In this video I began the development of my new 3d puzzle game!

Starting right after the open world game ended, I planned a lot. This was mainly due to the open world game failing because of a lack of planning. I also found out about this phase in game development called pre production, and I wanted to do pre production right! (the key word in that sentence is wanted)

I did some research and learned that I needed to start with a prototype. The starting with the prototype wasn't the bad thing, but it was how I did the prototyping. I programed the main mechanic and then just started adding a bunch of other stuff to the game and not building on, tweaking, and refining the main mechanic. So all this means is that the core mechanic isn't fun which is not a very good thing for a game.

The next part of my pre production involved my making of the game design document. (writing out that phrase just gave me some ptsd) Game design documents are 100+ page documents about everything in a game. I found out that this happens a lot in the industry so I reluctantly tried it. A month later, I wasn't even halfway done and I had already written 67 pages. I then immediately stopped because I hated it. If you are contemplating making a game PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!! A much better approach which I eventually did in my second pre production is to make a much smaller 3 ish page game design document, just with some main ideas for the game.

After a month and a half break, I started back up again and prototyped the right way and made a much more fun and interesting iteration of the mechanic. Oh and if you were curious, the monster line of code didn't work because of something called gimbal lock. It's definitely worth looking up if it sounds interesting.

I then made some test levels and messed around with the mechanic a bit. I'm definitely going to continue the development of this game, and I'm shooting to have it all done by the end of 2022. Oh yeah happy new year everyone!

Chapters:
0:00 - The Idea
1:31 - Failed Pre Production
3:53 - Restarting Right
5:29 - Test Levels

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