Hot take: it's okay to do that when you aren't tied to a contract or publisher, actually, now is the best time to push yourself and let your creativity and passion flow while it still can, once you get serious about your game and you lockdown that publisher or investor, that's when you will be forced to meet deadlines and cut content. Enjoy the creative freedom while it lasts

I wouldn't necessarily call it feature creep in this stage. It's prototyping, if you decide something fits the feel you can integrate it into your plan for the game. The problem is when these ideas appear during other stages of the game, and that plan has to be altered and extended.

To be fair, feature creep is the reason that Halo became the world renowned FPS that it did... It was originally an RTS.

I love the cut between Apex and your game as you go along. It really shows the effort required to make a AAA game and the slow progress towards something functional. Very cool.

In this specific case, power-slide might be a balancing feature in the arsenal of those who prefer close-ranged/scattershot/fast reload weapons vs those who prefer long range weapons. What helps you decide whether or not a mechanic will be good fit for the game is if it will be utilized often enough to justify its development time. Personally, I think power-slide could help dart around for long enough to close a distance. Just a suggestion though, game sounds like an interesting concept even w/out power-slide.

At the beginning of the video, because of the cautionary tale tone, I expected the core of the gameplay to be movement based and messy to implement with the power sliding. But if the main mechanic is about weapons anyway developing solid fun movement options early on might save you time because you will design the maps with it in mind.

I agree with that you said here. Scope creep is a real thing that can slow down development, and as a solo game Dev I think it's better to stick to basics before going ahead and polishing the game for release. Now personally I have no experience coding, but I do know the feeling when you find something cool and enjoyable in a game you'd want to implement. However this is a big trap to fall into because (as you said) it just delays the game's development. Keep working on it man, and if you ever feel discouraged or tired take a break.

Hobbyist developer of 10+ years. Can confirm, scope creep is the bane of my existence. Even when you say stuff like "okay, keep things simple" and "this mechanic should be easy", you never even leave the planning stage.

some times the power creep is worth it, maybe someone could be like yeah this game has really cool movement I will buy it, that same person could look at your game without the movement and be like no that’s boring I don’t want to play that, it’s a balancing act you have to try to make people excited without putting a bunch of work on you

whenever i look at game development and modern fps games i always look back onto tf2. a game with strong core mechanics, no fancy powerslide, no double jump (except scout) and really just was, and jump, but the amount of movement now in the game was all discovered by people literally breaking the source engine or using some obscure mechanic (like bullet hopping on engineer) to creat way more movement options than you previously would have. or in other words. restrictions make games fun to play

This gun Mechanics remember me of Loadout, a 3rd person shooter were you tweak your guns to fit your playstyle

I remember seeing a video on UKposts (don’t remember which one) years ago that mentioned a mechanic in a FPS(not sure if it was FPS to be sure) that gave the players the ability to see through walls for a certain amount of time(maybe 10 seconds per activation?) but with the drawback of not being able to use your weapon while doing so. I would like to see something like that in a game because it would answer the problem people have with “campers” and allow wall hacks to not only be a tool just used by cheaters but rather everyone. Kinda makes an even playing field ya know.?

Great video, short and to the point. As you were talking about all the extra work, it also occurred to me that you’d have to put a bunch of extra work and thought into designing interesting environments for the player to effectively use the slide technique too.

I love the concept of this game it sounds really fun and I bet there will be a lot of possibilities with it. Keep up the good work

That is a great concept for a game. I also wanted to get started in solo game creation and this upgradeable shooter was a really fine idea I had. So I'm rooting for you to create what half of the gaming community wants!

I enjoy these videos even though I know nothing about game development or programming. Keep it up! I really like the idea of progressive upgrades to a match. Teams countering they're opponents starting weapons with upgrades then your opponent countering your counters etc. Makes for an interesting dynamic, almost like in RTS games, where you're trying to pre-empt your opponents moves, who are trying to do the same to you.

That sounds like a really fun idea for a game. I can't wait to play it.

The gun upgrade mechanic of your game sounds awesome, I'll definitely try it out once it's ready

Hey Grabaj, as a small game dev these videos have helped me quite a bit. Im currently wanting to start on my own Multiplayer FPS and really excited to do so!

Really looking forward to seeing what your game is like when it's complete

Garbaj just flexin on his Apex gaming skills. Great content btw, keep it up!

Your content is very high-quality m'man!

Love the weapon selecting feature, keep it up!

This is always as ever the most important developer lesson! I do like the sound of that mechanic too. I feel like it could work a bit like a Mario Kart style rebalancing with a bit more choice involved. So if you're loosing (and so dying more often), you can modify yourself out of a losing position in a couple of different ways. While the leaders, who are dying less, can't upgrade as often because they won't be seeing that respawn menu with the choices on to do so! This could help keep matches close right up to the end where both sides are in basically an arms race to come up with creative counters by their upgrade choices mixed with use of the map's features to earn a victory!

