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How many games do you work on at the same time?

7 replies [Last post]
Wed, 06/26/2013 - 16:36
Shoe
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Joined: 12/21/2012

So, I have upwards of 60 game concepts i have jotted down in various stages of preperation. I have a hard time getting playtesting done, so I tend to just work on one game up till it is ready for playtest, and then I get lazy and don't start working on another one...meanwhile I get the chance to playtest the current one I am working on once per month.

My question to fellow game designers is this...how many games do you find yourself designing/prototyping/playtesting simultaneously? I find it hard to make myself have more than one game past an initial concept until the one I am currently playtesting is ready to try to get published. do you find designing multiple games simultaneously to divide your focus too much? Is it even worth making multiple prototypes of different games if I can barely find time to playtest the first project?

Thoughts?

-Shoe

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Wed, 06/26/2013 - 18:27
#1
questccg
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Joined: 04/16/2011
For me...

I work on the concept/design such that I can *picture* the final product. BUT usually there is some "snag" either in the layout of the cards or in the design something is missing, etc. This causes me to stop and usually ends up with me looking to complete another game.

What is interesting is that each one of these *incomplete* games have become more and more complete. Meaning? Well somehow the design of a game becomes more of a final product. Oddly enough on my current endeavor I have borrow pieces from other games that I have been working on.

An example? Well I used the card layout from a dual game that I had been working on. Got stuck with that one because I had a hard time designing cards for the game. No harm done, it took me less time to use the existing card layouts rather than having to create new layouts!

I have only been designing for a couple of years now... And I have 2 games completed but unpublished. And I now I have one that is nearly complete which we will see what happens to it...

But usually I can only focus on one game at a time (because it takes a lot of WORK to create a prototype). It's not trivial creating card layouts (in PhotoShop or Illustrator), then you have to design all the cards (also upwards of 150 cards), then you do early playtests to see if the game *holds its own*. If it does, it still means changing cards because during play you figure out certain information needs to be seen to make gameplay quicker, etc.

However I am doing this *regularly*, I don't work on a game each day. Maybe 3-4 days a week.

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Wed, 06/26/2013 - 18:35
#2
MoldtDK
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Joined: 06/19/2013
I have a folder on my

I have a folder on my computer where I put all my ideas. Everytime I get a neat idea or find a cool mechanic I save it there and that means that I have several games on idea stage, a couple on testing stage and so on. However the advantage is that if I at some point find a theme that I would love to make a game around then I have a huge folder full of ideas and notes.

Currently I think I have 4 or 5 games that are almost to the prototyping stage. However they all need some tweaking and balancing. I have one game that works perfectly, however the enemy is so dreadfully tough to beat that victory seems impossible... So I need to work on that.

My other nealy completed game needs a good map, or two... So I have a lot of things to do still. Luckily I am in no rush.

But ideas I never drop or discard. I keep them around and if I find a way to merge it with another idea then that is great. After all, maybe you have two themes that can be matched and make a full game or something like that.

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Wed, 06/26/2013 - 18:48
#3
munio
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Joined: 11/12/2012
two ideas in the prototype

two ideas in the prototype stages and one idea taking shape, and about a million ideas floating in my head

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Wed, 06/26/2013 - 21:45
#4
Martin-r-m
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Joined: 07/26/2012
Working on finished projecs

Hi,

I normaly only have 1 or 2 projects in the design phase. All ideas I collect in Folders for future but don´t go deep. What my problem is, that my finished projects get more and more time consuming. I have published mathtornado on thegamecrafter, that took me 2 weeks. I have 2 projects for reviewing and 1 prototype being reviewed by publishers. As this projects aren´t "sold" I check out a lot for selfpublishing information and publisher which could fit to my finished games. This takes a lot of time and I am wondering: If I have 10 games finished will it take 3x the time I am using now just for searching publishers etc. ?

verspielte grüße martin

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Thu, 06/27/2013 - 08:36
#5
larienna
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Joined: 07/28/2008
As you can see, most of my

As you can see, most of my ideas are listed here:

http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/index.php?n=Main.Games

Recently, in order to make some project progress faster, I decided to restrict my active thinking to 5 active projects. I think 3-5 is the key because you need to jump from a project to another, but you do not want to jump around too much to make sure you are progressing.

Try to select games where you have a clear idea of where you are going and where you think you have all you need to complete the game. Also try to have a variety of games style. For example, 3 of my 5 active games has the concept of conquest in it. So I added an adventure game in the list to change my mind of thinking.

What is tricky in my part is that I have been doing Video game programming lately, so that eats up board game design time. I am also revising Fallen Kingdoms again, and I have a new computer so lot of time get spent elsewhere.

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Thu, 06/27/2013 - 13:57
#6
silasmolino
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Joined: 02/01/2013
About 2

I work on two at a time consistantly. There are about ten sitting in a folder on my desktop that I will open and jot down ideas. I will often get exhausted on one design after a few days or weeks of working on it and then replace it with another.

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Thu, 06/27/2013 - 14:14
#7
Markus Hagenauer
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Joined: 12/04/2009
2 to 5

Usually I have 2 to 5 games I (realy) work on. It depends on how busy I am with my real job.

Further, there are about 10 "finished" games that still get playtested and refind from time to time,
a dozen of rought ideas, first sketches, rudimantary prototypes,
and last but not least some unfinished prototypes that were set aside month or years ago that wait fot the right idea to continue working on them.

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