What is National Game Development Month?

The idea is similar to National Novel-Writing Month, but aimed at game developers instead. To win NaGaDevMo, you have to put in 60 hours of game development during November, which is an average of two hours a day. You can set a higher goal for yourself if you want, though!

What counts as game development?

Besides actual programming and working in the editor, scripting, spriting, composing music, writing, etc. all count. So does planning, for example a plot outline or design document, but you have to actually be writing things down. Thinking about it doesn't count. Multitasking is also fine as long as your primary activity is related to game development. For example, I like to stream TV shows while spriting, but as long as I'm primarily spriting, that's fine. Also, you don't have to work entirely on one project, or even your own project. It just has to be time spent in some way relating to game development. Unlike NaNoWriMo, you don't have to start a new project or finish by the end of the month.

The one caveat is that nothing you're required to do, for example schoolwork or a job, counts. The goal is to motivate you to work on something that you didn't otherwise have a concrete deadline for.

How are we keeping track of this?

I've made a forum that I'll unlock on November 1, and each person will make a thread where they post daily progress entries. You should keep track of your total hours in the topic title so that it's easy to see how everyone is doing, and you can put it in your sig too if you want. Of course this is based on the honor system, but since the goal is to produce some game, you're only cheating yourself if you lie about it.


Questions, comments, concerns? If you're interested, please post here so I know how many people we'll have. You can start after November 1 if you want, but you still have to get 60 hours by December 1.

This is awesome. Looking forward to it!

Im not sure if I will enter YET...

Im working on/with 2 projects, 1 is my Main game, and the other
is someone else's project. (I am eventing for them)


can you enter at a later date, but still aim for 60hours mark?

At the moment I have absolutly NO Ideas...

Sure, you can totally enter late. Also, planning counts as long as you're writing things down, so you can start on a design document as part of this. That said, feel free to work on either of your existing projects for this.

Look like I have a bit under two weeks to build an uncomfortable collar device that'll shock me if I play Skyrim for more than two hours in one sitting. Beyond that, I think I can do this.

I think this is the largest detriment, but otherwise it's possible I can join in.


Question: what kinds of things count as development? It's an honor system thing of course, but would notes/drawings/ideas/concepts/other things written down count as part of the development?

And also,

How big do you think this thing is? How large are you getting this, how many forums are you posting this to, etc. Just a curiosity thing =]

I posted it to RRR and RMN too. It was originally going to be just a thing I did, but then I figured I should include other people too. I have no idea how many people are going to participate, but let's hope we get a decent number. It's more fun with company.

Anything that's actually written down in some fashion counts as game development. Concept art, design docs, plot outlines, etc. are all fine.

Are there teams allowed?
Cause "my" current game isnt done by me alone.
This would motivate them a little more as to seeing how much time induvidual members put into the project.

You can participate as a team if you want, but each person's time counts individually, so I would say you guys should make individual threads.

Sounds like an excellent idea! The fact that you're using time as opposed to content is great in that it doesn't emphasize quantity over quality.

I doubt I'd be able to pull off 2 hours a day (one miss means a LOT of catching up to do), but count me in. Who knows how much progress this might mean!

Yeah, my big problem with NaNoWriMo is that it always produces a really shitty product. But I think the idea of group goals and peer pressure is fantastic for motivating people, so I think co-opting it for a quality-based approach works well.

Btw, if you really don't have 60 hours of free time during November, you can set a lower goal for yourself. I encourage ambitiousness, though! The more hours you put in, the more game you have at the end. Also, there are always weekends for catching up.

damn. I wish I could spend 10 hours a day on my project. but with work from 5am to 4 pm almost daily, and then a five year old and a two year old at home, not to mention a few hours of sleep each night (hopefully) I'm lucky if I even get 1 hour a day. unfortunately, i don't think I'll be able to join in this. If it had been a few years ago, then yeah, definitely.

