I attended a meeting? Meetup? What’s the hip term to use? Get together? Hangout? Whatever. We had one of those a couple days ago. Some local game developers gathered together to share projects we are working on, or have worked on. Games that needed feedback to move forward. Games that needed feedback to reinforce that they are moving forward and not backward, or sideways. Games that needed feedback to take the next step.
Game development, especially indie game development, can be terminally solitary. People spend a long time working on projects with very little outside help. I wonder how many promising games died for lack of constructive feedback. Of course, teams of any more than 4 or 5 can usually avoid the slow, painful death of their projects by simply talking with each other. One or two person teams are probably in trouble if they don’t get out and talk to other people.
I’ve heard about writers working in groups to provide each other with constant feedback for their individual projects. In one short meeting I was able to remember the brilliance of this method of working. I came away from the meeting thinking that I was probably on the right track, and I got a whole room full of different ways to move forward.
Anyway, to make a meandering story short, if you are working on something, you should go out and get the opinions of some other people who also work on that something. You will learn a lot and it will make your work better.