Design Diary — Building The Pyramid

There's a piece of advice I often give people when they're working on their crowdfunding, and it's also extremely true in game design — as growth scales linearly, effort scales expontentially. If you're not a math nerd, let me explain what that means.

It's easy to assume that adding new things to your project will result in a linear amount of growth. You ran your first Kickstarter, and working with one artist was extremely easy, so you may assume that working with three artists will only be 3x as hard (doable, in your estimation).

This is the biggest mistake someone planning a project can make. Working with three artists is actually around nine times as hard. Every new stretch goal writer multiplies the amount of work needed to provide upkeep and support. Wanderhome had 16 artists, and there was a dedicated staff member responsible for wrangling them. If I did a game with 32 artists, the project would collapse under its own weight.

I've been working on a couple big games for the past half decade or so (Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast and now Seven-Part Pact). I have a lot of experience dealing with extremely complex and weighty projects. The first bit is often very fun and easy, as I begin sketching out the possibility space for the game and filling in concepts. Unfortunately, as the project's growth increases, the amount of upkeep and support it requires scales far faster.

Yesterday I released a new draft of Seven-Part Pact. While there aren't that many changes (compared to previous jumps in drafts) I am increasingly aware of how much time is spent on each draft update combing through the various wizard documents and aligning them all. If I change a name or term in one location, I have 11 other places where I have to fix it up before it's good to go. If I change how a system works, I have to update it everywhere that system requires updating. It's a tremendous amount of load, and due to the asymmetry at the core of Seven-Part Pact's design, it requires a lot of shifting gears.

The game is 90% done. I can hand it off to old Stevie J as-is as feel confident and comfortable with it. I could never touch it again and be alright (although there's a lot I still want to work out). I'm in the final stage of its design — the long, slow refinement period where I tighten every single screw and I satisfy my perfectionist instinct.

Big projects are dangerous. I love them, and it's in their enormity that my favorite parts of a game's design really become apparent, but ... my god. Heed my warning wary travelers, and beware the allure of the big game. It will envelop you and there will be nothing left.

I'm gonna keep trying to write articles like these, even after my long delay. Let me know if there's any topics you'd be interested in.