Dave Gilbert’s gamedev blog

So, I work in an office now.

When I first started this game development gig, I loved not having an office. I was free of the standard 9 to 5 drudgery that plagued most of mankind. I had total flexibility. I could work when I wanted. And if I was sick of working from home, I could pack up the laptop and go to one of the many cafés in my neighborhood. For three years I worked this way. But I had to admit, I was getting a bit tired of it.

Three years ago, I thought it was so cool that I could make games from a café. I wrote Shivah from a now defunct café called Cima in Tribecca. I wrote Blackwell Legacy from the Cosi’s in Union Square. Blackwell Unbound? Any Starbucks within a 5 block radius of my apartment – of which there are many. I felt cool. I was the Guy Who Made Games From Cafés. It was, I have to admit, very indie.

But, lately, the whole laptop-in-a-café thing has become absurdly common. And I’m not saying that it became so trendy and thus not cool, but rather it’s become a bloody chore to work in those places now. You walk into a Starbucks and the place is crammed with laptop-users. Past 10am, you can hardly get a table, let alone one near an electrical outlet. I found myself rushing to get to a café early so I could snag a good spot, which totally defeated the point of having a flexible schedule.

Of course, if the cafés became a pain I could always work from home. Whenever there was administrative stuff to deal with, I would always work from the desk in my apartment. But even this had become tiresome. I could never really “leave” work, so I was always stuck in work mode. I would look over at my desk and see my laptop and my design notes and tons of paperwork and I wouldn’t be able to relax. My apartment is a one-room studio, so it wasn’t like I could go into the next room.

Then my gamedev buddy Julia told me that her company, Arkadium, was renting out some of their empty desks. The price seemed right, and after some deliberation, I decided to go for it.

I’ve been here for two weeks and so far… I love it! It’s ten blocks from my apartment, so there’s no commute. They’ve got DSL, so my internet connection is wicked speedy. It’s reasonably quiet. I know a bunch of people here. I get access to the Arkadium coffee machine. I can come and go whenever I want. They let me bring the dog. I can leave all my paperwork and documents here. And, best of all, when I’m done for the day I can leave it all behind and just enjoy being home. Then I’m fresh and energized the next day.

I was always an advocate of coffee-shop game development, and I not saying that I’ve given up on it entirely. When I first started out, it was awesome! But now? I need to keep my personal and professional lives separate. For a long time, they were becoming interchangeable and that’s never a healthy place to be.

I never thought that having too many customers would be a problem. Truth is, it’s NOT. But, the timing could have been better.

Let me back up a bit. Over the last couple of months, both Legacy and Unbound have found their way onto various casual game portals. It was a move that was highly-advised by other indy game developers, and a move I finally made after many months of dealing with some nerdy technical security issues.

My experiences thus far with the Casual Game market have been fascinating, but I’ll leave that for another entry. The end result was a that whole new market opened up for my games, and sent several thousands of new people to my website to see what all the fuss was about.

The Wadjet Eye website had been perfectly able to handle the traffic it had been getting, but suddenly it got slammed. I don’t understand the technical details, but the traffic was so heavy that the server refused to upload or download any large files. In other words, every customer who purchased a game found themselves with an interrupted download.

I, however, remained blissfully unaware of all this. I was on vacation at the time, for two weeks. While all my new customers were getting corrupted downloads and getting pissed, I was traipsing around the UK with my girlfriend, visiting historic Bath and York and walking through misty moors and falling into the mud (true story). Suffice to say, when I arrived home to check my email I was in for a surprise.

(As an aside, a special thanks must go to Klaus Schlichter, my beleaguered webmaster who quickly set up a mirror to host the game files, and who dealt with a chunk of the emails from confused customers).

I dreaded dealing with this problem, but deal with it I must. I sat down and went through the many emails I had received from customers, apologizing profusely to each and redirecting them to a mirror. I was convinced that this was going to be a huge setback for me, that my reputation was now shot and I was going to have to work doubly-hard to get it back.

However, I was in for another surprise. These customers, who had every reason to be pissed off and angry with me, were extremely nice and understanding about the whole thing. I’d say 90% of them replied with a virtual laugh and a “these things happen” message.

Lesson learned? I’m not sure. I guess that things are bound to go wrong, eventually. When they do, don’t make excuses. Just apologize and try to make up for it. You’ll find that people are more understanding than you think.

So, I’ve been working a lot lately. I’ve been at my computer for 7-8 hours at a time, for about one week straight. As a result, you’d think that I would have made significant progress on my next game, right? Alas, no.

I’ve been coming to terms with the business end of things, and it’s been quite interesting. Most of my success, if you can call it that, had been through word of mouth. I never did any serious marketing or advertising, aside from giving free copies of my games to review sites. Somehow or another, word got out and I’ve been riding that wave ever since.

