First problems. Of course, I would like the project to go without any problems, but I think that this does not happen. If everything works out for you the first time, then most likely you are either doing something completely wrong, or complete crap. This time, I was the one who made a mistake. In short, there was a conflict of interest, I took on the responsibilities that a game designer should have done, such as: describing the mechanics in detail, describing the TA for the guys, etc. It was not difficult for me to do all this, you could say that I took and did his work out of good intentions, but here one very big problem arises. A game designer should know everything about the game, but it turned out that I took away part of his understanding. Roughly speaking, I told the artist to draw a Bird, and the Game Designer sees a Giraffe instead of a bird. This is where a conflict of interest begins to occur, when you do not have clear responsibilities between employees. Fortunately, I realized this very quickly, and gave all authority for the development and vision of the game to the game designer. I personally took care of making sure that everyone completed the TA on time and that we managed to make the game on time.

I also gave the task for the game designer to describe their TA to all the guys. Namely, two artists and a sound engineer.

What we did today:

Animation of the opening cutscene, objects for the environment of the second and first locations, the floor and walls of the second location, animation of the main character's walk, background music for the first location, and the Beat 'em up combat was completed.

Some advice:

1. We are not robots and cannot do everything perfectly, this applies to both managers and ordinary workers. When you work on a project for a long time and are completely immersed in it, your eyes get blurry and you start making primitive mistakes. To cope with this, I try to rest a little and reflect on what is happening, or ask my guys for their opinion. Constructive criticism helps us get on the right path.

2. To prevent conflicts of interest, it would be good to initially outline the responsibilities of all the guys so that they do not overlap, but since the projects differ, this can be very difficult to do.

3. Don't be afraid to delegate tasks. Practice shows that it is difficult for solo developers to delegate their responsibilities when creating a team. As they say, if you want to do it well, do it yourself. But I believe that if you took a person into the team, then you should trust him to the extent necessary, and focus on other important things in the project yourself. I think the result that can be achieved by working in a team, with proper organization, is much more significant and interesting than solo development, but for each his own.

4. Understand that mistakes and failures are a necessary part of the process. If I had not made a number of mistakes earlier, I would not be in this place. Yes, they can be quite painful, there were mistakes that knocked me out of gamedev for a whole year. But now I am here and we are writing history together. I treat mistakes as a blessing, and I try to learn something from them. No mistakes, no way.

06/22/2025