Is this just my pessimism or what?

News & General Discussion
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I don’t know if I could work on another unity project. I think about starting over and building a new code base, and I feel pretty daunted.

I can feel the very reason for this too.Its because I don’t feel very successful with this project. I think maybe one person follows me on social media. I haven’t released anything. I’ve worked on it for a friggin’ year and a half.

Many of you will tell me to use the MVP model… and that’s solid advice. I just don’t know if I could make some crummy two-bit tiny ass game and feel good. Maybe its just that complex everyone gets, gotta make something huge on-my-own or bust.

I’m pretty friggin’ stubborn too.

That project, I managed to rewrite the entire code base in two weeks over winter break. I don’t know but I think some of that was improved math skills, more knowledge of what I was doing, and a lot of it was just plain hard work! I didn’t leave that room much at all for days while working during those two weeks.

That I rewrote it in two weeks makes me kind of regret spending so much time getting to that point over such a long period of time, and then proving that I could have done all of that sooner if I hadn’t dinked around!

Maybe this is just the late night blues. I can’t sleep right now, but a part of me just a few minutes ago was thinking “You know this is the time of day when things really go to perspective”. I was thinking that because honestly, I’m always rushing to go somewhere, get something done, and now I can just relax and take my time. I don’t even stay up this late, ever! That rushing attitude seeps in to your thoughts too, you don’t realize it but your thoughts race for every waking minute.

I really think my definition of success is some validation about my project. I want to see it finished ie. its a game that you can play, not just fly around pointlessly. I want people to download the project and enjoy it. Not just a few people. A bunch. A number greater than how many views my Youtube videos get! I think that would be enough.

My biggest problem I think is that I don’t do one thing enough to really be successful with it. My youtube channel has had at most 4 subscribers, and views have gone up and down. I don’t update it very often, or my Twitter, because I’m not always working on it or doing something interesting.

Edit: Forgot to add that what I would like to try out is security programming. I don’t know much about that honestly, but I think its cool shit! Every time I try to fool around with Linux and stuff though something just goes wrong so the daunting feeling so much so that I just don’t want to even try occurs.

I guess I’m just rambling…

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If you’re tired to work on it yourself, you can always hire someone else to do it.

Also… I don’t really recommend learning linux. It is fun for about 2 months, and then it is it.

Speaking of sleep, lack of sleep or broken sleep pattern makes you really depressive. So that might be affecting your judgement.

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Make a quick demo and show it to people.

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I feel somewhat similar, and I’m not even really working on a game atm. I was clicking through youtube yesterday and I picked up a sentence that stuck with me along the way: “everything we do, we only do because we think it will make us feel better”. And I think there is something to it, we think making a game will be this awesome experience, the greatest personal achievement ever because solo-ing a game is such a huge tasks that it dwarfs most other things we’ve done in life, if not all. But it’s just work and work and work and we never get to the point where the expectation fulfills itself. It’s probably bound to be a soul crushing deathmarch if you can’t enjoy the process along the way. If the “makes you feel good” part is only at the end of the journey, you might not even make it there. Either you might be able to shift your goals, get validation elsewhere, find the joy in day-to-day gamedev and sharing your progress, and even end up with something finished that way, or maybe it’s just not for you?

Personally I noticed I feel better with small things that I get done and can look at as done.

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When I work on my game, sometimes I wish that I could go on autopilot and sit down and start getting things done like a machine that produces results at a constant rate. But unless it’s a repetitive task that I’ve done before, usually it’s required to invest big amounts of energy… and I don’t always have that energy, or concentration.
If I’m tired and/or unmotivated, I will get sloppy results, like swimming against the current… I tire myself a great deal, and yet make no real progress. Really frustrating and depressing.

You probably already do this, but what I do is chop down the tasks into the smallest bites possible. Then I alternate, where I first do one little thing for my game and see how I feel. If I still feel unmotivated, then I do something else for a couple of minutes, (like coming here and make this post). Then I go back to my game. And keep alternating… Game-Rest-Game-Rest-Game.

