Dream Big, Start Small: Why Plan Your Game as a Series
Game development is art at scale. You have to define everything about the world you're building - from how movement feels to lighting, to gravity, to sounds, how every single thing looks... The amount of detail you need to consider is massive, reminiscent of building large-scale software platforms. The only way to move forward is to sketch out an architecture and then fill in the details one step at a time. Inspired by the success of game studios like Ryu Ga Gotoku, creators of the Yakuza series, this post explores the advantages of planning and leveraging a series rather than a single game as a solodev.
Why Think About a Series From Day One?
Ridiculous, right? That's my gut reaction even after contemplating the question many times. However, after deeper consideration, the benefits outweigh the risks. Having a long-term vision, even if you ultimately stop at one game, gives your world a depth that players can sense, even if they can't quite put their finger on it. The more practical angle is to think about asset reuse — whether it's a musical melody, a combat mechanic, or a sprite. When your resources are limited, being able to leverage countless hours of work (or maybe not so countless with agitodo) can mean creating more games, with a small or no team, than you might have thought possible.
Learning From Yakuza and Pokemon
Taking inspiration from some of the best — Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and Game Freak Inc. (studios behind Yakuza and Pokemon respectively) — these groups have excelled in defining worlds that continue to evolve over many years. By reusing things like mechanics, settings, or characters, with each new entry they can focus on investing in the new experiences they want to offer. In Yakuza this is often new stories or characters perhaps in a very similar environment. In Pokemon this is new, well, Pokemon but leveraging existing balancing and combat mechanics or gameplay systems like collecting badges.
Building Your Game's Universe
This doesn't have to be more than a sketch. In fact, the blurrier the more fun this has been for me to continue thinking on. Just enough should exist here so that a soul or core throughline of what makes your universe unique is recognizable. The beauty is if you think of a world that has boundaries that go for thousands of miles, you're under no obligation to ever fully detail and build all of that reality. You can just start (and even end) with just a single street, or a single storefront, and eventually if you still find passion in that world it can continue to grow into a neighborhood, city, etc.
Starting Your Journey
If you were in construction, you'd need to know whether you're building a two-story house before buying supplies or starting work. The same concept holds true with software and games. Games arrive at these blueprints through exercises like creating a game design document. Planning for a series doesn't have to make this wildly different or much heavier, but it has given me perspective that I believe will save significant time in the long run. For instance, knowing I want to emphasize combat and sound across my games, I'm sketching out mechanics and assets that could be reused across different gameplay styles like Time Crisis or Metal Slug.
The Benefits of Planning Ahead
- Asset Reusability: Create core assets and mechanics with the possibility future games in mind, saving development time and resources. If you always want to make games with a shooting mechanic, your investment in one can heavily carry over to your next.
- Consistent World-Building: Develop deeper lore and mechanics that can evolve across multiple titles. This leaves less to be figured out at the early phases of subsequent builds.
- Marketing Momentum: Build a recognizable brand that helps market future releases. Why not?
The Natural Challenges to Watch For
- Scope Creep Risk: Planning a series can be intoxicating. Multiple games can lead to overambitious feature sets even in your first title. Or worse, you might be too hesitant to finish assets in title one because you're concerned about their longterm viability. Remember, you need to ship game one before game two matters.
- Quality Uncertainty: There's natural anxiety about whether your first game will be good enough to warrant sequels. This can create unnecessary pressure when you should be focusing on making the best first game possible.
- Pot Committed: Sometimes, locking yourself into a series early can limit the excitement of exploring entirely new ideas and worlds. Fresh starts can be creatively energizing. Just like our world, your world can be big though. Just go to the virtual equivalent of a different country with your second title.
Why I'm Attracted to This Approach
For me, the efficiency gains of series development outweigh any creative limitations. Having an established world to build upon helps move development forward faster and with more confidence. It's also inspiring to look at the evolution from the first Pokemon game to the latest (performance issues aside) and realize that they had to start somewhere. It's easy to think you need to be on even ground with any franchise's latest title, but that's usually an unfair comparison - they're on their 20th iteration with big teams and resources, while you're just starting out, possibly solo.
The biggest challenge is avoiding the temptation to over-define the world before enough of it exists. Given how crucial user feedback is in game development, some elements - particularly game mechanics - should intentionally be left flexible so they can evolve based on player response.
I'm excited to put these ideas into practice and will share my experiences along the way. While the challenges are real, the potential benefits for a solo developer make this approach worth exploring. I'll be documenting my progress, learnings, and inevitable roadbumps here as I build my first game with a series mindset.