Hey! Love your videos! Keep it up! 🙌

that is indeed a really cool idea of evolving guns and honestly i cant think of any examples that arent you for that mechanic! cant wait to try this game, kind of reminds me of rougelite features

hey, simply loved the feature of chooseing a random weapon in the start of every match and haveing to comit to that weapon. This brings some awesome replayability that as a rogue-like fan I really like!

This is good advice for making anything. Making more work for yourself out of momentary hype is a really easy pitfall to fall into, and i think this video has made me realize that ive been doing it a lot lol

The idea of your videogame really seems to be interesting. I hope it does go as expected and we get to play the game :D

This video is an eye opener for me. I now realize I should make sure one things works fully before I start working on something new. I was just kinda winging it and tell myself I’ll improve it later

Ooh boy, that concept hooked me to that game you're trying to make

That's an awesome piece of advice, along with explaining the realm impacts it will have on development now and going forward. Though I would say that the best FPS feature I've ever come across is altlook in Rust, this allows you to look left and right without changing direction... if you watch a Rust stream you'll notice that its used almost all the time, maybe inventory is used more... so the second most used feature in Rust - the only game that has it I think.

Good job, very insightful. These are unintended consequences.

I’m currently writing my first book but what you just described is the exact same thing I’m dealing with so I can relate 100%

so excited to see and play his game, I'm sure it will be the perfect fps.

Thanks for the input.

Finally, a succinct example of feature creep! Thanks for sharing.

I like to think that there is no “finish” to developing a game, there is only being happy with what you’ve made. If you’re happy with what you’ve made, you can either keep going, or stop and publish it. Just a thought for everyone. Keep up the great work king 👑

There is this game that i really like with the movement and the guns you were talking about. I recommend giving Quake Champions a try or a look, but I don't want you to fall for the trap again. I personally think that it's awesome you're making your own game. Have fun with it. :D

I really like the idea of being locked into your weapon but having the opportunity to evolve the weapon into whatever fits the situation as the match progresses. It kinda sounds like how you evolve your build in a moba during a match. Super interesting!

i love the concept

Quick tip: when tweening the position of the player as you climb up an edge, take into account the velocity of the player and set the length of the tween accordingly. If the player is below the edge and jumping up, the climb should be quick, but if the player is quickly falling down towards the edge the natural thing would be a slower climb animation as they "recover".

Your game idea sounds fantastic.

Live your videos. One perspective I may be able to provide on your game is that the movement being so normal and therefore slow by game standards, I think it will lead to sniping being a very very popular and powerful class.

Thank you for that very Good Advice.👍🏻 It is much better to choose one great mechanic from the very beginning of the Project, (if you are an Indie), and Finish the Game according to it (pretty much in a Minimalistic way). After finishing the version 1.0 of the game, you get to decide if you want to add more features... or to perfect what you already have (adding some 'Game Juice'), or to just launch the Game.

you fried that man at the end 😂

Awesome video. Feature creep is the slow death

I think this applies to more than just game design. I think this kinda opened my eyes to the fact that I'm doing this somewhat with my comic that is still in its storyboarding phase. I'll think of another cool character I want to develop and write a backstory for and then because they are new and fresh I wanna just spin them off into their own prototype comic when I haven't even finished the first comic. It's very easy to want to run with a good idea but sometimes you need to finish one thing before you move on to the next.

oohhh i like the idea of the main feature you should go all out on your weapon upgrades, maybe locking some specific mechanics behind attachments? ofc this is the early beginnings of the game, but maybe you could try and make a sort of upgrade tree for each gun, specializing in close to long ranges, area denial, survivabilty, etc.

well after hearing about your game, ive become quite excited

Me hears feature creap description. Oh, I had flashbacks.

Wallace Shawn voice: You fell for one of the classic blunders!

That upgrading feature mid-match is such a cool idea and makes me want to play the game once it's out. Someone remind me like in a year or whatever

I had a similar idea for a game of my own about adapting your weapon as the game goes on. Single player roguelike where dead enemies have a chance to drop a modification that you can "hold" in your inventory for later use. At the end of each floor, there would be a workbench to change your modifications on your weapon. I'm can manage simple modeling (I'm making this for myself after all) but the coding part is where it gets rough. With all the free time I've got this semester, it may be wise to try out again.

