Why 1e?

The 1e manifesto may appear to be about publishing a game as fast as possible. This is not true.

“As fast as possible” would mean forgoing testing, iteration, and layout - taking the “fuck you, just release it” approach to its logical conclusion and releasing a plain-text draft of a game for the public to check out. We’ll call this form of a game a 0e for the purposes of this article.

Now, a 0e is a great thing to publish. Many people do it. I've read many 0e games and I like them a lot in both concept and execution. I’ve been encouraged by these games and advised by the very fine folk who publish them to make some myself.

The 0e approach to game design looks and sounds as if it removes all the obstacles in between you and publishing your game. Playtesting, iteration, and layout is just more stuff to do in between making your game and getting it out there. Why wait? Get the practice in. You can update it later. 1e is 1 more e than you need, buddy - start at 0.

This is very, very fun advice. I think for some people, it's very good advice.

It does not work for me, because I think it totally misses what the obstacles to releasing a game actually are.

As I have established, you can publish a game without any technical investment whatsoever. 0es are real.

This, in itself, proves that there are no technical obstacles to release. There is no guard at the gate to go down the checklist and make sure you’ve done your iteration and laid it all out. Those obstacles are not real.

If those obstacles are not real, why isn't everybody publishing 0es all the time? Why are we not absolutely drowning in wonderful, personal, unfiltered art and games?

The real obstacles are emotional in nature.

We do not publish a given game because we are not yet comfortable doing so.

The preparation stage of game design - playtesting, iteration, and layout - gives a new designer confidence. Playtests tell you that people besides you enjoy your work and find value in it. Iteration helps you prove to yourself you can think critically, do the work, and go the distance. Even simple layout choices can help you feel like your game has a distinct identity that others can see without you having to explain it to them.

The more preparatory work you do for a project, the more confident you feel. The more confident you feel, the more comfortable you feel. While there are nuances to this and one must control the scope carefully, the heuristic remains useful: preparation creates comfort.

If comfort is the only true obstacle to releasing a game, then the fastest route to releasing a game is determined by the fastest route to your personal threshold of comfort.

The issue that new designers face, as I detailed in the 1e manifesto, is that they do not yet know when to call something done. Another way to phrase that is that a newly-minted hobbyist designer, if they are anything like me, is most likely going to prioritize maximizing their comfort and minimizing their vulnerability, and their comfort threshold is going to be very high, because they are understandably intimidated by the prospect of baring themselves to the world in a scene absolutely FILLED TO THE BRIM with FIERCELY, TERRIFYINGLY skilled creators at every conceivable scale of operation.

Let's face it, brain trust: we might be unapproachable.

Presented with this conundrum, let us contemplate the comfort threshold as a problem to be solved, somewhat like an emotional pole vault. The “Bar” represents how much preparatory work you think you need to do to feel comfortable releasing it. The higher your bar, the more work you feel you need to do.

As I see it, there are three solutions to a difficult pole vaulting challenge:

1. Practice until you can clear the pole cleanly.

2. Ignore the challenge entirely. The rules are made up anyway. Walk under the pole, break dance on the landing mat, flip off the judges, and go eat a cheeseburger.

3. Lower the bar until you can clear the pole with the skill you currently have.

For the reasons I mentioned above, I think solution 1 is a poor choice for new designers. They have set their pole so high that it is more likely they will give up before they develop the technical skill necessary to make their game look, feel, and play the exact way they imagine it.

Solution 2 is a comedic exaggeration of the 0e mentality. I think it's the coolest one. I have a lot of respect and admiration for that person. I don’t think I am that person, though. And I think there are a lot of other designers who aren’t, because most people at the pole vaulting tournament came here because they wanted to pole vault. If someone came up to me and said “Y'know, I’m happy even if I don’t jump. I’ll do my cool dance instead.” I’d go “hey, good for you. You’re hot and we should make out later. I really kinda wanna try and jump though, even if I’m not that good at it. I’m not gonna feel satisfied if I don’t at least try.”

Solution 3 is what the 1e manifesto is all about. If you're like me, you're a designer who likes all the different parts of design work. You want to jump. You just… don’t think you can clear the bar where it is, and you don’t even KNOW where it is really, but you’re pretty sure it’s too high, and god, what if I don’t clear it, won’t I look silly then?

The 1e manifesto says that even if you are competing, it's just with yourself. You control where your bar is, but here’s a baseline. If what you want is to make a game with all the parts and pieces your favorite games have, here’s a breakdown on how to make those parts and pieces simply and efficiently.

Armed with this information, new designers are hopefully better able to locate their internal bar and lower it, thereby lowering their comfort threshold. Most likely, it won’t hit the ground, and it will still take some preparation and work to clear - but they can clear it.

This is why the 1e manifesto is not about releasing a game as fast as possible in a strict sense. It is about releasing a game as fast as you can release it. It encourages you to do the preparation you need to feel comfortable while also making that requirement as small as it can be. That might still mean weeks or months of work, but months is a lot better than years.