[levmiseri]

I have done something similar - building a game while working full-time. But my approach was the complete opposite of this article.

No real process, no plan, no scrum method, not even a trello board to track progress and todos. Personally, I enjoyed the "fun" of it being very spontaneous, yet still passionate. I didn't write to-dos and tasks to be done, because there is always something to be done. And intuitively you feel what's important and what's not. I also didn't want it to "feel" like work.

For context - the game took me about 6 months to create: https://yare.io

[kotrunga]

Your game looks like a lot of fun, and the concept is really cool. Would you mind telling us more about your process and the technical aspects?

[levmiseri]

There is one last major piece to be done for the game (now I’m no longer working alone on it) after which I want to write something a bit more detailed about the journey.

But on the high-level — my full-time job is interaction design. Throughout my career I used JavaScript a lot for building interactive design prototypes and it’s the only language I know, so when I had the idea for Yare.io (heavily inspired by MIT’s Battle Code), vanilla JavaScript (and Node for server) was the only thing I could use (didn’t know any libraries or frameworks)

The project was really just a “problem” to be solved. Use JavaScript to move basic geometric shapes on a canvas in a 1 versus 1 battle. It needed to have a UI, rendering of a game state, authentication, event queue, basic ruleset, … None of this really required any tracker or rigorous process. I know what needs to be done, because I’m literally sitting in front it, seeing what needs to be done. It didn’t need a “plan”, because it didn’t matter when each piece of the puzzle was made. Just, whatever I was in the mood for that day.

I think the principle of simplicity (as cliche as it sounds) – trying to keep everything (especially the foundations) as basic as possible – was really the main thing that allowed me to finish the game.

I don't think I could enjoy it as much as I did with some scrum method, brainstorming bullshit, or anything reminding me of work.

[kotrunga]

Thanks for sharing!

[kfarr]

Nice trailer video!

[Sammi]

OP is basically saying: "Here's what I did in order to do what I did".

This reminds me of: Correlation does not mean causation.

And: Survivorship bias.