie – game development is not easy, and has many snags along the way. In this blog post, I will list some of the snags I

have found over five years, without sugarcoating anything. It may be harsh – it may sound like I’m saying “you’re crazy to want to make games!” However, this blog post is not particularlyto discourage you from game dev. Instead, it is here so that you can learn from a game developer who has had more failures than successes, and perhaps avoid or deal with some of the commonpitfalls that game developers face.

You are likely to fail. Especially your first time.

You’ve probably heard this before, but the vast majority of indie game developers fail to finish their game projects. For every success story you hear, there are literally thousands of failures you have probably never heard of. Since you’re an indie game dev, you are probably an optimist, so you might think it will be different for you – that you’ll be one of the rare few who succeed. This is false, and only by accepting the fact that you are likely to fail can you put in the extra effort and trample over failed games to eventually reach success.

Game development is only fun ~10% of the time.

You have a great idea that you are excited about. Awesome. Starting the project is fun and new, and everything seems smooth sailing. This will not last throughout the whole project. The simple fact is, games take a lot of work, and not all of it is fun. At some point during development, especially if it is a long development, you will grow tired of the idea and the work, and some new idea will come up. The idea will seem so much better that you will want to drop your current project and start that new idea immediately, however, think carefully before you do this. You thought the current idea was as amazing when you started, and likely if you switch projects, the same thing will happen, and you’ll just end up with several unfinished projects.

Try to remember what made your original idea so exciting, and try to stick with it. While sometimes you do have to drop a project because it’s not working out, more often you are just getting tired of the current project and want to start something new. Take a break, get some fresh air, and really think about your project, and your ultimate goals in making it. You’ll probably find that you were just frustrated with some aspect of it, and you still really want to finish it.

Game development takes at least twice as much time as you expect.

After five years, I’ve become pretty good at estimating how long games will take to make. I have a simple formula for determining this: decide how long the project will take. Now double the estimate. That is the actual time the project will take. The fact is, there will ALWAYS be something that you do not expect during game development. Some feature, some bug, some design flaw, something that you overlooked when estimating the development time. Even professional games are almost always over time and over budget, which is the cause of the much hated “crunch time.” Don’t let this catch you unawares, expect the unexpected, and pad the development time, especially if you are inexperienced. One of my earlier games that I thought would only take me one month ended up taking me over a year (no joke). And nothing kills motivation more than a game taking much longer than you expected – just like with the above point, you start to get frustrated and tired. So, assume your estimate is optimistic, and give yourself extra time. If the game project sounds like it will be too long, don’t just shrink the time estimate, try actually cutting features.

Feature bloat – it happens.

Just as you get ideas for new games to distract you, you also get ideas for new features for your current game. If you’re not careful, the game can bloat to several times its size during the development process, perhaps becoming insurmountable. Some amount of feature bloat is unavoidable as you find gaps in the game design that must be filled, but always try to “keep it simple, stupid” (KISS – a very important acronym for all developers to remember). The simplest form of a project can be just as great as something heaping with features.

If you’re working with a team, an argument will occur.

Even if you’re working with close friends, everyone will have different opinions, and arguments will occur, especially when the game hits a snag. If you are not talented at leading a team or you’re working with people you don’t know and trust, this could destroy your team. I strongly recommend listening, something I still haven’t learned perfectly. Listen to your team, and try to keep discussions calm and productive – even if there is some major crisis going on with the game. Again, take a breather if you need to. And, always make sure you build trust among your team, so that when an argument DOES occur despite all your efforts to stop it, you are able to work through it without anything falling apart.

There WILL be bugs!

Don’t kid yourself thinking that you write perfect code. There will be bugs, and more. Games need a lot of playtesting, debugging, and polishing before they are ready to release. A good game with bugs or a bad UI will be unplayable. If the development of the game takes a month, then you’ll most likely need another month for playtesting, debugging and polishing. And this stacks with the “game development takes twice as much time as you expect” rule, so that means that what you originally thought would be a one month game will likely take four months to make! However, don’t skimp on debugging and polishing just because you are overtime or don’t enjoy it, as it can make a huge difference for the game. For example, the average sponsorship price for one of my games (Drawscape) went up four times from just the polish and debugging! Twice the work yielding four times the reward (or more)!

Even if you finish the game, it might still die.

The completion of the game isn’t the end of the project – some would say it’s only the beginning. You finish the game, post it online, and maybe a few people play it. It might even get a bad rating. Why didn’t it get the amazing reception you dreamed it would? Unfortunately, you can’t just have a good game, you have to have good marketing as well! You need to network, have a great website, and market, market, market! Random strangers on game portals will not give your game much of a chance, especially if it already has a low rating – they may play for 30 seconds or a minute and not see what makes your game truly special. You need to have a following who really play your game and spread the word, and press contacts who will review it and encourage strangers to really play it. You need to “sell” the game to the public (even if it’s a free game). It’s also possible that your target audience is very niche. There’s not much you can do about that except try to help that niche find your game, and move onto your next project.

Many projects will fail.

You will have abandoned projects, incomplete projects, and projects that were released and not well received. The fact is, not every game you make will be a big hit – especially your first few projects. I’ve finished five games (with many more incomplete), and I only consider one of them a “success” (and even that one was by no means a big hit). You can’t assume your game idea is so great that it will “make itself” and instantly succeed. You have to be prepared for tough times, roadblocks, failure, failure, and more failure if you want to have any chance at eventual success.

Have I discouraged you from making games? Then don’t make games. If just me (or anyone else) telling you not to make games keeps you from making them, then you’re not cut out for it. There is an interesting story about this called the violin prodigy story: http://agbeat.com/real-estate-coaching-tutorials/the-violin-prodigy-inspiring-story-about-passion/ . If you truly have the burning passion to make games, then don’t let anyone else discourage you from making them, and use failures and negative game dev stories as examples to learn from. If you don’t have the passion, then you might want to consider doing something else. I love game development and wouldn’t prefer doing anything else, but it often seems like any other kind of programming work (corporate apps, etc) would make me a lot more money than game development does. But game development is not about making tons of money, it is about doing what you love, and sticking with your passion no matter what gets in the way.(source:gamasutra)