This last week, I discovered a challenge that went around the game development community a few years back. Two of them, actually. Challenge yourself to make one game a week or create one game a month. In this post, I’ll be focusing on one game a week. But either way, the idea is to create and ship a game in a short amount of time. (Short relative to the usual development time, of course.) It seems like kind of a crazy idea. But there’s actually some good reasons to take on a challenge like this. So in this article, I’ll go over the basic “rules” and talk about some of the pros/cons of the one game a week challenge.
Note, none of the ideas in this post are truly my own. They are my interpretation of what I’ve learned from personal research. At the bottom, I’ve listed the most influential resources from that research. If this challenge interests you at all, I highly recommend checking some of those resources out.
Rules of the One Game A Week Challenge
Originally, I discovered this challenge through the blog post Game A Week: Getting Experienced At Failure over on GameDeveloper.com. It’s a fairly in depth article about why the challenge was created. Short version: its a way to get experience in every stage of the development process as quickly as possible. So let’s go over the process (paraphrased from the article above).
You have exactly one week to make a game from start to finish. At the end of that week, you release it no matter what state it is in. (A WordPress site like this one or itch.io are recommended.) Share it with anyone you can and get feedback.
Once it is released, you can no longer work on it. At least not for the challenge. (Sometimes you may have a great idea that you want to explore more in depth. And that’s fine, of course. But for the purposes of this challenge, once the game is done, move on to another game the following week.)
Do not create the same type of game over and over each week. Create something completely different every week.
Make patterns a conscious choice, rather than an accepted and unquestioned reality.
Rami Ismail
Finally, take some time at the end of each week to reflect on the process. Talk to the people that played it. Document your process, thoughts, and feedback in a journal or blog.
Benefits of the One Game A Week Challenge
The idea behind the challenge is straight forward. But why even do it in the first place? There are actually some pretty good benefits.
Obviously the first is the experience. You get experience in every stage of the development process. And you get it pretty quickly. That can have additional benefits like identifying where your strengths/weaknesses are.
Another benefit is getting over creative block. Sometimes we get locked into a single idea and can’t come up with new ideas or think there are no more ideas. (This may just be me. But I have a feeling I’m not alone.) This forces you to get past that block and do something.
Skills like scope, prototyping, decision making, and time management are also developed. With a limited time, you must learn how to minimize scope and deliver something. Decision making and time management are naturally developed the more you do it. You simply learn how long it takes to actually do things.
Of course, we can’t overlook the importance of just learning. Game development is hard to do. There are tons of skills required. And just working on a single project for years can really limit your opportunities to learn new skills.
Finally, it teaches you to be ok with failing. And I know that sounds weird. But most of us get anxious about different aspects of game development. Releasing your game is a big one for a lot of developers. “What if people don’t like my game?” This process helps get you used to that emotion. (Although I doubt it ever really goes away.)
Drawbacks of the One Game A Week Challenge
While there are some obvious benefits to this challenge, there are also some drawbacks to consider.
First is the amount of time it takes. This eats up a lot of free time. Time that could be spent working on your dream project. Only you can decide for yourself if the experience and skills you gain are worth the time you might have to put in.
And as Reddit user Over9000Zombies pointed out in this comment, “starting new projects and not finishing them is a horrible habit to pick up.” And while I don’t think that’s really the point of this challenge, it is something worth discussing. You could get to the point where you don’t see a project through to the very end just out of habit from a challenge like this. Personally, I think if you go into the challenge thinking of it as a learning and practice tool, this isn’t really a major issue.
Resources
This is a list of some of the most useful resources I found when researching the One Game A Week challenge. Mainly putting them here for my own reference. But I definitely encourage you to check them out. A lot of great information out there.
Game A Week: Getting Experienced At Failure – The original article that gave me inspiration for the One Game A Week challenge. Discuss game development stages and the One Game A Week “rules”.
The guidelines for making a game a week, every week – The other article that inspired this challenge. Discusses how and why the challenge is useful and gives 4 things to consider as you work.
GDC Vault – Game a Week: How to Succeed, Fail and Learn – Talk given by Adrien Wallick (a.k.a MsMinotaur) about how and why she started this challenge herself.
#1GAM: How to Succeed at Making One Game a Month – Outlines the step-by-step process game developer McFunkypants used.
#1GAM Prompts on SoundCloud – Short keynote prompts given by McFunkypants to help give guided inspiration to your game.
Reddit: A Game A Week Challenge – A collection of useful tip and tricks from game developers of Reddit. This comment by user SuperRisto was particularly useful (in my opinion).
Developer Portfolios
I looked at the portfolios of some of the other game developers that have participated in this challenge. Some of the developers I’ve mentioned throughout this post. Others I find through the Reddit post above. It helps give some reasonable expectations. Plus its just fun to play!
Christer Kaitila (a.k.a. McFunkypants)
Adriel Wallick (a.k.a. MsMinotaur)
OneGameAMonth.com – Archive of games/devs from the original 2012-2018 project.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I think this could be fun challenge and one that can be incredibly beneficial with the right mindset and goals. If you go into it knowing that the goal is to build experience and learn new skills, I really feel like you can get a lot out of it.
I’d be really curious to talk with game developers that have done a challenge like this. If you have, tell us about your experience in the comments below. (Link to your games, too! I want to play/study them.)
