Best 5 Prompts for Indie Game Vision Alignment in 2024

Best 5 Prompts for Indie Game Vision Alignment in 2024

It’s happened to almost every indie game developer. You start with a clear vision: a pixel art RPG with challenging combat and a compelling story. Six months later, you’re wrestling with procedural generation, implementing a card-based battle system, and the narrative has ballooned into a sprawling epic. How did you get here? Vision misalignment. It creeps in slowly, a feature here, a tweak there, until the game you’re building barely resembles the game you dreamed of. But with consistent reflection, you can realign your development with your initial vision. The key? A game dev journal.

The Quiet Killer: How Misalignment Happens

Misalignment isn’t some dramatic event. It’s the accumulation of small decisions. Scope creep is a common culprit. “Just one more feature,” you tell yourself. Feature bloat follows, stuffing the game with mechanics that don’t quite fit. Then comes target audience drift. Are you still making the game you wanted to play? Or are you chasing trends and trying to please everyone? Before you know it, your project has morphed into something unrecognizable, and motivation dwindles.

The Power of the Game Dev Journal

A game dev journal isn’t just a diary. It’s a strategic tool for tracking your progress, staying consistent, and, most importantly, clarifying your vision. Regular journaling forces you to confront your decisions, analyze their impact, and course-correct when necessary. Think of it as a compass, always pointing you back towards your True North: the core identity of your game.

5 Reflection Prompts to Keep You On Track

These prompts are designed to be used regularly – weekly, bi-weekly, or even daily, depending on your workflow. Answer them honestly and in detail within your game development log. Let’s get started.

1. “What is the Core Experience I Want Players to Have?”

This prompt gets to the heart of your game. It’s not about mechanics or features; it’s about feeling. Do you want players to feel challenged? Immersed? Relaxed? Powerful?

• Step-by-step: Close your eyes and imagine someone playing your game. What emotions are they experiencing? What are they saying to their friends about it? Write down 3-5 keywords that capture the core experience.
• Real-world example: Imagine you are creating a horror game. Instead of focusing on jump scares, reflecting on the player experience might lead to prioritizing “oppressive atmosphere” and “constant tension” as key elements.
• Pitfalls: Vague answers like “fun” are unhelpful. Dig deeper. What kind of fun? What makes it fun?

2. “How Does the Current State of Development Align with My Initial Vision Document?”

This prompt forces you to confront the present state of your project. Is what you’re actually building matching what you initially set out to build?

• Step-by-step: Pull up your initial design document (you do have one, right?). Compare the key features, mechanics, and themes with what you’re currently working on. List any significant deviations.
• Real-world example: An indie developer realized they were spending more time on secondary characters than the protagonist, deviating from their original plan to create a character-driven narrative focused solely on the main hero’s journey.
• Pitfalls: Dismissing deviations as “improvements” without critically evaluating their impact on the core vision.

3. “If I Could Only Keep Three Features, Which Would They Be and Why?”

This is a prioritization exercise. It forces you to identify the absolute essential elements of your game.

• Step-by-step: Imagine your project is severely limited by time or budget. You can only keep three features. Which do you choose? Explain your reasoning for each.
• Real-world example: A developer working on a complex strategy game realized that the core gameplay loop relied on resource management, tactical combat, and a branching narrative. Everything else was secondary.
• Pitfalls: Choosing features based on personal preference rather than their impact on the core gameplay experience.

4. “Who is My Ideal Player, and How Does This Feature/Mechanic Appeal to Them?”

This prompt challenges you to connect your design decisions to your target audience.

• Step-by-step: Create a profile of your ideal player (age, interests, gaming habits). For each major feature or mechanic, explain how it caters to this player. If it doesn’t, ask yourself why it’s there.
• Real-world example: A developer added a complex crafting system, but their ideal player was someone who enjoyed fast-paced action. They realized the crafting system was a mismatch and scaled it back significantly.
• Pitfalls: Assuming you are your target audience. Get feedback from actual players.

5. “What is the One Thing I Can Do This Week to Get Back on Track?”

This is your actionable takeaway. It’s about identifying a concrete step you can take to address any misalignment you’ve uncovered.

• Step-by-step: Based on your previous reflections, identify the most pressing issue. Define a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goal to address it.
• Real-world example: “This week, I will remove the unnecessary side quest that is unrelated to the main story and adds no value to the core experience.”
• Pitfalls: Setting unrealistic goals or procrastinating on taking action.

Staying Consistent

The key to the power of these prompts is consistent use. Don’t just reflect once and forget about it. Make it a regular habit. Treat it like a core part of your development process, just like coding or creating art. It’s also important to track your progress and monitor how your answers to the prompts change over time. This helps you visualize the impact of your decisions and stay accountable to your vision. This process helps you improve your game development log skills in the process.

Vision misalignment can quietly derail even the most promising indie game projects. But by incorporating these reflection prompts into your routine, you can stay focused, maintain clarity, and ultimately, build the game you set out to create.

Ready to start tracking your game development progress, stay consistent with your devlogs, and organize your creative process? Try our journaling tool today and keep your game’s vision in focus! Consistent journaling for game development