Getting a game developer’s block usually meant for me to have days where I just can’t touch my project, because I feel it’s just too much to encompass. But if you manage to alternate like this, you might get more work done, and be able to overcome this feeling sooner. The two important things a) That you approach a task small enough that you can do it now. b) That you always do it first, before doing something else.

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It happens all the time, you go through stages… Currently I’m in the couldn’t care phase, which ultimatley means we have all been playing games in the office as a matter of “research”…

Expect our release by 2040 “if you’re lucky”…

There is one major benefit to working full time on games with a shoe string budget, you’re much more inclined to get things done (even if you enjoy it or not). So you can, well eat and stuff.!

If you have a day job, or you’re a student… Or just like me where it doesn’t really matter if it ever got released. Enthusiam does seem to waver…

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I want to work for ShadowK! :stuck_out_tongue:

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I think game developer block, at least for me, is lack of planning, lack of goals and lack of discipline. Lack of planning makes me redo stuff until I’m worn out, lack of goals make me change direction all the time, and lack of discipline - not discipline to work, but rather lack of discipline to maintain the same direction over an extended period of time. In short, lack of self-management.

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Maybe throw your demo over on the Feedback Friday thread in game design. That way you can get some real people to see it and give feedback on its current state.

Otherwise, I suggest tackling a smaller project. Don’t let this project “own” you. It is not the master and you the slave. However, that kind of mindset can definitely happen fairly easy over time. And honestly, you don’t have to make this current game right now.

So… put it aside. Make something else. I know you said “I just don’t know if I could make some crummy two-bit tiny ass game and feel good.” So… don’t make some crummy two-bit tiny ass game. Make a very well done tiny game instead. Tiny does not equal crummy two-bit. Bigger is not automatically better.

This is one path you can take: do a simpler version of your game. Or if you’re burnt out on it do a completely different simpler game. You have more experience and are able to better estimate scope of work than you were 1.5 years ago. You may have bit off too big of a project to begin with. On the other hand, your skills have improved over these past 18 months and your game is possibly a reasonable scope of work for you to tackle now.

It really all comes down to one question: do you still want to make your current game? If yes, then do it. Throw it out on the FF forum and / or elsewhere and get some feedback. Ask questions in the appropriate forum to help you get around the technical hurdles. Find someone to team up with.

If the answer is no then put it aside and come up with a different game design. Something you can knock out in the next 3 weeks. Then get it done.

I think you are wrestling with something many folks struggle with. They want to make this big ass epic game and end up “working on it” seemingly forever and it never gets done. They think they have to make such a game that nobody would believe one person could actually create in a year or two. And they find out the reason for that is because almost nobody could actually create that game in a year or two or maybe even five.

So, basically put aside pride as far as “I have to make this game right now” because ultimately I think that is what it really is. And instead focus on it realistically. Scope smaller and get it done. Then over the next 1.5 years you may find you have completed 2 or 3 or maybe even a dozen games. And there is more to be proud of having completed those games than to say “well I have now been working on this one game for 3 years with no end in sight”.

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TL;DR :smile:…

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It doesn’t work like that. The invention phase takes longer because you a) don’t have benefit of hindsight and b) have to still invent the thing. Rewrites are the easiest part.

You said it.

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Ha ha! No worries. It was for the OP anyway. I generally shrink my posts over the following hours. :wink:

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I was just joking, I did actually read it :smile:… Always a good question, as you said do you really want to make your current game?

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Guilt and fear are your enemies.

Also your story is familiar to me. I started making a decent game, actually started to look good, but somehow it turned into a … oh my God this is just going to take so long and there is so much more to do … fest. In other words, what SEEMS to be even a small scope game is WAY more involved than you realize. End results can be deceptive in terms of just how much stuff has to be done to make it happen. We’ve been teased by huge massive multi-million-dollar studious pumping stuff out, and higher-level tools, and all this… but fact it is still takes a LOT of time and a LOT of hard work and much of it is not very enjoyable.

