Shooting the Moon
A couple months ago this article showed up on GameProducer.com, reproducing a letter written by an anonymous game developer with an important story to tell. The subject may be best summed up by the author himself:
. . . I do have knowledge, for each technology section required to make [AAA 3D games], physics, graphics, AI, scripting. I have people skills, I know how to manage teams, and schedule their stuff and not to slip the deadline.
Do I know the right people for the project? Yes.
Do I have the money to start a project like that? No!
The question goes again: But can I make any of these games?
Answer: NO!
I love 3D games, but I can not make them!
Once you release yourself of the chains that you are in game industry, and that you MUST make 3D games, you’ll realize that there is whole world out there waiting for you to conquer!
His arguments hit close to home for me: it’s a position I’m passionate about and feel is often underrepresented. 2D vs. 3D, casual vs. core, large vs. small: to many of my peers here at the College, the answers to that are foregone conclusions: go big, young man. Well, I’m here to tell you that last quarter while I was participating in my intensive game design course, leading a team of six to produce a complete industry-grade design document in ten weeks, I had the opportunity to observe this hubris close-up… and reflect on the choices I had made to avoid falling prey to it myself. Let me assure you: small is beautiful.
Perhaps it was the benefit of my experience or simply my nature, but when the question arose as to the scope of the project my team was to undertake, I aimed small. I have not one regret about that decision. What we got for our conservativeness was a complete, polished, and well-crafted design document that we are all proud of, without a single all-nighter or stress-induced breakdown. Indeed, the team hardly suffered at all from the development schedule—no fights, no blow-ups, barely even a lapse in enthusiasm and morale. It was a study in group harmony; even our professor, with her decades of industry experience, remarked that she had never seen a project go so smoothly. All this success has heavily reinforced my conviction that smaller and more numerous projects are a much saner development strategy than massive, multi-year sieges.
From the perspective of do-ability, they are actually possible to complete. Not one large-scale student project I have seen has been finished. Many fall apart after the first term is done, despite the best intentions of the participants. Certainly none have even approached having a playable demo. By contrast, the project I am on now—Tank—was specced small. The game play is simple, technology needs are unextraordinary, and game length is short. We planned it to take about eight months to complete, and yesterday the team pulled their second-ever all-nighter to achieve first playable after just five months of development. We have several commercial publishing opportunities we’re pursuing. Would this have been possible if we’d set out last year with the intention of making the next Diablo? Absolutely not.
Long story short: think small. Be reasonable. I’m not knocking shooting the moon with your project aspirations, but if you know Hearts you know the odds of crashing and burning with twenty-plus points are much higher than actually pulling it off. Start small, pick something you can finish, and let your potential grow. Game design is game design, and many developers will tell you there is plenty of professional and creative satisfaction to be found outside the AAA 3D circle. “Walk the path slowly,” as the anonymous developer recommends in this letter; you’ll have a much better shot at actually reaching the finish line and someday being able to make that game you dream about. And you’ll be successful, too 
What’s not to like?
I’m speechless. That’s exactly how I feel about designing games.
By the way, when I read this “… and someday being able to make that game you dream about.” I realized that most of the games I dream about are quite small. Some may grow bigger, but they’re good being small.
And I feel good about it.
Definitely.
I learned this early on because my first ever game wasn’t even remotely finished. Our team was literally in crunch mode on the bus to class!
So, getting burned early on helped me learn to scale smaller and build up if I had time.
What also helps is that for my job I teach game development to high school students, and I get to watch over multiple groups each summer try to make a game in one week. Some teams plan the scope correctly, some shoot too high but happen to pull it off, and a lot shoot too big and don’t finish. Or most often, they finish, but there’s an overall lack of polish on anything.
We constantly tell them “We’d rather have one amazing level, than 5 levels that were slapped together.” We almost always get the latter though. But, again, it’s THEIR first game, and they don’t know yet how many technical problems are going to crop up, and how much they’ll have to cut. And being first timers, they’re reluctant to cut anything.