Forge of Legends March Update
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And a snip from the text, which also treads into territory concerning the perceived saturation of the RPG market in recent months:
Another benefit of fleshing out abilities is that it paves the way for me to complete the magic and spellcasting system. I will tackle that for the next update, most likely.
Now, as promised, I have some thoughts on the design and development process. I have been struck more than once that I really have bitten off a lot with Forge of Legends. While it's true that I have completed a few games here and there in the past, I have never taken on a project with the intention of packaging it for sale. Until now.
This game's scope is really quite ambitious. And I intend to finish it without dropping any of its key features. But that means a lot of work before I can get that "I'm an indie game developer with a finished game" badge, and at times I consider the list of work items that remains to be done and wonder, "what have I gotten myself into?" One lesson I have learned from this is that my NEXT project is going to be smaller in scope!
I think a common affliction of game designers is that they all have a Big List of Game Ideas floating around. This is certainly true for me. From time to time I consider the list and want to pounce on the next cool idea, but can't. I know I need to finish Forge of Legends first!
Something else I've been considering is the proliferation of "old school" RPGs. The Coyote recently blogged about this, if I am not mistaken. When I began Forge of Legends some years ago, I was convinced that the old school RPG niche was vast and under-served. Sadly, as a one-man team, it has taken me years of development, and now I see that the RPG market is... crowded? This is something that is now frequently on my mind. I wonder what members of the RPG-gamer community would have to say about this? Am I now in a bad position because my game has missed the window of opportunity?
Lest I risk sounding negative, let me be clear: Forge of Legends will be completed. I'm making the game I always wanted to play, as I think is often the case with one-man game developers. Additionally, I really want to see the project through, if for no other reason than to get a project finished. I expect to learn so much from getting this first title out that my NEXT project will be all the better for the lessons learned.