Well, feel free to try it anyway even if you think you'll be busy. Worst that can happen is you don't meet the goal, but even so, you'll have some game to show for it by the end. And again, if you think a 30-hour goal is more reasonable, feel free to try for that instead. The important thing is that you make something.

Now I feel dumb... I must be tired. I thought 60/30 = 10... Yeah, nevermind. I think I'll join after all.

Great! :) I think two hours a day is pretty reasonable even for a busy person.

I really should be entering in this, but November will be a very busy month for my studies... And seeing as it starts tomorrow, I can't think that long about it. I want to 60 hours though, if I join in... Hmm, difficult decisions.

@Peri: I think it's a pretty cool idea... honor system is something working out, because personally, I think the biggest gain I could get from it is measuring if I could really stick to this goal if I wanted to. Now, that's a shitty time for me to join and I would never make those 60 hours if I weren't fine with loosing a few friends, customers or sanity points on it... but regardless, that's one thing I'd definately be interested in participating if it should ever come up again.

That being said... most of my conceptional game design (aka thinking of story, characters, surroundings, of course scripts and whatnot) happens while I'm either driving, watching something, or am bored at my lunch break. With the exception of the last one, I never write anything down, and it still works out fine that way... and it easily sums up to a number of hours each week. I don't really see why that wouldn't count, unless you try to emphasize documentation ;)

There are only 10 kinds of people - those who get the binary system, and those who don't.

I'm game. I really need to build a portfolio, but have been putting it off and now don't really have the drive to do so. Could be fun!

Yeah, sorry for the late notice. I posted this thread basically as soon as I came up with the idea. But remember that planning counts too! You should absolutely go for it. The worst that can happen is you don't succeed, but even in that case, you've put more hours into your game than you would have otherwise.

@BlueScope: If this goes well, I totally plan to do it again in a couple months, maybe January or February. Hell, I wouldn't even mind it being an ongoing thing, but I feel like it would be hard to keep up interest if it were going on all the time.

Also, the goal of this event is to get people to actually make stuff. How many of us have thought at length about our games without actually starting on them? The idea is that you have to produce concrete progress in order to make a game. You should also have to deliberately set aside time to work on it to get into the habit of regular development. It's true for writing, and it's even more true for game making: without a regular schedule of making yourself sit down and work, your game will never get done.

@Wyatt: Great to have you on board!

I will join. It's a nice excuse for me to finish the last third of my game. Although I don't think I'll get 60 hours of work done mainly because it probably doesn't require 60 more hours of work (yay for simple games!).

A friend of mine told me about this. I really like the idea--so I decided to register and participate
I wish everyone the same to make progress with their games!

Should anything we work on be a stand-alone type of deal, or can it be attached to another game/engine?

Say, I've been playing around with the Aurora Toolset, used to make Neverwinter Nights modules. Would a module for an exist game count for this event? (Basically, completely separate from the main game, save for graphical resources...etc. base framework...etc.)

Sure, mods count. Knock yourself out!

I'm in!
Hope its O.K if I start a few days late, I'll still put in 60 hours work, after all the point is to motivate not compete.

I've considered joining this because I'm new, and it's a good way to kick myself in the pants for it. So, even if I'm starting a week in - I could always throw in a few extra hours to catch up to 60, right?

I'm actually surprised at how much I've done so far... and I haven't lost concentration... yet, well, I sort of did for a while when I was stuck and didn't know what else to start on, I played games for a few hours, but then I jumped back in, lol... I may even end up breaking my 40 hour goal and extending it to 60... o.O

Do it, Cariborne! It's definitely not too late to start.

So, with this about to be over and me not able to find those omnious forums that hold the individual threads... how did it go? :D

viewforum.php?f=288

It's a top level forum.

Personally I've done 0 hours. I've been struggling with Uni and racking my brains out daily.

I'm gonna say it straight - "I'M SO LAZY FUCK!" :<<<<