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Re: The End

#451
BFett wrote:
Wed Feb 19, 2020 2:07 am
To be fair, what Josh attempted wasn't impossible per say, but as a lone person with such a vision it has to be difficult. But to me, Limit Theory is more than just an unfinished game or a series of beautiful videos, it's the idea that anything anyone puts their mind to is possible. Limit Theory has brought together people from all over the world to discuss and flesh out complex ideas. For me, Limit Theory is this forum and its members. Josh's vision inspired us creatively and became the lore we based our ideas off of at least for a time.

We may never see the game again, but those ideas are still here on these forums, and that to me is the most important thing. Besides, of course, the remaining community.
For one person to attempt this in the timeline promised, it was impossible. It's not a slam against Josh in any way, there was just no way he could have done it, by himself, in that time.
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Re: The End

#452
Deiain wrote:
Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:27 pm
For one person to attempt this in the timeline promised, it was impossible. It's not a slam against Josh in any way, there was just no way he could have done it, by himself, in that time.
I agree, it was a noble attempt though, and I just wish he had a team that supported his dream. Maybe one day, such a project will come to light.
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Re: The End

#454
Deiain wrote:
Wed Feb 19, 2020 12:23 pm
With no support or experienced project management, there was no way he could pull this off in the timeline he estimated. Even very experienced developers wildly mis-estimate medium and even small tasks from time to time. An inexperienced developer (even with the incredible talent Josh has!) just hasn't seen enough "weird shit" to guess how long a multi-year project is really going to take, and what unexpected pitfalls they might encounter along the way. Just being able to write the code for the next cool feature is not enough. The planning and project management aspect of something like this is nearly equally as important as the ability to program it.

This is well said, especially the "pitfalls along the way" part.

Too many people (including management) seem to believe that if you can just plan perfectly enough at the start, you can significantly reduce the risk of blowing a schedule or a budget. And so amazing amounts of time and people and Project Management Certifications (all meaning $$$) are spent in pre-production trying to lock down every detail and to accurately estimate the time that implementing every feature and milestone will take... and much of that is completely wasted.

As Eisenhower is supposed to have said, "Plans are worthless, but planning is invaluable." That is, it's vital to have some kind of document explaining what you want to achieve and a strategy for getting there... but then you must be prepared to modify that plan as challenges and opportunities arise, along with the 1001 things that life (and Mr. Murphy) will inevitably throw at you along the way.

So good project management, as I've come to see it, isn't just getting someone with a PMP certificate to crank out a hyperdetailed project plan and then disappear. It's about taking the creator's vision, crafting a general strategy to build a product that delivers that vision, and then spending every single day cycling between everyone working on the project to 1) listen for opportunities and problems and flow that information up to the leads, and 2) continuously communicate the vision and strategic goals to every person so that what they do is always focused on delivering a sufficiently accurate solution as soon as possible. Project management is a process, not a deliverable.

Obviously some of that goes away for a team of one... but even then it's vital to adapt where possible, and to focus on doing the most high-value work rather than fighting to perfect a marginal feature. And even then that advice has to be qualified for a game, because that has the additional challenge of being an artistic creation that must be fun for many different people to play, not just a business app. Usually that means iterating on multiple ideas -- so how do you factor the value of that creative exploration into a project schedule?

That's why I'd never beat up on Josh. I wish he'd hadn't been so set for so long on trying to do everything himself, but it was his project, and he absolutely had to have the space to try out different ideas. In the end, that process didn't converge soon enough on an infrastructure around which a deliverable product -- a fun game -- could be layered. But it was never for lack of talent or effort.

Still hoping something can come from the systems he created.
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Re: The End

#455
Small tangent, I found this course to be very good for the indie developer that needs to plan.
https://www.udemy.com/course/finish-it/

Not sure how much it costs, I got it super cheap as part of a bundle. I know that in the future when I start a new project, I will gladly use this approach to planning. I already used it for a tabletop RPG that is in progress and the worksheet is super handy for keeping me focused.

In my career, I've found that agile development in cycles has been very helpful when you have a 'customer' to get feedback from. Josh could have easily leveraged the community here to fulfill that role.
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Re: The End

#456
I've been waiting for this post since you disappeared from youtube 5 years ago. Release it under the creative commons license and the community will have something playable in less than a year. None of us is as smart as all of us.

You shouldn't have tried to do everything yourself. The point of the kickstarter money wasn't to keep you afloat for half a decade while you attempted to do the jobs of like 20 people, the point was to allow you to hire a staff. People who know things you don't. Is this game impossible to make? Far from it. Is it impossible for ONE GUY to make? Yeah, you pretty much just proved that.

Valuable lesson for next time.
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Re: The End

#460
BFett wrote:
Sat Mar 21, 2020 5:12 pm
zircher wrote:
Sat Mar 21, 2020 1:02 pm
Hey Josh, hope your safe and well, but I think you're taking this social distancing thing a little too far. :-)
Good point. You'd think he'd have a bit of time to come say hello now. We all want to make sure he's living.
I honestly think that he just want to leave all of this behind him.
LT Wiki | IRC | REKT Wiki
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Idiots. Idiots everywhere. ~Dr. Cha0zz
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Re: The End

#462
I just rewatched some of the devlogs from way back, and im still surprised at how well the graphics hold up 5 years+ later. Genuinly, the UI alone still seems so ahead of other space games and it got me wondering, why dont some of us start our own open source github attempt at recreating some of this?

If the intention was to release the source anyway, I dont see any reason why those of us who were planning on trying to fiddle with the code cant just try to come up with something on our own? Since josh seems to have disappeared, and theres no telling how long it'll be or if at all he'll return, so in the meantime theres all these technical posts on here to give us some idea how to start a new project like this surely?
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Re: The End

#463
Fingus wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 7:09 am
I just rewatched some of the devlogs from way back, and im still surprised at how well the graphics hold up 5 years+ later. Genuinly, the UI alone still seems so ahead of other space games and it got me wondering, why dont some of us start our own open source github attempt at recreating some of this?

If the intention was to release the source anyway, I dont see any reason why those of us who were planning on trying to fiddle with the code cant just try to come up with something on our own? Since josh seems to have disappeared, and theres no telling how long it'll be or if at all he'll return, so in the meantime theres all these technical posts on here to give us some idea how to start a new project like this surely?
I wonder why no one has proposed this, yet. :problem:
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Re: The End

#464
insta wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:58 am
I wonder why no one has proposed this, yet. :problem:
Well, that's just human nature. We were led to believe that we would not have to reinvent the wheel and that we'd have a jumping off point. What we got was a wasted year waiting.

I've been busy with other projects, but I did put any space game development (community or otherwise) on hold.
Post

Re: The End

#465
insta wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 9:58 am
Fingus wrote:
Wed Mar 25, 2020 7:09 am
I just rewatched some of the devlogs from way back, and im still surprised at how well the graphics hold up 5 years+ later. Genuinly, the UI alone still seems so ahead of other space games and it got me wondering, why dont some of us start our own open source github attempt at recreating some of this?

If the intention was to release the source anyway, I dont see any reason why those of us who were planning on trying to fiddle with the code cant just try to come up with something on our own? Since josh seems to have disappeared, and theres no telling how long it'll be or if at all he'll return, so in the meantime theres all these technical posts on here to give us some idea how to start a new project like this surely?
I wonder why no one has proposed this, yet. :problem:
Excellent idea :clap:
Now who wants to create a simple poll - just to get numbers and interest for starters
YAY PYTHON \o/

In Josh We Trust
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