Bend a project for necessity or keep searching
Hallå pals!
Jonas here with another issue of Indie Notebook to get some ideas out of my noggin, and to inspire you to do the same.
Hello hello? Did you miss me?? I took a break from Indie Notebook last week, I just had too much to do and decided to save my sanity a bit by cutting one thing out.
I’m sorry I made you endure an entire week without this newsletter!!! I hope you can forgive me. ;- )
Seriously though. Last week was a mix of freelance work and too much excitement about my own projects. It’s actually a lot to juggle and I don’t like to let anything slip behind. I might be a little too ambitious. There’s some fresh rain outside right now though, it’s washing away the intense summer heat. Which also makes it feel like I washed some questions off my mind.
Writing these newsletters forces me to get my mind straight about what is going. Or as I phrased it on the about page for Indie Notebook,
“I have a lot of crap and ideas in my head, sometimes it comes out as something neat.”
Only recently it has felt like a lot of idea-diarrhea. So many ideas coming out and I don’t know how to stop.
Which brings us to the greatest subject of pondering I’ve had these last weeks.
Bend a project for necessity or keep searching?
At the moment I’m still trying to figure out what game project to tackle next. I was very close to picking Big Wizard’s Kitten. But after taking a break from it and fiddling with it a little bit, I don’t really feel the urge to work on that kind of game. I want to do a lighter lift. I’d love to work on Ploppy Weather, I actually have three different directions I could take it in.
The first is sort of a story (which I passionately wrote down after an emotional stroll).
The second is more of a puzzle adventure.
And the third is just a pure embrace of the unknown.
The first two ideas definitely sound like the wiser decisions out of these three options. The catch is, right now both of those completely drain my motivation and excitement for the project. I easily lose interest if I already know exactly where something is going. And planning something too carefully makes it feel like I do the same work twice, it makes it feel more like homework than creative work.
So going into the pure unknown, without much to any planning is the only way I could work on this game idea. All advice I’ve ever gotten tells me to not do it this way. But I believe the game would turn out better, or more interesting if I did it like that. And I know I would be happier that way too.
So at least I’ve decided this is the way I want to work on this project. And I’m fine with that. But this means I will not make it a high priority project. It will be a slower simmer in the background while I focus on everything else that is more urgent and promising.
If some day I get a more stable life situation (or a publishing deal for it), then I would happily make it a higher priority. But I need to work my way to that.
I feel like I’ve said this a lot lately, but I need to remind myself too. The next game needs to have a “target audience,” it needs to be small and not be too experimental.
So I will keep both Ploppy Weather and Big Wizard’s Kitten (but mostly PW) on the back burner, and keep searching for a more reasonable idea.
Mini Notes
📝 Article - Unfortunately indie devs need to eat
I’m not alone in worrying about what type of game to make. Lots of indie devs are going through exactly the same thing right now.
💭 Thought - Unlocking the pilot in Spelunky 2
I have played A LOT of Spelunky 2, but it’s been a while since I last played it. I got completely hooked on it again because I set myself a goal, to unlock a very specific character in the game (the pilot). I know what to do, and I’ve come sooo close once. I know I can do it. But also having this goal makes it so much more fun to play it, cause it makes me care so much about how I play. Maybe I’ll drop off again once I accomplish this. Goals are fun.
Panel of the week
(from Space Deer)
Thank you for reading Indie Notebook! I’d love to hear what today’s issue made you think about.
Take care and have a creative week.
I've come up with this rule for my writing: I'll only work on stuff that makes me equally excited as both a writer and a reader. It narrows it down quite a bit, but it ensures that I'll enjoy making it, plus at least one person is going to enjoy the end product.
In other words, I get where you're coming from with your approach to Ploppy Weather. Hope you'll enjoy!
There's a comic called "It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth" that came out a couple of years ago. The writer/artist was going through some dark and dangerous thoughts and started doing this comic as a kind of therapy. It's autobiographical but with a lot of inventive techniques and stuff. She went into it without any kind of structure or planning and didn't even expect to publish it, but the response to the few pages she shared online was very positive and the book ended up replacing another "more serious" (and well planned) project that she was supposed do. She still basically did it for herself and didn't expect much from it, but the book ended up getting her an Eisner award and a nice readership that relates to her personal struggle and enjoy the breath of creative fresh air the comic brings. She has even been called "the future of comics".
I read the book a few day ago which is why I thought of it. Anyway, it goes to show that no one is really in charge of what works creatively. Sometimes, maybe the best plan is no plan (?)
> since many players won't buy new ideas over "safer choices"
AAA games make safe choices, and I've seen people are getting sick of it. Maybe by making something safe we're sacrificing our potential. Indies can afford to fail, big budget companies can't.
Anyways, I don't know anything and wish you well.
Your sketchbook photo looks very clean; do you keep other sketchbooks that you don't show? ;)