Don't focus on the details

One of my biggest mistakes when it comes to video game development is spending too much...I mean way too much...time on the details. I have this problem. From the start I spend more hours tweaking things like graphics and sound way before there is anything resembling a game. And when I do have something resembling a game, such as a simple one-level demo, I spend even more time messing around with minute details than on moving the game forward.

Everything has to be perfect before I can move forward. The problem with this is if I want to change something down the road; hours of work gets thrown away with more hours of work required for the changes. An example may be redrawing an entire tile set because I decided to go with a jungle level instead of a desert one. Another example would be continually redesigning levels as the game evolves. These all take time and lots of it.

The most effective way to save time is to layout your entire game in advance, and then fill in the details after the core functionality is completed. This pattern not only applies to video games, but to other creative practices as well. Take drawing for example; many great artists will sketch out an outline of their drawing first, then draw the shapes, and finally -- when everything is how they want -- fill in the details. The same logic applies: if I being a drawing by working out the details of every square inch, and if I want to change something halfway through, it's going to take a lot of eraser and time to fix (not to mention the time wasted by all the work that was just erased). This approach just isn't effective anywhere.

So if you're still the perfectionist, then be perfect with the planning and design. Don't move forward with the details until you are happy with your design. Then don't move forward with the details until you have built a robust framework that can support your design. Then once that is all done, don't yet focus on the details until you've built most of the game; use temporary or placeholder graphics and music (they aren't important at this stage; what's important is finishing the game). Then finally, when all there is to do is fill in the details and to polish your game, you can have at it and be rewarded with an actual game when you are done (and not a game still in the making).

These are just guidelines though. "Easier said than done," you might think. I agree. For me, it's a goal and not an actual practice -- a skill to improve upon. What's fun about game development is, well, developing a game and not having to worry about the less-entertaining work of documentation and low-level coding. Though, sometimes documentation and low-level coding can be fun for geeks like myself. But seeing your game in action as you craft it is an addiction.