Re:Joys of Small Game Development
by johnnyanmac on Sunday October 08, 2023 @12:51AM
(#37807959)
It'll depend on who you ask and what lens you look in. "small" for a dev is very different from a consumer
And when you split into disciplines it gets even more murky. VN's are "small" for a programmer (you may not even need to program for many of them) but can be hundreds of art assets for an artist to work on. Likewise, something like Dwarf Fortress didn't even have a GUI at first but is filled to the brim with simulation state for a programmer to manage.
And if course that definition is relative. Final Fantasy VII was top of the line in 1997 and took 5+years, but it'd be at best a beefy 2-3 man project over a few years today.
And when you split into disciplines it gets even more murky. VN's are "small" for a programmer (you may not even need to program for many of them) but can be hundreds of art assets for an artist to work on. Likewise, something like Dwarf Fortress didn't even have a GUI at first but is filled to the brim with simulation state for a programmer to manage.
And if course that definition is relative. Final Fantasy VII was top of the line in 1997 and took 5+years, but it'd be at best a beefy 2-3 man project over a few years today.