Do we have to go multiplayer?

Multiplayer games are sexy! I've realized that most of my game ideas always involved massive multiplayer capabilities and it has been this single feature that has killed most of my projects. It just gets to be to much message sending, syncing and fine-tuning that in the end kills the ambition to finish anything. I just takes to much time to add a single new feature to the game after a while. Of course this can be caused by me not having enough experience and lack of an organized framework.

So how do I feel about multiplayer gaming today?

I say, don't go multiplayer. Being an indie developer means having a very limited amount of time to finish your projects in. Multiplayer will be 75% of your project, I guarantee from my own experience. On top of that extra time you need to pay for servers and someone needs to be managing them. (read you). I would urge you to create a game that stands on its own, with unique gameplay instead.

The current game in the pipe after WordRoom (a multiplayer game) will NOT be a multiplayer game. I've realized that I need to make a game that is a great experience WITHOUT multiplayer support. Also by making the game pretty much storyless with a world that premiers exploration, time can be cut. I really don't have time to fill it with content in the form of stories but rather the game generates content as you go along.

I always have the intent to finish my games. Most of the times I don't and I realize that I need to be more time efficient in the future.

And last up, I stumbled upon this video of Michael Todd where he talks about depression in game development. I would say you wouldn't have to be depressed to follow his advice. It's a really good talk about what to think about. Replace depression with lack of time!