https://store.steampowered.com/app/3492830/Gunlocked_2/
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Kickstarting Something Better: Or When Good Enough isn't Good Enough
Why Kickstarter? I’ve gotten that question (and some ruder variations) a few times since announcing Gunlocked 2. If you follow my games, you know a few things are constants: My games are self-funded, have short development times, deliver on their promises, and they’re good enough.
Pictured: A collection of games I've released over the years, some under different banners
It can be easy to infinitely toil away trying to make art perfect. Add in the complexities of programming and the endless search for more optimum code, and infinity gets a +1. They say “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good” but I used to say don’t let it be the enemy of “good enough.”
It can be helpful to aim for good enough. I wouldn’t have released 7 games and 1 expansion over the past 8 years if I aimed for anything more than good enough. It was both a mantra to avoid burn out, and a means to an underfunded end. I was giving myself permission to make imperfect art, so that I could make art at all.
Developing games is expensive. It’s probably the art form with the fewest shortcuts. There are a lot of shortcuts to making bad games, but not a lot to making good games, or in my case, good enough games. It takes focus, and sustained passion. It takes imagination because for huge stretches of time you’re working with abstract concepts that have no manifest results. And most of all it takes time, and time is money.
So “good enough” let me shave off 4 frames and 6 colors from each enemy animation. It let me settle for the same laser sound I used in my last game. It let me use my 1st or 2nd draft of the tutorial, instead of the 4th or 5th. And it was all in service of the idea that if I released some good enough games, I’d make enough money to finally have the time and resources to make a great game.
Pictured: A comparison of boss designs in Gunlocked 1 (above) vs Gunlocked 2 (below)
But that mentality had a hidden cost. It slowly sapped my passion and distracted me from why I wanted to make games in the first place. It turned releasing projects into a means to an end (rent). I was forced to always look ahead, instead of savoring what I was working on in the moment. Don't get me wrong, I was still making games I wanted to make, with mechanics that I thought were fun. But the benefit was that I only ever made good enough money to make more good enough games, and never games of the quality that inspired me to make games in the first place.
Metal Slug made me fall in love with pixel art, and Mega Man 2 made me fall in love with game design. But I’ve never aspired to make games that lived up to those benchmarks before, even though I've wanted to since I was young. I’m 40 years old, and I’ve been dreaming of making games since I was 4. There hasn’t been a perfect time, to put everything I have into what I’m working on, in 36 years. Now is good enough, and with Kickstarter funding I can make something great.