Average Time to Produce

General
1

What would you say, on average, the average time is between when a game is proposed as a WIP to its release?

2

never is the most common time but the ones that are actually porduced take nearly a year. or i would imagine so

3

I try to write 5-8,000 words of code a week (I’m slowing down lately). So it takes 20-25 weeks for a 150k word game. Double that for editing and feedback review, and you have the year that Prototype suggested.

4

Sadly, @Prototype is right - 90% of the WIPs die. However, the ones that get finished ussually take a year from inception to finish. It took me 14 months to write Trial of the Demon Hunter (85,000 words) but it’ll only take me 6 months to write the sequel of the same length because I now write full time.

5

@JimD
@Samuel_H_Young

I am just wondering if just writing a story out and then adding choices later will work better. Have you guys tried that technique and does it work better?

6

My process is as follows:

  1. Write a brief synopsis of the story.
  2. Outline the story.
  3. Write and code a scene.
  4. Post for feedback.
  5. Repeat 3 and 4.

I haven’t tried any other process.

7

oh, that doesn’t really seem to work for me so i guess their is no harming in trying another way.

8

@Prototype
For Trial of the Demon Hunter, I first wrote it like a conventional novel, proceeding with the “best” choice to keep the story going. When I reached the end, I went back and added all the choices and branches that came with them. Then when the story is complete with choices and a beginning, middle and end, I post it for feedback and edit it accordingly. (I code as I write; I find it helps me to stay on track). When writing TotDH, I didn’t even write out a plot; I just wrote it as I went.

Now that I’m a fairly experienced gamebook author, I write my sequel essentially the same way as TotDH, but this time I wrote the plot first, and I write the choices as I go. Because of this, the writing goes FAR smoother; I haven’t had to delete 75,000 words like with TotDH because of plot holes or things not taken into consideration.

EDIT
I prefer to get feedback on the finished gamebook as opposed to chapter by chapter; I find it goes by a lot quicker and people stay more interested.

9

kk might as well give it a shot too thanks

10

Oh and it only took me 1 month to edit.

11

for me editting is the big problem but i probably won’t get to that until next year