Do you have any productivity tips you can share with our readers?

I struggled a lot with this: When you start alone, I think a common mistake is to think that everything is in your head, and you’re going to do tasks one after the other, and everything is going to work.

I found using an asset manager like Asana or Trello helpful, because even if you’re alone, you can keep track of what you need to do next. Now that I’m working with two other developers, we’re using spreadsheets to keep tabs on what’s left to get done.

Also, start with a solid development design document with everything you need to do – literally everything. Yes, it’s time-consuming, but I think, in the long run, it’s really useful. Every couple of weeks I take a look at this document and update it. For instance, maybe there are features that are no longer necessary. So yeah, having an asset manager tracking your schedule.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered while making Aka? Any amusing bug stories or outtakes?

I think the biggest challenge was to jump from a game jam mentality to a full game mentality. When you’re making a small game, everything is in the same scene, the scripts are all over the place… But then when you have to build something that works and doesn’t crash every five minutes, it’s a whole different thing.

The second biggest challenge was optimizing the game. Abstract ideas like ScriptableObjects took me a while to understand. Thankfully, I’m working with other developers now. Without their help, I’m not sure where Aka would be today!

The silliest bug that became a feature involves the player’s dog. When I first put the dog in the game, it was supposed to follow you, but for some reason, sometimes it decided not to. I put it on Twitter saying, “Dog doesn’t want to take the stairs” or whatever, and then I had the thought that maybe the dog could have its own free will and not follow the player everywhere.

Source: Unity Technologies Blog