Making, Selling, and Thinking Indie Games. draft 1

Think of it like architecture. Let's say you want to design your own house. You have a good grasp of aesthetics and so feel that you can do this yourself.

And sure, I've no doubt you could turn up some nice looking blue-prints, but then the questions arise. "Will this design support this floor with only 1 beam?" "How will I get the plumbing from point A to B to C?" etc, etc.

You may have designed the most beautiful house on paper, but will it stand? The big problem about not being able to answer these questions is that you won't be able to answer the one question that rules them all, "How much is this going to cost?"

In this example the cost would be money, but in a game design for an indie coder, or a group working for free with promise of royalties, the cost is going to be in time. We've all got a budget, both monetary and in regards to time. You *need* to be able to get a decent estimate of how much time (and money) a project will cost, and you can only do that with some underlying knowledge of coding, art creation, etc. That knowledge will help shape a design *every step of the way.*