[It's been a busy year for the downloadable games business - several new developers have emerged on the scene on the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare while new game environments have emerged with the Xbox Live Indie Games, DSiWare and PSN minis.

Development teams can be tens of people strong, or sometimes they can be just one guy barely out of school. There's still so much to learn about development, so we contacted developers across the gaming landscape to ask them what they enjoyed about the last year, what was the most troubling, and what lessons they'll be bringing into the new decade.]

Nathan Fouts made the journey across from full time development at Insomniac Games to full time Indie developer back in 2008, and his first title Weapon Of Choice was a critical success but had troubles on the Xbox Live Indie Games space.

Now a year later and two more games on the way, we ask Nathan what he's learned over the past year, and what his plans are in 2010.

What were you most happy with during the game's development?

Nathan Fouts: For Grapple Buggy and Shoot 1UP, I think prototyping the fun parts early has saved us a lot of times, and gotten closer to the most pure interpretation of my designs. Both games employ some unusual gameplay creations which take a lot of time to hone.

Getting some placeholder art into place, and early versions of the code to connect it helps immensely in trying out different variations on grappling mechanics, buggy controls, combat grabs, phalanx maneuvers, fancy powerups, and more. It really can’t be understated how important it is to prototype things then slowly iterate towards perfection.

What were you least happy with, in retrospect?

NF: I hate how making cool games takes so long! Why is that? But seriously, I try very hard to keep my work organized and plan for the future, but also readjust along the way. Still, I find times (days, even sometimes nearly weeks) in which I flounder.

It’s usually after a big milestone was hit (finishing a playable build, showing a game to the media, etc) but afterwards, I just seem to drift about, sort halfway working and halfway dreaming. I wish I had the courage and confidence to simply say “Okay, for these two weeks, I’m off work, and I’m decompressing.”

It seems obvious in retrospect that’s what I needed to do, but with our small business pressure to finish games and have them generate income, it’s hard to justify before it happens. I actually like the pressure, as I think I make more competent and focused games this way, but I think predicting the need for decompression would help a lot.

What is the biggest lesson you're going to apply to the next game you make?

NF: Not every game needs every feature—including powerful though slow-to-perfect engine features. The better we can determine just what is in each game, and what is not, then we can be careful with working on just what each game needs.

I think focus on any game project helps it in innumerable ways, especially in the end game in which players can intuitively feel a game that simply holds together better and even brings about Gestalt-like enjoyment, by virtue of its carefully crafted design.

[Weapon Of Choice is currently available on the Xbox Live Indie Games space, and Shoot 1UP should be appearing very shortly. Grapple Buggy will hopefully be out later this year, either for Xbox Indies or Xbox Live Arcade]