Do you like to make dev challenges for yourself?

[Kokoro Hane]

Maybe it's just me, but I like the idea of giving myself some "challenges" when I make certain games, just to try something out for fun. Some of these challenges can be very silly (most of the time) and some could be personal challenges of something I have always wanted to do in a game but how to go about it?

Do you ever impose such challenges like this on a project, whether it be for fun or personal reasons? For example.... here's a silly one I had in mind. It'd be great for an "RTP" only type of challenge, but a silly challenge to "make a game that uses a lot of sample maps but try to make them interesting anyway" lol. I just think fun challenges like these impose growth or fun limitation to breed creativity.

What are some of your personal or silly dev challenges? Are they challenges you've yet to try out, are currently trying, or have done so in the past and it yielded or did not yield any results?

 

[Animebryan]

I certainly don't need to. Trying to make a full fledged SNES era epic RPG is a near insurmountable challenge in its own right. Being broke while nearly every resource is paywalled & dealing with all the limitations that RM has also makes creating any RPG difficult.

You know what's another challenge? Having a vast collection of monsters & matching map sprites for ALL of them so you don't have to do random encounters & exclusively do map encounters. I poured through all the DLCs for a set of 100+ monsters with matching map sprites & there is no premade set to be found!

 

[Indinera]

My challenge is always to make the game as good as possible considering the story and assets I have.
Results may vary although I will always release a game I'm at least happy with.

 

[alice_gristle]

Ooh, putting limits on myself is something I LOVE to do! At the moment I'm all for makin' limited colour palette graphics, I've got a game in the works that (kinda) uses only red, blue, and green with four hues each (so 3x4 distinct colours). And after that Imma make a game using the Gameboy Pocket palette!

Kinda want to do some crazy writing limits too in the future, but at the moment it's graphics!

 

[BenSD]

Does "get out of bed" count? It's certainly challenging...

 

[Iron_Brew]

Sure do! "No plugins except for UI" was the big one for me. Forces me to create fun encounter designs with the tools at hand, rather than relying on things like YEP as a crutch

 

[xlucky_rat]

I'm currently planning an RPG created with the "one map" challenge that I'm pretty excited about! I'm looking to make it over the course of June (Pride Month--the game will reflect this), so I guess my challenge to myself is one map, and one month. But I'm looking for other ideas!

 

[HexMozart88]

Oh yeah. I get tougher and tougher with each game I make. This game's challenge is to make every single sprite and map from scratch.

 

[xlucky_rat]

I'm actually looking for arbitrary challenges I can use for future projects, along the lines of the one map challenge, if anyone has any ideas.

 

[Cymaiden]

At some point in the future, I intend to do a project using only the Game Boy-esque Nostalgia Graphics DLC as a creative challenge for myself.

 

[xlucky_rat]

At some point in the future, I intend to do a project using only the Game Boy-esque Nostalgia Graphics DLC as a creative challenge for myself.

I love that artist's stuff! I actually stole my avatar from them.

As for arbitrary challenges, I think that while June will be a one-map challenge, July will be a "so bad it's good" challenge.

 

[EidolonDreams]

I'm guilty of constantly doing the "What can I learn how to do so that I don't have to pay other people to do it for me?" challenge.

Aka: I'm poor and DIY everything xD

 

[xlucky_rat]

I've actually decided my game project idea is too big to fit on one map. While I am still limiting myself, I have increased the limits threefold: 3 maps, 30 events. I feel this will give my players a greater experience.

 

[Kokoro Hane]

I've actually decided my game project idea is too big to fit on one map. While I am still limiting myself, I have increased the limits threefold: 3 maps, 30 events. I feel this will give my players a greater experience.

That's not a bad increase, so long as it isn't increased too much further! It'll be a nice short game but still with plenty to do, methinks.

If you ever intend the one map challenge though, thinking a shorter story that can be squished into it. You can also make events work double and triple time with variables and things! ^^