How long does it take to complete a GIAW?

This year I wanted to keep a journal of how much time I spent working on my GIAW entry: Eden.

I hope this encourages others to compete in future competitions! When you plan well, a week is  long time to be able to submit something for the judges!

Oh, and in case you're curious, I was able to compete this year even though I:

• Have a full time job
• Work 45+ hours a week
• Have a beautiful wife who needs to actually speak to her husband
• Have two daughters (3 years and 1 year old) who would much rather daddy play with them than a computer
• Still slept 6+ hours a night

What's your excuse? Finals?

 

The Journal:

Spoiler for:

July 29th 8:15 pm – 10:30 pm
Today I wrote out the plot to my game as well as all character bios and other important details. I’m big on back story and the “why” of any world. For a GIAW entrant, I realize that it’s a big task, but I feel the bigger the world I can give the judges to explore, the more exciting it can be.

Post Note:
Big worlds are nice, but I need to “think small” for my next GIAW competition. I thought a floating continent would be small enough. I was wrong!

July 30th 4:30 pm – 5 pm
Today I began inserting all the scripts I wanted in the game. For me, turning in a game with a lot of the bare bones program showing makes the game feel dry.

Unfortunately, when dealing with scripts from various sources you also run into script errors and compatibility issues.
I wanted the Tanketai battle engine because I knew I could work with it and make the otherwise dull battles a little more enjoyable.

I also wanted to work on the message system. Making the visuals pop was something I wanted to do but I also know that I’m limited in what I can create, so using Modern Algebra’s ATS Face Utility was my best bet.

I also wanted to use his formatting ATS, which would help my messages not go off the side of the screen, a personal pet peeve that takes A LOT OF TIME to get right. Thanks MA!

Post Note:
I also wanted to use the Quest Journal and the Bestiary script from MA to give the player some useful hints and allow them to keep track of what was going on. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get far enough to give anyone an actual quest! Doh!

Unfortunately I got stuck trying to figure out the face set script and the formatting script. A little bit of a time killer.

July 30th 11:00 pm – 1:15 am
Girls in bed. Time to find some monsters. I like the RTP but this is GIAW darn it. I will NOT use a RTP monster if I can help it! Again, I feel like RTP has its strong points, but that they mostly lie in the sprites and tilesets. I just can’t handle the monsters.

Also, listening to music on freeplaymusic.com. A great royalty free site for music! You’ve got to edit them though so they loop. Actually I just ran into HaloOftheSun’s music pack on rmrk.net. Wow that stuff is legit! It’s all going in!

Also turned into finding artwork for Title Screen and intro segment. For my last game I didn’t get to the “action” soon enough. Meaning I didn’t let the player take control of the game quick enough. I wanted to cut back on my intro so that the player could get going. So talking over pictures? Yes that’s what I’ll do.

Too spaced out to do much else other than test the scripts I originally found. I’ve got to get more efficient.

*Post Note
The monsters worked out well I think. I had to shrink them to make them fit the battle system though, and that took some time.

The artwork would work out really great. I love the internet.

August 1st – 8:20 am-10:20 am
My day off has arrived! Crunch time!

Also time to watch my girls while my wife goes to the dentist at 1 pm.

This morning is character resources and mapping like crazy! I like mapping a lot for the player to explore. I love vast world and big cities but sometimes fail in my execution of them. But this is GIAW. Map like mad!

*Post Note
Well I totally didn’t get enough done this day! I was only able to map out the cliffs and make the “off the edge” tile which ended up looking trashy anyways.

Oh well, the family comes first. Day off getting stuff done didn’t happen. Spent the night hanging with the wife. Way more important than GIAW.

August 2nd – 10 am – 11:30 am
Ok for real. Time to get this junk done. Today I was able to map out the forrest, the city, and the ruins. All of that occurred in an hour and a half. I was really impressed with the quantity I was able to accomplish. Unfortunately I wanted to be this far ahead on the second day!

2 pm – 5 pm
Eventing. Sometimes I really hate eventing. Oh well, I have an idea for how I want the opening cut scene to go and by thunder that’s what it’ll look like. Doesn’t look like I’m going to get to the characters to the ruins unless I rush like mad.
At this point I finished the intro eventing and got them to the city. We’ll see if I can go any further than this.

9 pm – 11 pm
Nope. It’s time to get the opening artwork to work and to get a playtest or two in to make sure I didn’t screw up any teleporting or fade-ins. Man I am not turning in as much as I wanted but what the heck, it’ll be something!
Just sent the game in. I’m disappointed in how much I was able to get in but considering the time I spent, I suppose it’s not all bad!

GIAW 11 complete!

*Post Note
Spent the time to ACTUALLY play test the game this time. Geez that killed me last year. Make sure you test your game! Even as you go, and don't wait until the end like I did...

Final Thoughts:
I really need to think smaller when it comes to GIAW. I want to make a huge world but I KNOW what I’m able to get accomplished. Oh well. Next time I’ll either not spend as much time on the scripts or really minimize the world.
I honestly can’t believe I placed at all. The overall score was lower than what Pulsus scored, so that it placed is insane.

Total time I spent this year working on GIAW?
14 hours 30 minutes
So next time, you should compete too!

What was I able to get together in that time?

Check it here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d5guqkuwat6n6w9/T3Xk0M0Tuu

I thought this was a pretty amusing little journal, I chuckled a couple of times In theory, you think doing a game in a week would take, well, a week. But it's a lie! I learned this year and last that overambitious ideas are the absolute bane of any plans for a complete game in such a small space of time D:

Thanks for sharing, interesting to read someone else's thought process whilst doing the contest!

I think the Best Team spent the least amount of time on theirs, haha. :p

2 days can make a difference! \o/

I don't have an excuse for not entering. Truth be told, I've wanted to enter one since I joined the site, but I miss it completely every single time. I actually saw the post and started thinking about what I would want to make, but then I realized I was practically a month late -_-