The Rise of Vertical Slices: Why They Kill Indie Games in 2024
Space Janitors: A Postmortem on Vertical Slice Failure
We, at Asteroid Base Studios, are shutting down. “Space Janitors,” our ambitious indie title, never made it to the launchpad. We had a killer vertical slice, press loved it, and we even secured some early funding. So, what went wrong? In short: the vertical slice lied.
It promised a smooth ascent, but it masked the asteroid field of development realities that ultimately crippled us. Our story isn’t unique. I’m sharing this in the hopes that others can learn from our hubris.
The Alluring Trap of the Vertical Slice
Our vertical slice was tight. One beautifully rendered level, showcasing core mechanics, slick animations, and a quirky story beat. It took three months and felt like pure creative joy. The response was overwhelmingly positive.
That initial validation fueled a dangerous mindset: “The hard part is done!” We were wrong. So, so wrong. The vertical slice was a meticulously crafted facade.
Feature Creep Fueled by False Confidence
The positive reception inflated our egos. “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” became our mantra. A grappling hook, alien pets, customizable janitorial equipment. Each feature seemed manageable in isolation, but collectively they bloated the scope beyond recognition.
We failed to properly assess the interdependence of these features. Adding the grappling hook meant re-rigging character animations, redesigning level layouts, and introducing new bugs we hadn’t anticipated. We didn’t track these compounding changes properly. We were blinded by the initial success.
Content Creation: The Silent Killer
Our vertical slice was a single level. Extrapolating that effort to a full game world was naive. We underestimated the sheer volume of assets required: new environments, character models, animations, sound effects, and narrative content.
“Just” adding more levels turned into an endless slog of tedious work. The initial spark faded, replaced by a grinding sense of overwhelm. This burnout impacted the quality of new content, making it feel rushed and inconsistent with our beloved vertical slice.
The Unglamorous Systems: Neglected and Broken
We focused on the flashy stuff, neglecting the unglamorous but essential systems: save/load, UI, options menus, difficulty scaling, and comprehensive testing. These were afterthoughts, crammed in at the end.
Predictably, they were buggy and poorly implemented. Players encountered game-breaking errors, UI glitches, and frustrating difficulty spikes. The negative reviews poured in, further demoralizing the team.
Bugs, Bugs Everywhere
Our initial testing focused solely on the vertical slice level. When we finally pieced together the full game, the bug reports flooded in. We simply didn’t have the time or resources to squash them all.
Our beautiful vertical slice was now surrounded by a swamp of unresolved issues. It was like polishing a single brick in a crumbling building.
Learning From Our Mistakes: A Path Forward
“Space Janitors” is dead, but the lessons learned are invaluable. Here’s our advice to fellow indie devs:
Iterative Prototyping is King: Don’t strive for perfection upfront. Build broad, functional prototypes across the entire game loop before diving into high-fidelity art.
Ruthless Scope Management: Kill your darlings. Be brutally honest about what you can realistically achieve. Use a project management tool to track tasks, dependencies, and estimated timelines. And actually stick to it!
Horizontal Slices Over Vertical Slices (Early On): Before focusing on visual polish, create “horizontal slices” – basic implementations of all core mechanics across a simplified, representative game world. This provides a more accurate assessment of scope and technical challenges.
Realistic Timelines: Triple your initial estimates. Seriously. Game development always takes longer than you think.
Track Your Development Journey: Keep a detailed game dev journal. Document your progress, challenges, and learnings. Review it regularly to identify patterns and avoid repeating mistakes. It can be a lifesaver, especially when you feel like you’re drowning.
Our failure could have been averted if we’d maintained a better understanding of our project scope. We wish we had been diligent about recording our daily wins and losses, our discoveries, and our mistakes. This could have led to spotting the early signs of scope creep, which would have allowed us to take the necessary steps to mitigate our risk of failure. If you want to avoid the mistakes we made and track your game development progress effectively, give our game dev journal tool a try. track your game dev learnings It might just save your game.