Read it. I cannot say whether the concept of a manifesto for small games is a worthwhile endeavour. It sounds like an ideology, a stricture on creative thought, and then you start the endless debates as to what qualifies, and audiences bifurcate into "but what does it _mean_?"
That said, I like to make what I have often referred to as "$10K games." If I was being paid a realistic hourly rate to implement an idea, what could I do for $10,000 USD? $10K is one month of household burn rate (for me), and so I can aptly weigh the decision of "outsource this or do it myself?" It gives a very clear budgetary limitation.
And sure, you could "work for free" or "get a friend to help out for a pizza" or "well if someone in a LCOL country could do it, that's like two years worth of income."
But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point.
The question is "could _I_ implement this idea for $10K, if I were being paid the $10K? Would _I_ be willing to set aside all other possible endeavours to work on this, if _I_ were being paid $10K for it?"
And so we get in to how to make a game that has a definite end, that somewhat fulfills the ideal of the small games manifesto, but still gives you enough creative freedom to achieve your goals whilst still shooting yourself in the foot by spending too many hours tweaking the individual pixels in a piece of artwork.
A $10K game, for me, could be a day's worth of work writing code and $9000 worth of outsourced artwork to make it beautiful. Or it could be two or three weeks of intense labour, flying solo, creating the art, music and code because you simply need that itch scratched. The game then becomes secondary to the importance of the creative endeavour itself.
TBH this sounds like exactly the same thing it’s just you’ve put an economic lens on it. Has all the associated problems with bike shedding and ‘what does it mean’.
_I_ think you skimmed over the part where _I_ emphasized _I_. As in, this budget applies to me. Not anyone else. Not what does it. Not whether this nuance qualifies. Merely, can I do it for $N? I think what many people seem to do is taken a quite subjective statement such as _I_ made about an arbitrary budget and apply it universally to other people, and then try to argue the merit of meaning. Meanwhile, the creators are getting on creating. I do think manifesto of small games is good for one thing: it separates the makers from the bikeshedders.
Yet here you are bikeshedding and being grumpy. All the creative people I know are great at both being able to create and pontificate so I don’t think the dichotomy you propose is real.
>But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point.
If you're going to categorize in explicit budgets it's very important to understand what that money means to each individual. Especially if considering individual skill. It'd be best to normalize it or simply use time span instead of budget as a metric.
So, What I could do in, say, 1000 hours (so, ~6 months of full time work) and is that worth the opportunity cost? Be it giving up my job and pouring 80 hours a week for 3 months (in your case, giving up 30k in wages), or working 10 hours on the weekend for 2.5 years (which has zero loss financially)? If you have a team or commissions you can split that time up further (so, in this case maybe 10 hours of code and 300 hours of labor from art (including finding an artists and giving feedback). It's a similar angle to your argument but 1000 hours is an universal measurement, one that is improved by one's own skills, and less influenced by cost of living.
I love how you quantify your burn rate. I’ve been living off savings in much the same scenario. Mine is $6k.
Do you want to compare notes? I’m really curious to ask for details on where your burn rate adds up. Mine is half mortgage at around $2700/mo, but I’ve been surprised and a bit dismayed that an additional $3k per month seems inevitable. I’ve been trying to trim it as much as possible while still living life, but a lot of it is just… life things.
Only read the first page but is this a manifesto? I read it like a guide on how to start programming (what the author considers/calls) small games for fun. It’s just guide, you can do whatever you want. If something isn’t working for you just deviate from it.
That said, I like to make what I have often referred to as "$10K games." If I was being paid a realistic hourly rate to implement an idea, what could I do for $10,000 USD? $10K is one month of household burn rate (for me), and so I can aptly weigh the decision of "outsource this or do it myself?" It gives a very clear budgetary limitation.
And sure, you could "work for free" or "get a friend to help out for a pizza" or "well if someone in a LCOL country could do it, that's like two years worth of income."
But we would be arguing pointless nuances at that point.
The question is "could _I_ implement this idea for $10K, if I were being paid the $10K? Would _I_ be willing to set aside all other possible endeavours to work on this, if _I_ were being paid $10K for it?"
And so we get in to how to make a game that has a definite end, that somewhat fulfills the ideal of the small games manifesto, but still gives you enough creative freedom to achieve your goals whilst still shooting yourself in the foot by spending too many hours tweaking the individual pixels in a piece of artwork.
A $10K game, for me, could be a day's worth of work writing code and $9000 worth of outsourced artwork to make it beautiful. Or it could be two or three weeks of intense labour, flying solo, creating the art, music and code because you simply need that itch scratched. The game then becomes secondary to the importance of the creative endeavour itself.