One of the interesting parts of documenting a journey is seeing how wrong (or right) you can be in the beginning. Whether it be budget, timing, quality, success, enjoyment or one of the many other measurements — something will not go as planned. I thought it would be fun to try to write out some concrete guesses about the future so that they can be revisited.

Will I finish a game on time?

I think it’ll be close. My guess is that I will use the year mark as a target. And when time is up, I think I’ll be 98% there. At that point, I’m sure there will be a bunch of tasks that I’m passionate about but they won’t impact sales. To give an example, take the snow fall throughout Banner Saga — those sorts of details take time, and I don’t think they’re always properly planned for. I still think I’ll take up to a month to polish everything up, and release a little bit later than Chris.

How will the budget be used?

I think the budget will break down like so:

• Art: $21,000
• Sound: $750
• Music: $1,250
• Misc: $2,000

I’ve seen a bunch of sound effects packs that should cover the majority of my needs. It’s a bit of a dream to have some voice acting in the game, but we’ll see how things play out. I’m also hoping to find music for about $100 per song.  And if the opportunity arrises, I’d like to improvise with some sound on my own in a DIY Booth or use the misc fund as backup. Misc will also include tutorials, books, licenses, etc.

My biggest concern is art. I’ve got a decent budget for it, but I really only have rough numbers. If I need 500 frames or unique pieces of art at $30/hour then I’m at $15,000. That’s assuming the first frame might take 2-3 hours, but each additional would be less. On top of that, there are background images, maps, logos, heroes and other illustrations that need to be made.

Will I go over budget?

Probably, but not too much. Knowing Chris, he will be right on target. Assuming neither game blows up in sales, $1000 or so over budget could make me lose this competition.

How will sales go?

Obviously this is impossible to predict, but let’s assume I won’t have a home run break out grand slam. Then, let’s also assume I won’t have a valid hit in sales like Defender’s Quest who made ~$270,000 in 3 months. And on the other side of the spectrum, I do have enough confidence in myself to think I’ll have a bit of success. So 5% of a hit would be ~$50,000 a year, and 10% would be $100,000. Since this contest will be measured 6 months after launch, I’d like to see my game make $25,000 by that time. And if that occurs, which means I break even, I’d be ecstatic.

What visual design will I follow?

Cartoony, world of warcraft inspired art is popular in the app store for good reason. The art has large and recognizable attributes, specific outlines, and looks good on a screen as small as a phone. With that in mind, I don’t want to have cartoony art. Instead, I hope I can find a way to make “brush stroke” art work on a small screen. Or, something along the lines of Final Fantasy Tactics. Ideally, my game will be a bit gritty and have darker elements like fog.

Here are a few samples I’ve bookmarked that interest me:

I think it might be inevitable to avoid a bit of the exaggerated style. For example, look at this snow mountain backdrop. It has brush strokes, but it still feels a bit — cartoony — for lack of a better word.

What will be the hardest technical challenge?

Organizing the code to handle everything at once. I think physics, path finding, and other specific tasks will be different but manageable for me. Frame rate, or order of operations problems that occur from out of control code are much harder to fix. I think I have to understand design patterns from the beginning, and refactor early on. Coming from the web world where performance is about databases and file size, this will be new territory for me.

What marketing strategies will be most effective?

I think it is good to have a story to tell, so I hope this blog has the biggest impact on sales. But the blog is done as team with Chris, so I’ll also focus on individual efforts. I think tedious marketing will have the biggest impact. Making a presskit(), communicating with people, making connections and having an online presence. I’m not looking for one awesome idea. Instead, just execute well on all of the expected things. That said, it would be cool to have a design a character competition where the winner gets some money and an axe. Who knows.

What’s my biggest fear?

The idea that what’s in my head probably won’t be the end result. I don’t care about money and losing right now as much as I do about making an awesome game. And in my head, it’s wonderful. But time constraints, money, art, design and so on can and will affect my vision. More than anything, I fear not being proud of my final product.

Will making a 2D game be harder than making a web app?

Different, but equally as hard. It’s important to realize that I knew nothing when I started writing code for Wufoo. The code base was completely rewritten 3 times. Once to make it object-oriented, once to scale to multiple databases, and once again when we hired people and had to work as a team. The point is that you’ll be harassed with 100’s of problems and you just have to tackle them one at a time. I see that playing out the same for both games and web apps.