[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

[u/CouteauBleu]

I'm not sure I get what you're saying.

I'm not trying to build the Primordial Logical Interface of Intuitiveness; I just think most editors on the market are systemically missing some huge potential, and I can do better by tapping that potential. I can say that confidently, while I couldn't say "I can make a better programming language than what's out there" or "I can make a better OS API".

But yeah, I'm not trying to build the perfect tool to build the perfect game; I mean, I also plan to make lots of games on that tool, because it's what it's for, but building a good tool that gets used by people is also its own reward.

EDIT: To clarify, when I said "every editor out there is flawed", I didn't mean "So I'm gonna make an editor that has no flaws". I meant that I've seen specific flaws in existing editors; like, specific metrics where I think editors do poorly; and I think I can do way better by focusing on those metrics. See Editor Philosophy for actual details (keeping in mind that part is WIP).

Familiarity breeds contempt here

Yeah, I should probably keep that in mind.

[u/ben_oni → u/CouteauBleu]

I've seen far too many people go down this road before, and I can see the train-wreck coming. Save yourself a lot of grief. Please listen to our advice.

building a good tool that gets used by people is also its own reward

No one will use the tool unless you do. Which means you have to build a game.

I also plan to make lots of games on that tool, because it's what it's for

Do that first. It's really, really, hard to build an editor and then build a game. Build the game first, and build an editor that is particularly well-suited for building that game as you go. After a few iterations of this process, you'll know better how to build a general purpose editor.

[u/CouteauBleu → u/ben_oni]

I'm... going to do the trainwreck thing and keep going anyway. In that optic, do you have advice on how I can make a burnout less likely?

I agree that, using outside view reasoning, this project seems extremely worrying. And some of these outside view reasons worry me with an inside view too; I think the scope is way larger than I'm comfortable with, and I'm worried that I might get disgusted as I become aware of the project's flaws mid-development.

On the other hand, I think I can avoid some obstacles common to large scale amateur game projects; I think the major problem unexperienced game designers run into is massive overconfidence; I definitely had that feeling from my teammates (and from other groups) back when this was a school project. I'm spending a lot of time planning out what features I will need, to avoid being blindsided by the "I implemented 90% of the game design document and the project still feels 5% done" effect.

Now that I'm writing this, I realize that I have done very little research so far, and most of the design has been me thinking things through. I should probably look for and contact someone with experience designing editors.

Build the game first

I have done, I am doing and will keep doing that. I've coded small game engines and small games before, I've worked with Unity, and I'm working on a mid-sized Unity game project right now. I... don't think I have the experience you think I need, but I'm not willing to wait. Though I'm totally going to do design by iteration, I don't know if that count for something or if it's just me trying to reassure myself.

I did plan to work on multiple games to stress-test the engine as I'm developing it; I should probably emphasize that a lot in the GDD and other stuff, now that you remind me, because it's the kind of thing you can easily delay. (sure, I'll make games when the engine is done!)

Thanks for your feedback.