AnotherHero
Member
I was going to post this as a reply in this thread, probably very near this post on the forum, but the author meant "art" by design, I am thinking actual game design, but this post got me thinking.
I'm a designer, not a programmer. I have friends who work in code, and they have talked about how they think and sometimes dream in code. I know how to code, I've been using GML for a long time now. But my projects usually end up in some kind of limbo because I'm not a programmer. The short version of my day job is "problem solver". People come to me with issues, or I see them myself, and it's my job to do something about it. I think in terms of "how can this be better?". In my time developing games, I'm usually spending most of my time at my notepad, in excel, docs, forums, GDC archives, using the resources around me to create mechanics, not crunch code.
I can spend months on a project on paper, on whiteboards, but never get it into code. On my laptop as I type now, I have a folder of unused mechanics and sometimes whole game ideas surrounding them. It's a shame because I tend to get lost in these ideas, and I don't think most of them will see the light of day because I'm not the most skilled programmer. Rather, I tend to get lost in the loop of iteration over iteration, with no end product coming to light.
Not to say I haven't finished a game. I have a few under my belt! Last summer, I spent most of it developing a mobile game that never saw release. It's sitting on my computer now, but I don't want to pay to renew my Apple developer account right now . When it came to developing this specific game (I don't remember the exact timeline) it was something like 2.5 months of "what is this?" and "how can this be better?" and "is this actually fun?", followed by iteration over iteration over iteration. The actual programming work only took about two weeks. I teamed up with an online friend of mine who is a talented pixel artist, and one of his friends composed a few tracks, and it came together! Rewarding as this experience was, I can't help but also remember how absolutely burnt out I felt after a few weeks of spending all my spare time in GMS. I have a huge amount of respect for those of you who can. Not only in Game Maker, but those who can code or work on something important to them full time like that.
Honestly, I'm not totally sure what the point of this post is. Maybe it's that I want to let you all know it's okay to not finish every project. Maybe I wanted to share my personal experience. Maybe I want to remind you that nobody (or, at least, very few of us!) are truly a jack of all trades. Maybe I was just thinking about how we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I suspect it's a combination of all of these, but you get out of it what you will
I'd encourage you to think about it, and if you're up for it, reply with what you are and what you aren't! Some of us are programmers and not designers, some of us are pixel artists and not composers. Some of us are creative thinkers, but not game designers. But we are all in this together, and we are all awesome. Thank you.
I'm a designer, not a programmer. I have friends who work in code, and they have talked about how they think and sometimes dream in code. I know how to code, I've been using GML for a long time now. But my projects usually end up in some kind of limbo because I'm not a programmer. The short version of my day job is "problem solver". People come to me with issues, or I see them myself, and it's my job to do something about it. I think in terms of "how can this be better?". In my time developing games, I'm usually spending most of my time at my notepad, in excel, docs, forums, GDC archives, using the resources around me to create mechanics, not crunch code.
I can spend months on a project on paper, on whiteboards, but never get it into code. On my laptop as I type now, I have a folder of unused mechanics and sometimes whole game ideas surrounding them. It's a shame because I tend to get lost in these ideas, and I don't think most of them will see the light of day because I'm not the most skilled programmer. Rather, I tend to get lost in the loop of iteration over iteration, with no end product coming to light.
Not to say I haven't finished a game. I have a few under my belt! Last summer, I spent most of it developing a mobile game that never saw release. It's sitting on my computer now, but I don't want to pay to renew my Apple developer account right now . When it came to developing this specific game (I don't remember the exact timeline) it was something like 2.5 months of "what is this?" and "how can this be better?" and "is this actually fun?", followed by iteration over iteration over iteration. The actual programming work only took about two weeks. I teamed up with an online friend of mine who is a talented pixel artist, and one of his friends composed a few tracks, and it came together! Rewarding as this experience was, I can't help but also remember how absolutely burnt out I felt after a few weeks of spending all my spare time in GMS. I have a huge amount of respect for those of you who can. Not only in Game Maker, but those who can code or work on something important to them full time like that.
Honestly, I'm not totally sure what the point of this post is. Maybe it's that I want to let you all know it's okay to not finish every project. Maybe I wanted to share my personal experience. Maybe I want to remind you that nobody (or, at least, very few of us!) are truly a jack of all trades. Maybe I was just thinking about how we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I suspect it's a combination of all of these, but you get out of it what you will
I'd encourage you to think about it, and if you're up for it, reply with what you are and what you aren't! Some of us are programmers and not designers, some of us are pixel artists and not composers. Some of us are creative thinkers, but not game designers. But we are all in this together, and we are all awesome. Thank you.