作者：Pascal Bestebroer

自从今年2月份以来，我便一直致力于我的下一款游戏，并且我们计划在明年1月份发行这款游戏，即总共需要11个月的开发时间。我们将把这些时间分成4个阶段，即从非常有趣的游戏开发时期到非常现实且充满压力的发行阶段。

而现在我正处于新游戏开发的第3阶段：这是一款以太空为背景的回合制街机行动混合rogue游戏。以下便是我的电梯游说内容！

有趣的事实：最初我计划在7月或8月完成并发行游戏，或者是9月。但是现在已经10月了，所以我们将最终发行日期定在016年1月。

我认为这是任何独立开发者或多人开发团队都应该了解的内容。

阶段1：创建原型，这是个有趣的阶段

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通常这都是一个较有趣的部分，很多开发者都会经历这一阶段。你将尝试各种东西！首先是一些关于游戏机制的有趣想法，或者一些好玩的动画，而这一切只是关于你想要创造的内容的初步设想。

这也是游戏jams如此受欢迎的原因。在这一阶段什么事都有可能发生，如果出现某些不可行的内容，你便需要重新开始尝试一个全新的理念。

如果你是真正依赖于游戏开发，那么你可能遇到需要坚持一个原型或选择替代方法的情况：所以在开始创造前你必须先确定一个真正可行的理念，如此你才能更快速地创造出收益。

而如果你进行游戏开发仅仅只是出于兴趣或者并非将其作为主要收入来源，那么你可能会花好几个月时间去创建原型甚至不会获得任何结果，但因为这是游戏开发中最有趣的部分，所以谁在乎结果呢！

对于《Space Grunt》，因为我制定了一个很明确的计划，所以我在第一周便创建出了游戏原型：创造一个基于科幻世界的回合制游戏背景。但是因为我们从未玩过回合制游戏，所以我不知道怎样做更好，所以在第2阶段便开始出现问题了。

阶段2：流线化概念并决定截止日期

因为充满热情，所以在这一阶段我还是非常努力地尝试将游戏原型变成一款完整的游戏。

你会想象自己将创造出一款最出色的游戏（但事实却不会如此），游戏将拥有所有很酷的内容，并且你所投入的几个月时间都将得到回报。

因为每一个游戏项目都会到达一个转折点，即你的游戏可能变成一款真正的游戏或变成一个失败的项目。有时候一个失败的项目只需要在关键部分做出一点改变便有可能变成一款真正的游戏，但有时候一款游戏可能就会成为一个白白浪费你宝贵时间的失败项目。

在《Space Grunts》中，这样的转折点来得特别快，应该是在2个月后，即我最终决定了游戏玩法的一些关键元素，游戏突然变得可游戏并且只需要添加一些额外的内容便能够完成。

阶段3：“大麻烦”的逼近

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一旦你的项目在之前阶段变成一款真正的游戏，你便会发现自己将经历添加更多内容和功能的漫长道路。在这里你可能会超越截止日期并为游戏开发添加几周，甚至是几个月的时间。也是在这一阶段，功能蔓延问题将逐步逼近。

这里将出现各种漏洞，并且一些较大的功能在你花了好几天时间去修复后还是未能出现显著变化，这时候很多开发者都会选择放弃游戏。所以说阶段3是最难完成的部分，你将会摊上一些“大麻烦”。

对于《Space Grunts》，我便正处于阶段3的末尾，我还有一些功能需要去执行，但是我却陷进某种怀疑中：不管有多少人已经在预购中购买了游戏，并表示很喜欢游戏也告诉了我它很棒，我还是深深地怀疑：“这是否是一款值得投入的游戏”。

这款游戏是否真的值得我投入宝贵的时间？我已经超过最初截止日期好几个月时间了，并且也超过“最长开发时间”门槛好几个月。而在这里我认为最好的做法便是不要对于游戏发行太过沮丧。

让人难过的是，在过去几个月里我们一直听到一些关于独立开发的负面消息，如游戏卖不出去以及独立开发者不应该全职做这件事或不要期待着能够依靠这份工作养活自己。这是很让人沮丧的，但这也是我在这一阶段不愿去看的东西，因为我知道自己已经没有退路了。

