Efficiency First: How I Keep Echoes of Myth From Becoming an Endless Project

I’ve talked about the constant need to focus scope and pivot (Game Development is Iteration - Pivot, Pivot and Pivot Again) and the sheer number of activities required to release a commercial game (Solo Game Dev: Juggling a Hundred Hats and a Thousand Tasks). As a solo developer, this is something I think about all the time. Echoes of Myth is an ambitious first game, but the only reason it’s feasible is my relentless focus on efficiency-first decision-making.

Efficiency-First Thinking

Game development requires countless decisions, both big and small. The initial vision can be ambitious, but execution demands the opposite mindset. A producer’s role in a game studio is to enforce focus, cut unnecessary scope, and push the project to completion, even if it means painful sacrifices.

"Perfect is the enemy of good." Perfectionism leads to development timelines measured in eternities.

I’ve personally struggled with perfectionism and analysis paralysis. But a solo game project is a brutal, hands-on lesson in breaking those habits. If I’m not making forward progress, I have to force decisions—otherwise, nothing gets done.

Move Fast, Break Things, Iterate

Speed matters. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. Even if an initial system is held together with duct tape, actually seeing it in action is often the fastest way to:

  • Identify necessary improvements for a better version
  • Discover the system was flawed and scrap it early
  • Gain valuable insights that wouldn't have been clear on paper

This also means major scope and feature cuts. My mentality has shifted to constantly evaluating:

  • How feasible is this to complete at a high enough quality?
    • And what actually is high enough quality for this area? How important is it to the core game experience?
  • Is there a creative alternative that simplifies production while still achieving the goal?
  • How much time would it take to make this fully production-ready, not just a prototype?

Leaning Into Strengths, Avoiding Weaknesses

Solo developers need many skills, but it's critical to focus on core strengths and minimize time spent on weaknesses.

For example:

  • I’m terrible at art and 3D modeling, so outsourcing/licensed assets were a no-brainer.
  • Level design isn’t a strength, which contributed to the decision for small room-based procedural generation instead of large hand-crafted levels.

I constantly ask: Can I achieve the same effect in a simpler way? Should I refine the goal itself? Can I design this system so that data is formula-driven or AI-assisted, rather than manually created?

Unresolved Questions & Trade-offs

Some decisions still feel uncertain:

  • Visual consistency & polish expectations – Does explicitly stating I’m a solo dev lower player expectations?
  • Using visual effects to mask imperfections – A pragmatic shortcut or a compromise too far?
  • Gaps between tile-based levels – Does it matter? Or should I invest in transitions?

Of course, some things must be highly polished—but correctly identifying what actually matters is non-trivial. I’ve already invested heavily in core game feel, yet it's still far from perfect.

"Good Enough" vs. Never Releasing

I’m sure some random internet critics will scream "laziness!" at all of this. But the reality is simple:

  • The choice is often between "good enough" and never releasing at all.
  • A game that never ships is infinitely worse than one that made a few smart compromises.

The key is knowing where to cut and where to push for quality—and that's an ongoing challenge.

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