A Response to Cliffski's 10 Tips to 10X Your Indie Game Development Process
I respond to each of Cliffski's (Positech Games) points about improving your indie game development process without being a jerk about it!
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Recently the noted indie curmudgeon Cliffski wrote a lengthy blogpost about how to improve your indie game development process, for which he received a lot of unfair criticism from the internets. A lot of this abuse was unwarranted, and I want to take this opportunity to respond to show people that you can disagree with someone without necessarily hurling abuse at them
NOTE: It is rather cheeky to do this, but Cliffski published our first game, and by now we’ve known each other well enough that would call him a friend (although this may put that to the test!)
Tip #1 Stop fucking around with ‘fun’ disguised as work
Reading reddit is not work, unless its 100% actual new, informative, well-reasoned and argued and productivity or sales-boosting information directly applicable to indie game development on the platform/genre combo you work in
Cliffski takes aim at “useless” activities disguised as work, like reading reddit, playing indie games, and watching youtube let’s plays. While I agree that hunkering down and actually working is the key component in any endeavor, not just gamedev, there is a lot of value to wasting time. I can say this as someone who tried to devote himself to making sure every single day of his life was planned perfectly so as not to waste a minute of time.
There is a supermarket near my home that charges me 30 Pesos (about 75 cents) if I park there for more than 15 minutes. I have planned my grocery shopping such that as soon as I enter the parking lot I have already pre-mapped my route through the grocery story to pcik up everything I need in order so that I am out by 15 minutes. When I miss this arbitrary deadline I get pissed off. I tried to spend the rest of my life this way and it drove me (and my wife) crazy.
There is huge value in making an efficient use of your time. But there is also value in giving yourself a little bit of slack to enjoy stuff, play some games, and read through things. It’s impossible to know ahead of time what will be