阶段4：继续向前发展并期望取得最好的结果

我们只剩下最后阶段了，那就是发行游戏。如果之前的阶段并未将你带到“永远不想起床”的状态，你便能够进入第4阶段。

你需要面向世界发行你的游戏，人们有可能会唾弃它，批评它，并告诉别人它有多糟糕，但即使如此你也算非常幸运了！要知道有可能别人连理都不想理你的游戏！

你可以找到许多关于游戏发行的文字，它们将伴随着关于如何更有效地发行的建议：即在什么时机发行游戏，该联系什么人，如何联系这些人，哪个平台更适合游戏发行，从第一天便开始进行市场营销，等等。

有趣的是，所有的这些都不可能帮到你！当然了，这些内容都很棒，并且它们所描述的大多数内容都是你该做的事，但是所有的这些文章都带有自己的目的。

这些文章通常是来自那些已经发行过一两款游戏的人，并且人们选择了他的游戏并开始对其评头论足。但现实是，那都是过去的事了。

现在的我们已经离这些文章的创造或者哪款游戏的发行好几个月，许多游戏评论者或新闻记者可能已经不再为之前的网站或杂志工作了！之后又出现了全新游戏，人们可能正着眼于上周刚刚发行的大型AAA级游戏。所有一切事物都在改变着！

让我跟你说个秘密吧。你知道这些文章存在的主要原因是什么吗？为了推广特定的游戏或个人的作品，仅此而已！这也是本文存在的原因，即推广我们即将发行的游戏《Space Grunts》。

你发行游戏也是希望能够取得最好的成绩。而你能够做的事便是有效地决定发行时间—-认真考虑像人们什么时候比较有钱，月底合适还是月初合适？现在游戏是否得到宣传了还是别人仍旧不知道这款游戏？

当然了，你可以联系任何人以及他们的亲朋好友。但有99%的可能性是几乎没有人会选择你的游戏。没有大型网站或Youtuber会谈论你的游戏，他们可能会这么做的几率只有1%。所以你应该把握好这个1%。

这是一个摧残意志的阶段，是一个会让你身心俱疲的阶段，你需要努力在这个阶段生存下来，然后你便会再次进入第1阶段。

结论

因为现在的我处于第3阶段的尾声，所以我已经联系了一些媒体，Youtuber，并发表了一些文章（如本文）去告诉人们有关这款回合制街机行动混合rogue游戏。

现在的我仍处于第3阶段，我还可以继续添加功能！我也会努力朝着发行日期前进的！

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The four phases of game development

by Pascal Bestebroer

The four phases of game development

Since February this year (2015) I’ve been working on my next game, that’s 8 months with a release date planned for January making it a total of 11 months. Those months can be split up in four phases, from the extreme fun moments of game-development to the harsh reality and stressful release window.

I’m currently in the third phase of game development on my new game: A turn-based-arcade action hybrid roguelike set in space. There’s my elevator pitch for you! (www.spacegrunts.com).

Fun fact: originally I had planned to have the game finished and released in July / August.. possibly September.. It’s now October, and the release date is set on January 2016.. for real this time! (really!)

I’m guessing these are very recognisable steps for any one-man (indie)developer or multi-person teams, but let’s put it in writing!

Phase one: Prototyping aka The fun part

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This is always the fun part, and it can be so much fun that many game developers don’t get out of this phase. You basically try anything! Starting with some interesting thoughts on game mechanics, or maybe just some funny animations, in all cases it’s a very rough idea of what you want to make.

It’s basically the reason that game-jams are so popular. Anything goes, no limits, and if something doesn’t work, you start all over again with another idea.

Now if you are actually living from game-development, there is a point where you have to stick with one of the prototypes, or go the alternate route: take an idea that has worked before and create that game because you need to generate revenue pretty soon.

If you are doing game-development pure as a hobby or at least not as your main income, then prototyping might take months and months without ever getting any results, but it’s the most fun part of game development, so who cares!

For Space Grunts I pretty much had a prototype going in the first week as my plan was clear: create a turn-based game set in a sci-fi world. The problems started in phase two since I had no idea what makes a turn-based game good or bad since I never play them.

Phase two: Streamlining the concept, and setting deadlines

Being full of enthusiasm and adrenaline, this phase is basically working to try and turn the prototype into full game.

