Over the last week or so I have been noodleing around with a design for a new game. Just today I decided to can the idea. I think that, that decision deserves some examining.
The idea itself isn’t really important to this discussion but what work I had done on it is. What I had at the time of the project’s demise was; a rather long note on my iPhone, two pages of short hand rules, and three sheets of graphs, heiroglyphs and numbers which where beguining to hurt my brain. All together this represented maybe three hours of real thought and effort and about an hour total (over the course of a few days) of just throwing ideas into my phone.
When I knew that the project needed serious evaluation was when I got to page three of charting out rule interactions. I looked at where I was and then looked ahead. In my estimation I had far more to do than I had already done just to bring the design to a point where it could turn from doodles and charts into a working prototype. I also guessed that when I was done the prototype would be horribly broken (I know I forgot to carry the one somewhere I just didn’t know where). Looking at the work nessessary to bring a broken prototype to reality along with concidering the likelyhood that I would ever make the changes nessessary to make the design work (not likely among my other projects) I decided to can the project.
If I had looked ahead and seen a shorter work cycle, a quicker path from prototype to finished design, or a higher probability that the project would keep my interest I would likely have kept working. Canning a project before prototype stage is something new to me and I was suprised by how good it felt. Before, abandoning a design I had put so much work into (getting it to prototype by hook or by crook) hurt a little. I always felt that canning a project that far along was a betrail of all the work I had put in. This time, however, I felt reassured that the design’s time was up and felt good that I had saved myself the time and effort I might have wasted.
Do I still feel like there may be useful nuggets hidden within that design? Sure I do, thats why the two page rules sketch went back into my folder of horrible ideas. The rest of the work, the actuary chart from hell and the gibbering notes on a madman’s phone, got tossed as I felt they held nothing of value to future projects.
Learning to let go is valuable but I fear it may be dangerous as well. I do not regret scrapping this game at this point but I need to add that into my conciderations in the future. Will I regret letting this go? I hope I can contenue makeing wise decisions about my designs on into future projects.
