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Throwing Himself On the Innovation Grenade
spidweb writes "A long-time Indie game developer writes on IGN.com about trying to make innovative games, and the occasionally painful consequences. From the article: 'Like all (or many, or some, or none at all) other game developers, I spend a lot of time staring into the void of my own uselessness. So, to try to give my life a sense of meaning and accomplishment, I occasionally try to innovate. I really hate trying to do something new. Sure, it gives personal satisfaction. But you know what else is fulfilling? Staying in business. Not losing your house. And you can't pay for food with Creativity checks. But, every five years or so, I try to do something that isn't the standard material.'"
Innovation is hard. Especially, if you're running a three-person outfit. I'm going to find out exactly how hard when I start my indie outfit this summer. Starting with a business plan and a partner, I'm going to set up the business entity and website, write the design docs, program the game, and released a finished product for the Mac in one year. A modest project considering that my largest programming projects to date includes a database program using XML for persistent storage for a class and the database scripts for my personal website that I'm currently rewriting. As for the game itself, I have no idea what's that going to be yet. Innovation is hard.