But, there’s only so far word-of-mouth can get you. When that wave recedes, it’s time to rely on the tried-and-true: marketing!

Marketing.

Something about that word always carried iffy connotations with me. The image of a bright-eyed, sleek sales-rep with a plastic smile spouting PR buzzwords comes to mind. Personally, I have always been very wary of being thrown a sales pitch, and I am always suspicious around marketing types. But, alas, I had no choice. Customers weren’t just going to find their way to me anymore. I had to find my way to them.

First tactic: game portals. Not many game portals were interested in carrying an old-school adventure game like Legacy or Shivah. And very few were interested in carrying a religious-type game like Shivah. However, my efforts have finally paid off. You’ll be seeing The Blackwell Legacy appearing on Big Fish Games in a few weeks, and both games will be making their debut on Garage Games. In addition, I just signed a deal with an Italian company called Adventures Planet, who will be distributing the game in Italy (and translating it, to boot).

Second tactic: Advertising. The time had come to spend some money on advertising. The two obvious places were Adventuregamers and Gameboomers, since most of my traffic came from there. But, I also wanted to try and find new customers. I decided to go the webcomic route, and signed up with Project Wonderful to get my ad up on various web comics that center around “geek culture.” Two days after getting all these ads up and running, I nearly doubled my traffic.

Things are picking up once again, and I have to make a heartfelt apology to Marketing. Marketing, I’m sorry. You do good things, after all. I take back all the bad things I ever said about you. Well, most of them.

Of course, due to all this extra work, I have much less time to work on the actual game. Does anybody out there know anything about marketing and want an internship? I’m serious. If you can make coffee and walk the dog, even better.

I’ve discussed “crunch time” in an earlier entry – which refers to that period of development where you work insane hours and get little sleep trying to get things done on time. I once attended a lecture on project time management, and I gained some neat little bits of advice. The lecturer discussed the infamous “crunch period”, and talked about the dangers.

Of course its dangerous, that goes without saying. Sleep and proper food exist for a reason, and cutting those things out of your life even for a short period is bad. I can tell you this first hand, as the entire month of December was a nonstop crunch for me.

This lecturer went on to say that crunch periods are usually necessary, but to be smart and safe about it. Schedule a crunch EARLY. It’s far easier – and far less stressful – to work long hours without the weight of a deadline crushing you down.

So, I am going to give this a go. I’m aiming to release my next project in July/August, and I decided that I wanted to have the majority of the dialog and programming finished by the end of May. I’ve been working steadily all month, all the time knowing beforehand that I was going to crunch during the last week.

Aaaand… tomorrow is the beginning of the last week. So, I am going to attempt this “early crunch” thing and see if it works. I’m curious. Yes, the last-minute crunch is stressful and nerve-wrecking because of the looming deadline… but, without the looming deadline, would you work as hard?

We shall see. See you in a week.

So I haven’t updated this blog in a while, and I suppose that’s because I’ve been busy stressing out over getting this next game on its feet and running.

This process has been a far cry from the first Blackwell and Shivah, which seemed to leap from my brain and into a working design document almost instantly. Once again, I am learning the definite differences between doing this for a hobby and doing this full time.

There’s no pressure when it’s a hobby. If you’re motivated, you do it. If you’re not, you don’t. Simple. It’s EASY to work hard (and for long stretches at a time) when you are motivated and jazzed up and excited about what you are working on. It’s fun. It’s an escape. It’s a rush.

But what happens during those stretches when you are NOT motivated? When inspiration just doesn’t come, and your creative well is dried up and barren? Do you just stop working? Sure, if it’s a hobby, but not if it’s your full time gig. Suddenly, it stops being fun. It’s now WORK. And let me tell you, work sucks.

Four months it’s taken me to design this game. I had the story, backstory, and plot details all in my head but I was having a devil of a time getting it all to mesh correctly. Countless stumbling blocks and quesitons faced me at every turn. Should a specific character be introduced here or here? Should the player have access to this location at this point or that point? Is this section important, or is it just padding out the game? Is this animation actually possible, using the resources I have? Can this be cut? SHOULD this be cut? Should I just start over again?

So yes, this was work and I was beginning to hate it. I’d drag myself out of my apartment and into a coffee shop. I’d stare at my notebook for ages, forcing ideas out of my beleaguered brain. It was hard, but eventually it came. It didn’t come out in a rush like my previous games, but piece by piece, slowly but consistantly.

So if you’re ever in my shoes, when you are stuck and nothing seems to work, just keep trying. You’ll fume, you’ll stress, you’ll curse at yourself and your stupid brain, you’ll want to hide in a dark room, but just keep trying. Eventually, it will happen. Have faith in your ideas, and be persistent.

Personally, I feel like I’ve won a major battle with myself. I get to actually create the game now, as opposed to being creative (and believe me, there is a difference). Work has become fun again, and I couldn’t be happier.