What I’m trying to do at the moment after yet another failed project is to get my mind to settle on something EXTREMELY SMALL… which is very hard, because like you say it is not lofty and impressive. You value yourself and your project based on the coolness of the idea/vision but when it boils down to implementing the vision inside a computer is easily 10x more work than you expect which sucks the life out of it and totally deflates the passion. Hard to be passionate about making some one-button push to avoid flappy bird or whatever. We want to be heroes, idols, but to reach those heights takes a tonne of time and effort (and money, and business-sense, and marketing).

Like, I really enjoy the Kingdom Rush games, I think they’re some of the best games EVER, but the first one took 3 guys a full year full-time with overtime, and now they have several artists and programmers… so the idea of making something like that myself… well… we’re talking about a 5-10 year project. I mean, talk about sucking the life out of your passion. There aint no way I can focus on some project for more than a few months, and that can be enough reason to just quit and say screw it - what I want to make I literally CANNOT make in any reasonable timeframe by myself. Lovely idea that I could, or should, or would, but in reality, no way. Settling for less. Argh!

It is heartbreaking to confront reality and realize what you want to do is simply impractical. I simply cannot make the kind of games I want to make. I cannot make the kind of games I am capable of CONCEIVING of. I cannot make the kind of games I would want to play. I cannot make the kind of games that would impress me. I cannot make the kind of games I like and enjoy when other people have made them. And I cannot make the kind of games that have much complexity or depth or interesting features. Its not that I can’t technically DO the tasks, it’s that there are so many of them that it will take frickin’ forever. I probably can make little hand-held ‘mini toys’ that are like, one level, with the same thing happening very simply, like some bouncing ball falling through some holes or something stupid. That’s the harsh reality of it. And that’s not what I want to do.

Game development is a hard, complicated, long drawn out process that really needs a team of at least a few people and a large chunk of dedicated time and money, otherwise you may as well just treat it like a little hobby thing and forget the dream. Especially if you have a day job and a family and not much time to spend on it… EXTREMELY frustrating to try to do anything of any decent size. I think ideally you need to be doing this FULL TIME and have other money to back you up and then you can make some decent progress in a decent timeframe… .maybe bang out a pretty good game in 6-months to a year.

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That’s a great way to describe it and something all of the people who are brand new to game dev should read.

Still… that’s for the beginning weeks and months. How do you view working your way up to making those big projects? I think many people see it as an either or kind of thing. Like when I say make a simpler (smaller) game they may think I mean “that is it”… forever… make small very simple games. And that is not what I really mean.

I am thinking more like first game spend up to 2 weeks on it. Second game spend up to 4 weeks on it. Third game spend up to 6 weeks on it and so on.

What that will do is you are continually tackling bigger and bigger game projects, your skills are always improving so you can actually make a bigger game in 2 weeks now than you could have 2 months ago and your personal framework/custom library is always improving so you can make a bigger game in 2 weeks now than you could have 2 months ago.

Over time, the continual improvement of your skills & workflows combined with the continual improvement of your libraries combined with steadily increasing the length of time you are spending on a project means you will end up being able to make a much bigger scope game in 6 months than you could possibly do right now.

That is the approach I am using. Always doing just a bit bigger scope of project and always striving to improve my workflows and my libraries/foundation.

What are your thoughts on that?

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If you don’t want to make games, don’t make games. Like, it’s really hard. And even if you don’t, other people will make games, so it’s not like there won’t be any games being made ever again.

Making games isn’t saving lives, or fighting injustice. If you are working on it as a hobby or something and you don’t need to pump out more games to cover bills, then just stop if you aren’t having fun.

That said, we all need a bit of encouragement now and then, because as noted - making games is really hard. It can be extremely testing of your personality and will. Trying to take on any kind of project of similar scale in relative isolation will always expose your weaknesses and feed on your fears.

