Designing Mechanics with PURPOSE For My Game - Robotic Revolution Devlog 2

This is the second episode of my devlog series in which I create the game Robotic Revolution. Robotic Revolution is an open-world platformer inspired by Super Mario Galaxy with a huge focus on changing gravity and using movement to the fullest.

[@stellaradix]

hey there! your project is looking really cool so far :) the movement controls look really good, and I think they do more than enough to support the planet hopping feature mechanic (which by the way, WOW it looks good!!). you have a lot of great design insights, and your videos are really well edited, polished, and entertaining too.
I hope you don't mind if I give a bit of advice from my personal experience as a solo dev, but at this point in your project it might be a good idea to start managing your scope and expectations. open world games are a well known rookie game designer trap, and they're difficult to design even for the pros. level design is really hard and unintuitive, and open world level design is even more so. not to say you can't do it, but I think you should really consider if it's the right path towards actually finishing your project. if you think about it and it's really the only way to achieve the experience you want, then it would be a good idea to have a serious talk with yourself about what you realistically can or can't do.
I know no dev wants to hear this, but you as a solo dev simply cannot achieve the same things as a team of industry veterans with years of successful games under their belt - even with all the resources available to you on the internet. AND THAT'S OKAY!! game design is about delivering an experience, and while scale factors into that, it's nowhere near the only factor. I think for a beginner solo dev, the best place to focus on is creating small, unique games that you can learn design concepts from and take forward into your next projects. once you have a few projects under your belt, you'll have a better idea of your strengths and weaknesses as a designer and you can leverage those to start building *really* impressive games, either solo or in a team where you can exclusively play to your strengths.
consider treating this as a learning experience rather than your break into the industry, or your one shot at building your dream game - you'll yourself a lot of energy and burnout by doing so.
you have the right mind for game dev - you're able to break down a design problem, reference the existing body of literature, apply it to your design, and fix the problems that come from it. what you've done here is already astonishing, and it's more than a ton of people could do in your position. appreciate yourself for that!! also, I think the cowboy astronaut is cute! I hope he comes back as an NPC or something :p
I love your vision for this game and how it's coming along so far, PLEASE KEEP GOING!!! I really want to play it someday :)

[@stellaradix]

also, I'm working on my own spacey game/tool/thing right now and I found this handy tool for creating space skyboxes, you may find it useful (youtube won't let me post links so look up spacescape by alex peterson)

[@gvononestack]

Thanks for the feedback! I've actually definitely been thinking about scaling back the scope of the game, because I don't have a whole lot of experience with gamedev like you said. The reason I wanted to do open-world in the first place was to make my game not a just Super Mario Galaxy clone, but I think that you're right and it might be too much to try and make that happen. I think the aesthetic and control differences will probably be enough on their own to differentiate it from other, similar games.

[@monkey07026]

i just found your channel and I LOVE IT