You’ll imagine creating the best game ever (it won’t be) and all the awesome stuff the game will have (most of which won’t make it) and that all the work should pretty much fit in X amount of months (at least double that).

With every game project there comes a pivot point where the game is either a game or a failed project. This can be a hard thing to actually get right, because sometimes a failed project just needs a few changes in key places to make it a game, and sometimes a game is really just a failed project wasting too much of your time..

With Space Grunts this pivot point came pretty fast, I think after two months, where I finally fixed a few key elements to the gameplay and the game was suddenly playable and just needed a lot more content to make it completed.

Phase three: “the big doubt” monster looming

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Once your project becomes a game in the previous phase, you will find yourself in the long, long, very long road of adding more content and features. This is where deadlines break and you start adding weeks and months to your game development time. It’s also where that well known monster Feature-creep is around every corner..

There will be bugs, there will be big features taking days of work for barely noticable changes, and this is where many developers give up on their game. Phase three is the hardest to complete, and you will also run into “the big doubt”.

For Space Grunts I’m currently in the end of phase three, still some features left to implement, but the doubt is kicking in: No matter how many people have already bought the game in pre-order and early-access, and are enjoying it and telling me its awesome.. the big doubt: “is this game worth the investment” is looming over my desk everyday.

Is this game really worth the time I’m investing into it? I’m already a few months past my original deadline, and also a few months over my “max allowed dev-time” threshold. The trick is to not become too depressed about the thoughts of having this game bomb on release.

Sadly the last few months we’ve been bombarded with negative “indie-pocalypse” stories that games are not selling anymore and indie developers shouldn’t do this full-time or expect to make a living from it.. way to inspire other people guys! It’s depressing for sure, but it’s also something I shouldn’t be reading during this phase cause I’m at the point of no return!

Phase four: Hide, run, crawl under your bed, and hope for the best

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That leaves us with the final phase: release day. If the previous phase didn’t get you depressed into a “never get out of bed again” state, then phase four will.

You need to release this game into the world, people will be throwing rocks at it, picking it apart, and telling everybody else how terrible it is on a scale of 1 to 5… but that’s only if you are lucky! It could just be that nobody wants to talk about your game at all! Months of work and nobody gives a shit?!

There are again many articles talking about releasing, and they all come with a huge amount of tips on how best to release: which day, which time, who to contact, how to contact them, what the best platforms are to release on, start marketing on day one, and the list goes on, and on, and on, and on.

The funny part? none of that will help you! Sure it’s all very nice and most of it is indeed something you should do, because all these articles have the best intentions after all.

Those articles are often written by someone who released one, maybe two, games at a specific time of the week or day or year and it happened to be picked up and people started talking about it. But guess what? that time has passed!

We are now months further down the road since that article was created or that specific game got released, many game-reviewers or news-writers are probably not even working for the same websites or magazines anymore! Other games are being released, and people might all be busy trying to complete that huge AAA game that was released last week.. it all changed!

Let me tell you a secret, don’t tell anybody else, but the main reason those articles exist? to promote that specific game or persons work… that’s it! Heck that’s the reason this whole article exists, to promote my upcoming game Space Grunts. It’s how the world works!

Releasing your game is really just hoping for the best. The best you can do is try to be smart about when to release – think about things like when do people have money, is that the end of the month, or the start of the month? Is there currently a game being hyped or is it very much quiet on the game release front?

And of course: contact EVERYONE, and their mother. So 99% of the time that means that hardly anybody picks up your game. None of the big sites or big youtube people will talk about your game.. but that 1% chance they will? that’s where you make it rich.

It’s a nerve wrecking phase, a very depressing phase, and you will survive the phase.. and then you start all over again with phase one. Welcome to being an indie developer!

Wrapping it up

So as I’m wrapping up phase-three, I’m already contacting press, mailing youtubers, writing articles (like this one) and telling people on a daily basis about my “turn-based-arcade-action” hybrid molded into a roguelike set in space.. I can’t go wrong on this one I followed all the steps to success!

And, if you like to throw stones at my game, or tell the world not to think twice about the game in either a negative or positive way, just grab it on Steam Early Access: http://store.steampowered.com/app/371430/ and pick it apart..

I’m in still in phase three, I can add features! I can move the release date!(source:gamasutra)