But yeah - maybe this is a moment when you can just look at the process and ask yourself, “do I really want to do this?”. If the answer is no, then stop. If the answer is yes, then suck it up, stand back up and prepare to fall down again next week.

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Have a look a this video

It is simply a sequence of how game graphics have evolved over the years. Now. As you watch, ask yourself honestly, at what point on that timeline are the games of the kind that you COULD realistically create yourself? I could maybe create a portion of super mario bros, and not much beyond that.

I stop at late 1980's, in all honesty. There are maybe some games in the early 1990’s I could emulate. We’re now in 2016.

So then I’d recommend, do not look at ANY games released past the year that represents your capability. Do not try to make a game that has anything along the lines of the kind of graphics and complexity of ANY game released later than your maximum year.

This is why it can suck. I can’t make a game better than anything from the 90’s.

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I worked on something too large, before my wife threw down the gauntlet, “Get something out in 6 weeks”. I countered with, “8 weeks?” and in the end, it took 9. My second product took 16, then 9, then 2, then back up to 12. On and on, up and down. And, I’ve suggested this type of short timeline for years. Sometimes, devs scoff at the idea, saying that my projects are dorky, tiny works, that are beneath their grand visions. And, the reality is that I have a full time job, a family, a podcast, and a life. And even so, I’ve released 9 products in the last 5 years. In the time you have been working on this project, I had release 3 real titles, across multiple platforms. I had 10,000+ downloads!

Consider starting over on a smaller project. Release this emotional baggage - free yourself from the weight of your ego that is caught up in the sunk-cost fallacy. Been there, done that.

These are for you: #20, #10, and #9.

Gigi

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I do have to slightly question why though? I know why I can’t do it and it’s nothing to do with actually being ABLE to do it (if you get what I mean). Like as a basis for my game I used the Epic Shooter demo (which ARK used as well), it’s a pretty complete framework and sorts out a platitude of time issues. On top of that there are other dialogue frameworks we customised, getting the template basis of a high end game.

Hell it’s even optimised for console and gives you a guideline of how it was achieved.

Yeah we did spend a fair few weeks understanding how it all worked, but pretty much within the space of a month we had a Quake game on the go after some custom artwork / animations. What is really stopping you from doing that? There are plenty of frameworks in Unity…

Ok to explain further from earlier, discipline as others said is a biggie… Instead of continuing to turn it into the FPS releaseable RPG it was supposed to be… We urmm, polished it… Brought in a beer, set up replication properly and had a week long LAN party… Cough. Not sure if you’re seeing the pattern here as to why things don’t get done :smile:…??

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I think this is where I have a very different view from most folks around here. You are right. That video shows how AAA graphics have changed over the years.

When I look out there on the gaming scene I see a lot of games that have been and are very popular and yet they do not have anything close to modern AAA graphics. This is a big difference that a lot of people just don’t seem to get for one reason or another. Graphics are not the game. If your goal is to make the best art & real-time graphics possible then sure focus on that. If you want to make a great game then focus on that. These are two completely different goals.

Here are some top (as in they have been featured on lists at one place or another) Indie games of recent years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB4vJlfKtTs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk7gaXqpfzo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1Gv3oZ54Qc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVX8RjtJ7YQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNafa98gXO4

Now looking at these compare it to what you can do. And compare these to your timeline of game graphics. They seem to be all over the place, don’t they? That’s because graphics are not a game. And a game can have any kind of graphics style you want to go with. And you just use the style that is the best combination of what is easiest for you to do & looks good.

The point is if others are making successful Indie games without worrying about what modern AAA games look like so can the rest of the Indie devs. And I would even say that is what Indie game devs should be doing. They shouldn’t even be looking at AAA games because those are never going to be made by an Indie. And if it is just the AAA graphics that are important to you then focus on making graphics assets and selling them on the asset stores or maybe even make an interactive comic book or make videos of your own stories.

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