Awhile back, a person posted this open question to twitter:
Are you building your game solo?
Can you tell me why?
Genuine question, I am really curious, as I have always been "the more the merrier"- type of person.
I gave a fairly comprehensive answer, but I thought I would like to collect those thoughts here in a more readable way, and also ponder what the future of my current solo project might look like.
But before I get to my answers, let me set the scene.
I'm Doing a Solo Project
I'm currently working on my next game, Dagger Down, which is a turn-based JRPG, and plan on developing it solo. The thing is, it's going to be a fairly large project, not a quick and small project like my previous solo game, NOISE1. So naturally I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to go about this, and trying to figure out what its development will look like.
This obviously poses many problems. This is a huge game, it will take a long time to make, and managing scope will be very difficult. Basically, the opposite of what solo developers are usually recommended they do.
But I have no interest in making small games anymore. I have made many dozens of them, and I have gotten that out of my system. They do not bring me joy now, and they do not let me explore the medium in the way I want, so small projects are not really for me.
So my only choice is large projects. But if I am developing solo, then I have a big problem on my hands.
Solo is Not Really Solo
The first problem is that—while I am technically capable of making most of this game—I am not capable of doing everything on my own. So it's not actually a solo project, and I can never really make a solo project this large, because there are several things that will prevent that from ever happening:
- music
- sound design
- playtesting
I cannot write music of the quality I would like for the game. If I wanted to, I would have to start now, and maybe in like 30 years I would be somewhere close. I do not have talent for music, and it's unlikely that even that amount of time would get me the results I want. And I don't want to only make one more game in my entire life, I would like to at least make a few more.
Similar with sound design, but to a lesser degree. I am somewhat capable of this, but it would set me back at least a decade and I don't think I want to extend the game's development this much.
Playtesting just makes sense because I cannot playtest my own game. I cannot "un-know" the mechanics and the tutorials to witness them for the first time, it is not possible, and actual players are required for this.
Solo for How Long?
So I lied. I am not actually making a solo project.
But that brings me to my second problem: if I need to work with people on the aspects of the game I am not capable of doing on my own, then when do I bring them in?
If I want to develop the game solo as long as possible, then it makes sense to bring in sound and music folks when it is mostly finished. That feels weird, because for me, music and sound design inform so much about how a game feels that it feels like a disservice to bring them in so late.
But in order to be able to finish this at all, I don't really know if I'll have a choice (other than to just not have sound/music at all). Playtesting feels a bit more manageable, and something I can do organically as I go.
Why Build the Game Solo?
This seems so troublesome, and begs the question that we started with:
Are you building your game solo? Can you tell me why?
It's easy to see why this person would be perplexed, looking at projects like this. If it's so difficult, and will take so long, why not develop the game as a team? "The more the merrier" as they put it. Most widely acclaimed indie games were developed by teams, games like Hades, Inscryption, Celeste, Hollow Knight, and so-on.
But I do not have that luxury with Dagger Down, for several reasons. And it all tends to boil down to one simple fact: more people ≠ less work.
It is already going to take me years to make this game, and is going to be such a tremendous amount of work. While (in many, many cases) adding more people does increase the quality of the product, it also creates a lot more additional work.
It Costs More Money & Time
If I bring in people, now I have to:
- do the work to find, interview, and hire them
- manage the payments, invoices, taxes, etc. to hire them
That's 1~2 more jobs I have to do. I have created more work for myself (important work).
It Requires Lots of Communication
I can't just hire people and leave them to their devices though. I have also have to:
- regularly keep in contact with them, provide them with tasks, check in on their tasks
- provide help and answers for them when they need it
- evaluate their work and provide necessary feedback or changes
Those are extremely important and awesome things to do, and what anyone who is a part of a team wants from that team. Nobody wants to be left in the dark, to be ghosted, to be not paid or listened to, or for their work to go un-challenged.
Now I Have More Jobs
So what have I done now? I've just given myself 3~4 more jobs, on top of the dozen jobs I already have working on the project. And the amount of work required of these jobs scales as I add more teammates.
There's this notion that you can just bring in somebody to take a workload off... but when you're directing the whole project, it's not that simple. When you are part of a team (and especially if you're the lead), you have obligations to that team. Those obligations are a lot of work that cannot be understated.
Adding one team member removes (or at least alleviates) one job for me, but it gives me several more in its place. Now I have more work to do, more stress, and the stakes are higher because if I fail, now I am not just failing myself, I am failing my team.
So on top of more jobs, I also have more stress and fear, meaning my work conditions are less healthy, less enjoyable, and less productive.
Managing Momentum
Another problem that arises is when the project is resting, something I regularly require.
I get very ill sometimes and can't work for long periods of time. How wonderful is that to someone else working on the project? Suddenly all those jobs that were required of me, those essential obligations I had to the team, cannot be met.
When I am working solo, I can shelve projects and come back to them months (or years) later when I am in a good place to work on them again. And I can do that without leaving an entire team hanging.
I can bring in someone to manage the project in lieu of me in these situations... but what did we just talk about? Now that's another person I need to hire, another person I need to manage, another teammate I have obligations to, and more work for me. If I'm so stressed and ill that I need to take a large break, making my job more difficult does not seem like a good solution.
Separations
What happens if things don't work out with a teammate? You find out that you don't get along, or your visions differ for the project? Or they need to leave for personal reasons, or they get a dream job somewhere else?
Now I have to disentangle, and ownership of the project and work done is messy and a gigantic amount of stress and energy is required to navigate that.
More stress, more work.
Taste
I can say many more things, but the final things I want to mention is taste. I have weird, idiosyncratic taste in design, game mechanics, and game feel.
I like my games to have friction and pacing done in ways that most designers and creators do not. I do not like adhering to a lot of standard UI and UX practices, I do not want to follow a lot of common practices that are found in games and taken for granted by most developers. I find them unenjoyable, they grind at me and make me feel uncomfortable and unhappy.
I can't even list all these things off the top of my head, so these are awful things to crop up mid-development, and would introduce more friction and work to do later on.
In Conclusion
I already have to put every ounce of energy I have just to make a game, and I can already barely do it. It takes so much out of me. Ikenfell burned me out for over 2 years because the stress and obligations and sheer volume of work on a deadline gave me so much stress and unhappiness. I got very ill, sometimes for long periods of time, during development.
Adding people means that I have to add more work and more stress on top of what I already can barely accomplish, so it's something I want to do as sparingly as I can.
Teams create higher quality work. But if it makes me incapable of finishing the game, it's not a thing I can afford to do.
