Re: Badass Amy
Hello, Lila M-3210! I see you have taken an interest in creating a video game! While I may only be a newly registered member, I actually work in the videogame industry. Yes, I literally work for a company and have helped to create actual video games. I have registered specifically to help get you on the right track, and to know what to expect! It is a lot of work, even for a small indie game such as this, so I will make sure to point you on the right track so you don't waste any time. All time frames I have listed are adjusted for indie game development scope and team size, assuming you spend most of your free time working on this project while still maintaining an actual job/going to school. If you do not go to work or school and can devote full-time to this project, it may take less time. I have worked on many independent games myself, so everything here is accurate to an industry standard, and is the tried and true proven way to get good games made in a timely manner.
Now, I see you have some very early concept art, which means you're on the right track. The next step is to get a Game Design Document written up. This is a very important document, as it will be the "bible" for your game, and will make sure you keep on the right track during development of the project. What is included in this document? EVERYTHING is! This document will contain absolutely everything in the game, every line of text, every menu option, every move name and description, enemy health and damage values, every line of dialogue, everything. This document is usually several hundred pages long, depending on the length of the game. Yours will likely be several dozen at the very least. Seeing as how you have such a strong vision for your game, it should be easy for you to write this yourself. Make sure you go into excruciating detail, otherwise your game will become convoluted and messy during development.
Another key document you will need will be the Technical Design Document. While not as long as the GDD, it will still be several dozen pages long. The TDD will explain how the game will be built - what engine you will be using, what platform the game will be for, what programming language will be used, and how the coding will be structured. This document must detail not only the programming language that will be used, but how the different parts and structures of the code will be constructed and interact with one another. This is VERY important to write, so that all programming can be kept in line and safely structured. If this document is not written, the code will be messy and filled with bugs - you'll be lucky if the game even runs.
Last, but not least, you will need to make an art bible for your game. This document will feature all of the artist themes and directions your characters and levels will take. You will need to document a list of every sprite and background object (this should already exist from your GDD, but this will be a bit more specific), along with their technical data and visual themes - pixel ratio, rendering time, number of frames per animation, aspect ratio, etc. Don't forget menu and HUD sprites! You also want to list different visual themes and objects that will be included in each area of the game. Without this document your various art aspects will be inconsistent, and the game will look sloppy and unfocused.
All of these documents are MANDATORY for successfully creating a game with an online team, as the GDD will keep everyone with the same vision (remember, they can't see inside your mind) and the TDD will keep the code safe. The entire process of creating and honing all concepts of the game and writing these documents should take roughly three to six months. Any less and you likely have not covered everything that needs to be covered, or have not gone into clear enough detail.
Now that you have written up your GDD and TDD, it's time to start development on an alpha version! By this point you should have a platform and game engine chosen, along with a programming language. First thing to do is get a basic physics engine working. Depending on the engine you've chosen to work with and the skill of yourself and your coders, this can take anywhere from a few weeks to a month or two. This rough version of your game will feature working physics; including running, jumping, gravity, collision detection, hitboxes, and visual optimization.
While working out this early build, you will also want to be working on sprites. Your animations don't need to be very fluid yet, but you should have a few frames for each one at least. I have no way of knowing how many enemies, attacks, etc the game will feature, but you will likely need 100-300 individual unique sprites for this stage. This will likely take a month or more depending on how long it takes to draw each individual sprite.
Once you have a working physics engine and some early sprites, it's time to design some levels and get actual gameplay implemented. This is the stage at which you create early versions of all your actual stages, to see how fun they are. Once you have every stage in the game completed, you should play through them several dozen times to try and find any possible bugs and to see how fun the levels are. Make some adjustments as necessary and do so again and again and again and again. This iteration process ensures the game and levels will be fun. This too will likely take a month or more. Once you are satisfied with the quality of the levels, then congratulations! Your game's alpha version is completed!
Now it's time to start work on the beta version of the game. The beta version is mostly about polishing the game up, making it look nice. You will likely replace all of the sprites created earlier with updated versions, including making fully finished and fluent animations. You will need to make roughly 500-700+ sprites and frames of animations. You will also need to completely redo the visuals of the levels you made earlier in order to make them look nice as well, which will likely require another 300-600 tiles of environment art. During this time much of the code may also be redone in order to optimize and remove bugs. This will likely also be the time audio fully implemented and mastered. You will need a 100-200 sound effects, as well as a dozen or more songs.This whole process will likely take another two to four months. Once the game looks and sounds good and is mostly bug free, then the beta version will be complete.
At this point there is further testing needed to remove ALL the bugs and touch up visual details. This will likely be the first time the game is ready to be shown to others, and you will need to do so - you will need a wide range of testers to ensure nothing is missed. You may need to completely redo large chunks of the game in order to fix problems found by testers (well-written documents help prevent this). Depending on how many bugs are found and the severity of said bugs, this could take a few weeks to a few months.
At this point, your game will likely be finished! Congratulations! The whole process likely will take anywhere from six months to a year or more; depending on motivation, team size, and experience. It's a lot of hard work and dedication, but I'm sure you can do it!
This is Amy as she appears in my mind in the game. She has a different personality than the real Amy. This may or may not become part of the reason why she is from a different dimension.
