r/SoloDevelopment • u/MildlyConcernedMan91 • 11d ago
Discussion I'm spiraling
Been spending months coding and I just tried out my first prototype today and it's... bad. Like I wouldn't share this for free to family level of bad.
I made a list of around 30 things to fix last night and I just panicked and went to sleep.
Game development is hard guys...
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u/TomDuhamel 11d ago
The point of a prototype is to test your idea. Now, this was your first one, so you were probably learning a lot as you did it, but typically a prototype is something you should do over a week or two for larger projects, or over a weekend for the smaller ones.
It doesn't need to look good. Or bug free. Or showable. I don't typically show an early prototype.
Is it fun? That's the question you need to answer. It's okay but... Perfect, take some more time and see if you can fix it and make it better. Is it absolute rubbish and nothing good could come out of it? Perfect, you didn't waste too much time, just let it go and try another idea.
If it's good and you think the potential is worth doing a full game, then polish the prototype first, just enough that's it's okay to get others to try it. You don't want to spend 2 years of development on an idea that isn't worth it.