project modeling
increasingly as I make games, I find the main limitation to my ability to craft a game isn't necessarily workload (if only because I think I've become pretty good at scoping thoughtfully), but instead my ability to model the project in my head. when I can imagine a project all at once, like a bird gazing down at the world from above, it becomes much easier for me to identify its strengths, weaknesses and possible next direction. when I can't, it's like feeling around in a dark room.
I've found that modeling a project for myself is only loosely correlated with its complexity. there are certain things that I can personally model in my imagination quite effectively that others might struggle with, and things others can model in their imaginations I've found I struggle with. I've noticed I have an easy time modeling systemic interactions and broad possibility spaces in my head, even quite complex ones, but retaining game levels and their connections dizzies me easily. I've gotten caught up quite a few times in the past year managing even simple level-based games!
to some degree at least, this is likely an expression of experience as much as it is of one's nature. I've spent a lot of time playing and making roguelikes and other systemic sorts of games, but I've only made a few level design-based experiences. similarly, I think being immersed in a genre can do so much to model a project for oneself. it would be a convenient, immediate touchstone if tomorrow I said I was going to make a "dragon quest 1-like", but at the same time, the more I diverged from that simple premise into experimental grounds, I might find myself losing the ability to grasp my own project from a birds-eye view and risk becoming "lost".
I imagine this could play into how studio production often takes the iterative form it does (putting aside economics and just considering team logistics.) if a game can be made much more efficiently and confidently if the solo creator can model it easily for themselves, this must be exponentially more important in a group environment, where a unified creative direction is even more precious.
lately though, I've begun to consider a new dimension of project modeling, and that is how the tools and documentation we use influence how we understand and create projects. when I was working in RPG Maker at the start of this year, I felt it did much to make mapping and event design easy to understand. but, this only went as far as singular maps and events- when it came to visualizing how maps or events might be connected, there is little support from the engine. as I was making a game that was about complex map interconnections, I soon became overwhelmed and realized it wasn't practical within my constraints.
I began to notice something similar while working in pico-8. starting last year, I took up some rpg projects that involved data-based statistical design. but due to the editor's small text view and lack of (for example) ability to rely on external spreadsheets, I became overwhelmed tracking and managing these aspects of the game. this became easier when I switched to using an external code editor, though still with some challenges.
and then when I recently began a group collaboration, I began to think about how it's important that every person contributing could model the project for themselves to a near-equal degree. while I am quite comfortable visualizing numbers and working directly in code for many things, others aren't. I didn't want to be the only one "up to speed" at all times with the project, so I chose Godot as the engine for its familiarity to all the group members and all of its conveniences for graphic and visual workflows. I'll still have to see what happens, but I'm expecting that us more easily moving in step with one another and having a unified overlook on the project will be a significant help.
as time goes on, I want to continue considering carefully the relationship between psychology, tools and projects. for a long time now, I've done my design documents in sketchbooks so I can lean just as much on illustration, calligraphy and the tone it communicates to direct me through my projects. I want to continue exploring tools and how they make creating certain things easier or harder, to know better where I'm being guided through a valley by a river and where I'm forcing myself across a mountain ridge. a tool by itself might be capable of plenty of things, but it matters just as much how well it fits the person using it.
I want game creation to be easier, funner, more effective, direct and fulfilling. as craftspeople, our tools are just as much our medium as "video games" is. and similarly, our minds and their individual strengths and inclinations deserve to be regarded in much the same way. hammers and chisels and the like don't exist by themselves, they all have a place in a toolbelt next to one another, a relationship to creation, their wielder and to each other. tooling in games is often thought about in terms of technical possibility or accessibility, but maybe we could go further by emphasizing ergonomics and the way tools communicate with our imaginations.