After working on my weird shooter game for 5 years, I realized I’m never going to be finishing this project. In this video I explain why I’ve decided to quit my game and what is next.
After working on my weird shooter game for 5 years, I realized I’m never going to be finishing this project. In this video I explain why I’ve decided to quit my game and what is next.
I find itch.io to be a great resource not just for games as a “finished product” but for prototypes as well. The regular gamejams contribute to this - a platform of many prototypes. They don’t need the polish and coherence you’d want to invest and publish on Steam.
Have you considered publishing your prototypes?
Even as only a player, some prototypes make for very interesting playful exploration, even if it’s short. For a technological, creative, and inspiration they can be a treasure trove as well.
Oh yeah, I love game jams and do them all the time! I’ve done some on itch.io and global game jam, but mostly do ludum dare.
I’ve considered it before, but most of them are unpolished/not in a state I’d be proud to share, and would require more work. It’s also logistically complicated for some, since I also build things without a game engine sometimes, and those don’t have a standard build process for clean binary releases. If I release the source code, then I have to do the whole software licensing thing, possibly provide support for people who try to build it, and feel bad about AI scraping my work.
I’m also an unreasonably optimistic person and always feel like I’ll be able to finish them some day. My rational brain knows that’s not true, but that one’s not in the driver’s seat.
I totally get that. Technical and implementation exploration doesn’t necessarily correlate with publishability. :)