What am I doing?

I’m investing a quarter of a year to complete and evaluate a playable demo of my video game Caravan.

Why?

I’ve been working on Caravan for a long time and if nothing changes will likely continue to do so forever. That’s fine for a hobby, but I’d like to find out if it can be more than that. This is an experiment in manufacturing some urgency and accountability in the pursuit of a profitable Caravan.

First and foremost that means I have to make something playable and get feedback on it (that second part scares me a lot). The nature of the genre has made it easy for me to justify putting off the creation of a playable demo because there is a very distinct line between the work of creating game systems and the work of creating game content.

I’m hoping that setting up demo dates and engaging an audience of friends and family will help steer me from perfectionism towards practicality.

Goals

• finish a complete playable build

• host at least two live demos and collect feedback

• write a newsletter once a week detailing my progress and involving friends and family in the creative process

Timeline

Feb 3rd - Apr 17 development

Apr 20 - May 8 demos and feedback evaluation

May 11 - May 22 retrospective; next step planning; job search

What happens after May 22nd?

Here are a few outcomes I can imagine:

• Caravan is not fun; I host the game online for free and open source the code as a portfolio piece and look for my next job

• Caravan is not fun, but the sales pitch is working; I start something like a Patreon or a Kickstarter to fund continued development based on promised incentives (note: I would be very uncomfortable doing this so it’d have to be a really big reaction) OR I spend time pitching the demo to publishing companies that work with independent game developers (e.g. Kowloon Nights, Devolver Digital)

• Caravan is fun; I release the game on a digital distribution platform (e.g. Steam) as an “early access” title and see if I can generate enough revenue to continue development