Tips and Tricks - Working on a Project
Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2016 2:20 pm
Thought I'd share some general information on how to work on any kind of project here. While (most of) this information isn't restricted to making an SMBX episode, it can be applied and will help you in achieving better results.
What do I mean by "better results"? Lots of people - myself included - have dropped their projects because of a sudden lack of inspiration or ideas, the scope being too big, real life butting in, etc...
I don't see a lot of people attempting to deal with that. So here's some tips:
Make sure you have ideas
I can't stress enough how important having ideas on what you want to do is. And I don't mean ideas for a story, like "Oh, Bowser has purchased a supermarket and convinced Peach to go shopping for clothes. The different isles are locked off with star counters and Mario, Luigi and Daisy have to save her.", but rather ideas for levels.
And with these ideas you should be as thorough as possible. With each and every one of them. Document them. Think about how to expand upon them. Make sure that whenever you find yourself in a period of downtime you have something up your sleeve for any level in your episode, or at least have a level which seems more appealing to work on at the time. Use an excel sheet or a google sheet to create a list of ideas you have for your episode and shuffle them around as needed. You don't have to set on a length of your episode from the start, but it's always good to have more ideas than necessary, so that you can combine concepts or scrap concepts that turn out to not work. Speaking of length...
Think on a realistic scope
While this is in the rules for this particular forum, I would like to address it in a bit more detail. Point 1: You probably won't come up with ideas for 100+ levels which feel like their own thing and are satisfying to play. Point 2: You'll likely not have time to finish an episode like this, ever. I see people crawling through episodes with 100 levels over years, crafting each level as carefully and as thoroughly as possible, but barely making any significant progress relative to the time spent. If you spend a lot of time on your project, you'll want to revisit old stages and apply knowledge you've gained while working on the project on them. The first levels of a long project often feel out of place, because the designer improved while working on it and developed their own style even further.
Another point I want to make in this category is regarding cleanup and testing. That stuff takes a while. Don't underestimate testing (like I always do (Day 1 updates are my drug (don't do drugs kids))). By the time of release you will be tired of your project, but don't throw out a patched-together collection of levels littered with bugs and not update it. Polish all the things your testers and other people criticise. Oh, and also: Make sure to have testers. You're not as good at exploiting your levels as they are.
Team Organisation
Not working alone? Alright. How big is your team? You always want to be able to have a general overview over it and communicate with them. Bond friendships with them, help them out when they get stuck and make sure to share your documentation with them. Google drive is excellent for this, as it lets you create documents which all of your team members can view and edit at once and you can drop files for your episode which other people can download. If you have someone who makes graphics for your team, this is a good place for them to post them too.
Review progress made on your project with them. Have periodic meetups in skype or discord where everyone shows what progress they made since the last meetup. That way all of you can get a taste of your project advancing, even while it's being developed.
Set deadlines and try to keep them. You won't keep them, but if you approach them as good as you can and try to follow them, you will definitely make better progress than if you didn't. This goes for you, as well as your team.
If real life butts in in an unexpected way it's very likely to delay your project, but cases where it will flat-out cancel it are rather rare (death, for example). It's nice in cases like this - especially when it's an injury or vacation which keeps you from working on anything yourself - to have a team to talk to and share new ideas with. It helps you stay committed and gives them more motivation, too.
That's it from me. If you have any suggestions of your own, leave them as a reply!
What do I mean by "better results"? Lots of people - myself included - have dropped their projects because of a sudden lack of inspiration or ideas, the scope being too big, real life butting in, etc...
I don't see a lot of people attempting to deal with that. So here's some tips:
Make sure you have ideas
I can't stress enough how important having ideas on what you want to do is. And I don't mean ideas for a story, like "Oh, Bowser has purchased a supermarket and convinced Peach to go shopping for clothes. The different isles are locked off with star counters and Mario, Luigi and Daisy have to save her.", but rather ideas for levels.
And with these ideas you should be as thorough as possible. With each and every one of them. Document them. Think about how to expand upon them. Make sure that whenever you find yourself in a period of downtime you have something up your sleeve for any level in your episode, or at least have a level which seems more appealing to work on at the time. Use an excel sheet or a google sheet to create a list of ideas you have for your episode and shuffle them around as needed. You don't have to set on a length of your episode from the start, but it's always good to have more ideas than necessary, so that you can combine concepts or scrap concepts that turn out to not work. Speaking of length...
Think on a realistic scope
While this is in the rules for this particular forum, I would like to address it in a bit more detail. Point 1: You probably won't come up with ideas for 100+ levels which feel like their own thing and are satisfying to play. Point 2: You'll likely not have time to finish an episode like this, ever. I see people crawling through episodes with 100 levels over years, crafting each level as carefully and as thoroughly as possible, but barely making any significant progress relative to the time spent. If you spend a lot of time on your project, you'll want to revisit old stages and apply knowledge you've gained while working on the project on them. The first levels of a long project often feel out of place, because the designer improved while working on it and developed their own style even further.
Another point I want to make in this category is regarding cleanup and testing. That stuff takes a while. Don't underestimate testing (like I always do (Day 1 updates are my drug (don't do drugs kids))). By the time of release you will be tired of your project, but don't throw out a patched-together collection of levels littered with bugs and not update it. Polish all the things your testers and other people criticise. Oh, and also: Make sure to have testers. You're not as good at exploiting your levels as they are.
Team Organisation
Not working alone? Alright. How big is your team? You always want to be able to have a general overview over it and communicate with them. Bond friendships with them, help them out when they get stuck and make sure to share your documentation with them. Google drive is excellent for this, as it lets you create documents which all of your team members can view and edit at once and you can drop files for your episode which other people can download. If you have someone who makes graphics for your team, this is a good place for them to post them too.
Review progress made on your project with them. Have periodic meetups in skype or discord where everyone shows what progress they made since the last meetup. That way all of you can get a taste of your project advancing, even while it's being developed.
Set deadlines and try to keep them. You won't keep them, but if you approach them as good as you can and try to follow them, you will definitely make better progress than if you didn't. This goes for you, as well as your team.
If real life butts in in an unexpected way it's very likely to delay your project, but cases where it will flat-out cancel it are rather rare (death, for example). It's nice in cases like this - especially when it's an injury or vacation which keeps you from working on anything yourself - to have a team to talk to and share new ideas with. It helps you stay committed and gives them more motivation, too.
That's it from me. If you have any suggestions of your own, leave them as a reply!