Wow your game looks so entertaining ! Don’t add too many fun features - looks perfect

I feel like with all forms of art the hardest part is being honest with yourself about limits. And it is always hard to decide that a thing you've put a lot of effort in is just not working. But I always like to keep the idea in my pocket, saved for a future idea that it might be compatible with.

this actually happened in my current project but being experienced this time I put the rock on my heart and kept features limited even if some new ideas in my head were cool.

I love you, Garbaj

Follow the fun, don't forget your focus. Build the most important aspects of your game first with what you want to add in mind so that you won't end up with spaghetti code if you do decide to add it. If you are an indie developer start with what you find most fun to do. I prefer getting gameplay mechanics to feel right to animating, so I add animations to my favorite mechanics. If you really like animating you might want to animate everything you want then turn the best animations into mechanics.

im making a tabletop wargame and this concept really knocked me on my feet. I hadnt even decided on on a mission statement or personal boundaries on what i wanted to add, even after 3 years of developing and playing it with friends. I guess that might be why im not satisfied with it anymore.

the feature in the game that you described in the game you're making would be amazing with modern warfare 2019's weapon and attachment selection

cant wait to see your game :)

Sounds like a fun concept for the game, especially 1v1 matches

As someone also working on a self made FPS multiplayer game I find your insights fascinating and insightful as even after 15yrs in games feature creep happens on a daily basis. You could argue that’s just development but it really depends how well defined your core design is at the start.. but it’s always better to get the core concept playable and testing before you commit to any new features / art or polish. As what’s the point in polishing a turd ;)

Some feature creep is because the project wasn't fully considered in the beginning. Sometimes you just realize you need something you didn't think of before.

honestly i felt this when i had to do my final project fot eh programming class, the project was about to do some "proto-website" (the main objective was creating a frontpage that worked with a database) and i was never rly a creative type of guy so almost harder than the code itself was having the ideas of what to put in and was the biggest struggle during the months i worked on it, but like in the last week or 2 i just had a bunch of fucking ideas of what tu put in, legit was working on stuff to the last day, granted that was the end of the year and last class so i was done with exams but still felt like the moment stuff started workign together and the time started running out all the ideas started comming

i too have encountered this problem of having too much thing in my previous tries of making a project and as you said an lazy individual is no enough to finish the whole project. So this time I didn't even code the movement and just used starter assets third person controller instead for my DayZ like low poly game btw it was good to know what should i avoid just to finish the whole thing

this is very pertinent to me, im working on a game that's about finishing the fishing subquest after you've already done everything else -- it needs to be an endgame rpg and quickly the amount of things i WANT to see happen eclipsed what im able to do on my own. like i realized in the middle of balancing a fake stat system that i should probably remember to make the fishing part work.

So for feature creep i tend to use burn lists. Basically a list of everything I want in my game or build and i go down like a check list. Its also helpful if you do have a design document to help keep you in line. But sometimes you do get inspired to make something such as that slide. Never throw stuff away. It might not be for your current project but you can start making a library of movement thar you can come back to and speed up future projects

It's eerie how natural feature creep is to a development process. It's less of a newbie trap and more of the siren always calling to you from across the ocean. You'll try to cross the ocean to get to that sexy, sexy dame, but you might just wear yourself out and die along the way. However, I think for newbie games, it's good to acknowledge your first couple projects are throwaways or learning experiences, so you can try various system out in those, expand them in your spare time, then find out what you do and don't like, and why. If you want to test multiple genres, this is easier said than done, as there's a lot to explore. From there, it's good to set "essential" goals, "bonus" goals (if you find spare time), and possible "expansion" goals you can do as future update content. If you plan very nice systems going in, using previous experience, the need for feature creep won't be as dire, so you don't make as many excuses about stuffing a couple things in at the last minute.

i like your insight brother

Happens with me with my art I would add a line and feel to add MORE AND MORE AND MORE TO IT Till it becomes so detailed It wont look like my art that people know me for I try to simplify it Works now but cause of my problem i have multiple art styles I feel its good as well cause it shows how passionate you are to finish that

I’d recommend using the classic 2 weapon loadout system for your game, since that way you could always have a reliable secondary weapon which is decent at all ranges and in more situations.

Thanks for sharing

In software development, this has a specific name "Scope Creep". The client you're making the software for sets functionality at the beginning, and as you're building for this functionality, during progress meetings, they continue to add more functionalities they want here and there, and it makes the time required exponentially longer, and the original timeframe it's meant to be finished becomes impossible to meet.

I love your idea of adding new parts to your weapon that you have to commit to in your game. I wonder how you will balance it out? Maybe if you perfrom well you would have access to less parts compared to enemies who lose?

YES! I ran into the same problem when making a Minecraft world. A project that was supposed to take a week or two turned into months just b/c I wanted to add a few items.

