Excuses

My game did not release on time! Who is to blame? Who do I have to fire to get this project back on track? Let’s review the org chart…

orgChartCloseup

Well it’s pretty fucking obvious whose fault this is. That guy. The road-blocker. The I’ll-get-back-to-you-and-never-does guy. The last in-first-to-leave guy. The guy with all the excuses. Well I’m not running a charity so he’s out. Hated that guy. Always hated that guy. Josh Fucking Weinberg.

Bottle RocketFuck you guys. 

Let’s be serious for a minute (ha!). I do have excuses. I’m not in a situation where I can drop everything that’s going on in my life to focus solely on indie game development. I have a job I don’t hate, a family I don’t hate, a mortgage (yes, I do hate the mortgage but I don’t hate sleeping indoors), a social life and other commitments which I won’t just drop. I would call all of these things Valid Excuses. If I ignore one or two of them to work on my game I’ll make more progress in the short term but in the long-term the whole project will become unsustainable.

For example, I, right now, have a big pile of unfinished projects cluttering up my computer, desk and my brain because I burnt out on them after ignoring a lot of other interests and responsibilities. Everything from screenplays to art projects to videos and video games. Sadly, none of them actually exist in final form because I couldn’t sustain my involvement without wrecking the rest of my life. That’s my M.O. I go in hot and burn out.

Look at all this awesome shit I've made. There's nothing here.

Look at all this awesome shit I made.

So I need another approach besides slamming my foot down on the accelerator and praying I hit the jump ramp before my gas runs out. I need to make consistent incremental progress on a long-term project in a sustainable way which will eventually result in a finished product. It may take five years but that’s sooner than never. It’s like Calculus: An infinitely small quantity is still larger than zero. In this case my infinitely small quantity is how much work I can put in on my awesome huge epic game in a day.

leibniz

My plan is basically this.

In other news, I’m rich! Soon I’ll be quitting my job to focus on game development full time! How did I come into all this ca$h you may ask? Just L@@K:

dogeroom

Only about 75° in here! (Celcius)

It might look like the training room at my office. It might actually be that training room. But this room leads a double life… I’ve got these under-utilized PCs mining Dogecoins 24-7. I’m pretty sure my boss won’t mind! As soon as a Dogecoin is worth more than 0.000000049 Litecoins and a Litecoin is worth more than 0.00231 Bitcoins and a Bitcoin is worth more than 8392 dollars… well… warm up your joysticks because The Website is Down  Video Game will be ripping off the jump ramp and into your hot little hands immediately just right after that.

Page One

Welcome to the The Website is Down Dev Blog! I am Josh Weinberg, the creator of The Website is Down Webseries. I’m currently working on an adventure game called… The Website is Down Adventure Game – In which you, humble idiot, play Web Dude: genius and all-around misanthrope.

Unfortunately there are many things are conspiring against me in this effort. Primarily, I have:

  • No time
  • No money

See Diagram.

Well how screwed am I really, though? Let’s check the Internet. Ah, here’s an illuminating answer to the first question:

howManyManHoursDoesItTakeToMakeAGame

I didn’t make this up.

“some games take a long time 2 make and some dont”

-Giraffe
Tom’s Hardware Forum

Bam! Problem solved. This game will definitely be one of those that doesn’t take a long time 2 make.

As for the second question, unfortunately, Giraffe is not very helpful: “idk wat the biggest budget is“. Well shit, Giraffe, get it together. I’m not looking for an upper bound anyway… I want someone to tell me it’s going to be quick and painless. I guess I’ll have to step up and present some original research here:

“some games r expensive and sum are cheap”

-Josh Weinberg
The Website is Down Dev Blog

Just depends on how many graphics and buttons you need! Luckily I don’t need any of either. Bam!

So there you have it. According to the Internet I’m not fucked at all. Full steam ahead.

Next week’s blog: Recap: How I Made An Award Winning Game in a Week.