So the game is starting to form shape, I have the core concept figured out and really getting a better grasp on how to design the UI for controlling the world. However, one thing has really started to bug me…. will my game be fun?
I feel like this should be an accepted occurrence in game development, that the person designing it is so into the workings of it that it may suck some of the wonder/entertainment out of it. However, I feel more like the more I turn my ideas into reality, the less impressive my ideas feel as things now have constraints and realities that have to be coded.
For example, you dream of this awesome bookshelf you wish to build, thinking how the shelves will look perfectly, spanning long and holding loads of books. However, you get to attaching the shelves and now you realize that they just don’t attach themselves, and now you need to either do a fancy cut like dado’s on the side, or make a ledger board, or attach bracing underneath to hold that shelf up. Quickly you realize that this bookshelf will not look like your dream. —- This is what I am trying to describe, you have this perfect vision and it just works in your head… then you turn it into reality and the bracing needed to support the project just really deadens your spirit. Of course, new people that might see your bookshelf might still fall in love with it as they did not have your original vision and this bookshelf surprises them in quality… so let’s hope that happens with my game!
Nevertheless, I have decided to take this little break in confidence and try to research what makes a good and fun game, to see if I can learn anything while the project is still new enough to be molded. To do this I have purchased two books “A Theory of Fun for Game Design” and “The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses, 3rd edition”. Hopefully these will have a positive impact!