Just wanna say right now Im actually really interested in your game and I cant wait to play

My workflow: write up a paper describing what kind of game is being developed + the base features/gameplay loop, and then design maybe 4 or 5 different characters/monsters, 4 or 5 different weapons, 2 or 3 test maps, etc. After that, get some placeholder graphics and code the game up to what you described in the paper. Test everything as much as you can. If you think of more ideas along the way, add them to a separate "Ideas" list at the end of your paper. Once the base game is complete and tested, go back to your list. Some ideas that seemed cool before won't seem so cool now, so you can mark those off. Some ideas won't fit as well you as originally thought. Cross those off. The rest, implement them one by one and see if they work well; mark off the ones that don't. Once your list of cool ideas has been filtered down, start trying different features together and figure out which ones don't work well together. Keep doing this until you are left with the features you think work best together in one sandbox.

I am an artist and often we use a method of working from big to small, meaning don't start with the detail work, but paint the basic shapes first. this can also apply for a lot of other field that involve creative work, even "non-creative" work really benefits from it. So I recommend you first get that base movement down. make it feel good. responsive. snappy. also remember the game will have to be designed with the new features in mind like sliding. will you add small spaces that are perfect to slide through? when you go down a hill or mountain and you start sliding, can you slide down the entire mountain, etc. there's a lot to consider, but first get that basic stuff down before you "waste" time working on features that you cut out of for various reasons!

from the sounds of things there are 3 level of game design. the rought sketch (this is where you decides what kind of game it is FPS/RTS and so on and a general ide of what abilities you have but not a complet list). because there are oblius cases you will miss like can you climb a ladder open/close doors? this is the prase where the note for jumping is (you can Jump) that is all it say for jumping. (the text for jumping is 1-2 rows at most) the second stage is generalasing ides. like Jumping is now you can jump onto of a crate from the floor (no skyscraper jumping), you can or can or can not double jump (let say you can here). (the text for jumping is 2-3 paragrafs) the 3 stage is the stage that actually gets send down to the programmers and artist telling them exactly what to do (the two earlier stage they might be told about but not show whats written). so the programmer can say sorry the engine does not support ladder climbing. here the text for jumping can be several pages long whit exact information you will need to know when you at 03.00 after 30 bottle of coffee looks at the todo list and see jump and you look at the bible and copy its instructions literally as you have no ability to interpreter anything.

I love how Jonas has done with his game "Will you snail?" where he completed the game in 4 weeks and is now just polishing it up. He's at the state that he can release the game at any point, since it's complete!

I think that additionally to this when you add a feature you also need to think how it will work inside of the rest of the game. Many times it is easy just to have a lot of ideas but don't think how they will work together to make a consistent gameplay. It is important to fit each feature into the wider gameplay and not just add everything that comes to mind.

As someone who is trying to learn game development this was enlightening. Thanks

Aha! You've fallen for one of the classic blunders!

Good idea with the upgrades :)

That's why you should definitely make a GDD before getting to the actual work. Helps being focused.

"people love their movement shooters" for approximately one year, then the love dissolves

I've fallen for this many times

I really like your idea of sticking to one weapon for the game and upgrading it instead of just having to pay a new one every round

This mechanic of upgrading to adapt is present in the now-defunct game Gigantic

IMO your mistake was going for powerslide before you implemented the complex system that is concerning you. The key I have found to big projects is to tackle the hard part first then make the rest of the game work around it. If after the hard part is finished you think a power slide might help you can implement a basic version to test it on top of the needed existing systems. Your project needs to be elastic as you develop, especially in the prototyping phase. The hard part is being elastic while managing scope creep.

love the games idea

crouching and the movenent is perfect

Reminds me writing a song. You have a solid song already but you keep hearing how things could be and some of them are valid, but some of them will just keep you from ever actually finishing the song.

Titanfall and the early days of respawn is a perfect example of how to pick and choose different features

I wanna get into game making one day and one tactic I'm thinking off is just a brain storm period where you jot down as many of the ideas as you can and sift trough which you'd think are the best and ONLY focus on those till they're done. Not get distracted if "oh this feature could complement that. What if you could double jump?"

It's very easy to get carried away and spend time on stuff that does more harm than good. I once spent days working on a 2D platformer trying to get the crouching physics right. I had a very particular way in mind for the player to move if they're crouching under a ceiling half their height. After working on it for days I finally got it close enough to what I wanted to feel satisfied. However, then I stepped back and asked myself, "When will I design the level to make the player move like this?" After thinking about it for a while, I realized the answer was never. I had spent days perfecting a system that needed to do nothing more than exist. I forgot to align my work with my end goal, and it led to a lot of wasted time. Keep your work intentional, guys.

That upgrade mechanic sounds so great

Can we please have dev blog videos of you making the game, that would be awesome!