A while ago, I wrote a post about overscoping. In general, I feel like as game developers we really talk about overscoping a lot. And for good reason too, expecting too much from your game and yourself can be very unhealthy, and can kill a game project.

In that blog post, I talked about how in The Source I was working on refining the game idea, and cutting it down to it’s core elements. This has been a necessary step to getting closer to the games completion. I have shortened and cut down parts of the game that would be tediously long to complete, and chosen to focus on aspects of the game that I feel make it special.

So what’s the problem here? The problem is that in this process, I started to get too eager to cut down the game, and so for a while, I was planning on removing parts of the game that I feel would have ruined much of the experience.

You see, in The Source, you start off with a text adventure style of game, and the game slowly corrupts and moves to a more meta storyline. My initial plan was to pretty much cut out almost all of that text adventure. But as I began to think about this more, the realisation hit me that by doing so, I was going to be removing a lot of the story and emotional context to this world. This first act of the game was not only cool, but necessary to make the later portions work well. And so I’ve added it back in, though with a much simpler scope than I had originally planned, with some puzzles and areas being cut to save on time writing.

And this is what I want to convey– your games scope needs to be in a state of balance. Too much scope will create a project that crumples under it’s own weight, but too little scope will create a project with nothing going for it. That doesn’t mean to make only ‘medium’ sized games, small sized games do not equal small scope. Make compromises to keep your scope from becoming too large. But also don’t be afraid to include things you want, to keep your scope from becoming to small. Find the balance that works for you.

Puzzler, out!

(By the way, if you want to get a little bit of a sneak peek at some of the story for The Source, check out thewell.ink)