The Indie's Lament

I just hopped out of a steaming hot shower (where I do most of my thinking) and listening to The Decemberists when I started having conflicting thoughts on how big an Independant Games team should be.

The fella doing art for Protonaut, and my primary partner in this venture, is Greg Wohlwend (who has a wicked website). He's great. He works tremendously fast and is wonderfully talented. He has a good head on his shoulders about how the industry operates and has a good handle on games themselves, and gives very valuable feedback on how things are going on the code end of things. If I could buy stock in G.W. futures, I would.

I think one of the best things about having a single partner like Greg is the mutual motivation. Like a climbing plant seeking sunshine, I'm just a dude in search of a relaxed, lazy lifestyle on the beach. When I code alone, I can often lose multiple weeks of development time to a newly released game. I can get distracted with watching Firefly again. If the sun shines a bit more brightly today I might just go down to said beach. Having Greg around keeps me motivated - not just out of guilt for letting him down, but also by genuinely keeping me excited about the project. When he produces a new piece of art, I can't wait to implement it!

There is, however, a fleck of dust within that diamond. When I am motivated; when I am actually getting things done, I have a very one track mind. I get an idea, I iterate the code towards the utlimate goal, and I end up having an agreeable chunk of software - something to be proud of. During this process I'm often observed to decline food (gasp!) and push away beer (the horror!), and hardly move from my chair for upwards of 12 hours. I'm not complaining here, I'm just saying - this is how I do my best work.

Sometimes those coding sessions can go on for weeks.

By having a partner, it's pretty much guaranteeing an interruption. Sure, sometimes the interruption is good - feedback on the current project, maybe some hints or shortcuts to make me finish faster - but sometimes it can be a bit more trying. While I'm excited to accept new game assets (be it code, art, sound), and I know the game will be better for it; I think many programmers will agree: Dropping a project halfway through to switch to a new task is like trying to change gears without a clutch.

As each additional project member is added to the mix, this can occur more and more frequently. I believe this is observed even at the highest levels of corporate culture, where daily status meetings can end up being your primary export. More people to pay attention to, with a deteriorating level of productivity.

It's at around this time I start remember the recent Cogs Postmortem I read. They pretty much say the same thing, but quantify it with a graph.

As much as the businessman in me wants to run my own studio; as much as I want to have a team and command them to fetch me my surfboard; I don't think I can be what I want to be... a Programmer... In a team with much more than 2 to 3 people.

And with a team of 1, I'd never get anything done.

I guess that makes me Indie!