The 90% Done Blues

News & General Discussion
1

Hey guys. I’ve been working on a project for a few months now, and it’s most of the way done!

The problem is, the further I get with the final set of challenges, the less that I feel motivated to do more with the game; even though I know I’m close to the end, and that this is so far A) my best project I’ve built yet, and B) my most expansive project, it just feels like more and more work keeps stacking on.

I’m definently feeling dev fatigue, because I’ve now blown two deadlines in the name of making this project ready to ‘ship’. I’ve cut things I’d have rather left in, like achievements awarded on game completion based on how you play, and an online leaderboard. I’ve funneled so much into the content of this game, I feel somehow drained.

I haven’t lost my way; I see the end of this game’s path ahead. I’m afraid if I do what I really really want to do, and start another project, I’m going to out-and-out abandon this oh-so-nearly done project. And, I’ve invested my own money, blood, sweat, and nine months of hard work into this thing. I want it done, and I want it to be if not awesome, at least better than anything else I’ve yet built.

What do I do about this dreadful 90% done fatigue? I know it’s all in my mind, and that I’m probably coming off as slightly more whiny than this guy.

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2

A) Nobody is as whiny as that guy.
B) Feel proud you have gotten this far, it’s further than many others have and will ever get.
C) Unless deadlines are set in stone it might be a good idea to take a break and start reflecting on the good.
D) You might be in “zone” where you can’t see the wood for the trees, it’s a horrible point to be at but it’s natural.

All in all it happens and it’s nothing to worry about, if you want a chat I’m here to help as I’m sure others are.

As a community it’s as much about moral support as it is technical.

Personally I’ve just hit that 20% mark and know what’s coming up next with an overwhelming feeling of excitement and dread whilst letting the others spearhead, time to suck it up get off the forums and keep pushing.

I wish you all the best and a happy holidays :).

3

Hey bro, I appreciate it. Good luck on your project.

You know, I think you’re right. I’ve pushed the hell out of my project; I’ve worked nearly every day of the last nine months to bring this project, and I’m burnt out. I think there is no harm in my taking a week (or two); all my deadlines are self-imposed, there’s no big bad publisher that’s going to spank me for missing one (at least, I hope not.)

A break is in order. It’s the holiday season, this is a great time.

I started this thread sort of thinking I had to push ahead every day no matter what, but that’s wrong. However engaging it is to build a game, I’ve also got to attend to myself.

Week 38 are belong to me.

4

I have about three or four projects roughly 25-75 % done that sit around forever because of this very thing. I say don’t push yourself too hard, you will end up getting a half-a$$'d part of your project done, and then hate it later because you rushed it. Instead take a little break (not too long, don’t wanna forget all those var’s and whatnot) then come back and attack it with a new sense of motivation!

5

Agree with the other. The more you try to force yourself to finish something half-heartily, the sloppier the end result will be. Take a little break and you’ll be renew with momentarily energy. Focus that energy on the project and when it ran out, break, recharge, reuse, and repeat. At least that work for me hah. And don’t forget, you also have the community to cheer you on.

6

Take a break, last thing I did that i considered finished wasnt really finished until a year after i got burnt out by it

Allow yourself to let it go then when you return itll feel fresh as a daisy and whats left to do seem trivial, just time consuming, but we have music for the cure of trivial time consuming things

7

In my past experience as an ambitions learning developer, I found the last 10 percent of really nailing the bugs and detail takes about as much effort as the first 90%… And often I haven’t quite got there. I don’t know if thats true for seasoned developers because I haven’t tried to ship my own IP for years.

So if the last 10 percent is anything like as hard as the first 90, then that might explain why you feel this fatigue so overwhelming?

Take a break over New Years if you can, enjoy the other things in life too.

~A

8

Yeah, I echo Aaron’s first sentence. The last 10% takes as much effort as the first 90%. The further you get, the harder it is to keep going.

To me there’s two things to it. First, the further you get the less fresh you are with regards to that project. It’s not exciting any more. Creativity and passion get projects started, but it’s discipline, stubbornness and willpower that get them finished. Secondly, the further you get the more effort it takes to get noticeable outcomes. At the start of a project you can slam something together in an hour and think “holy crap that was productive!” At the end you’ll spend a week polishing something and look at it and think… “where did all that effort go?” And typically the answer is “into things that would only get noticed if you hadn’t done them”.

I find that having a team helps keep me energised. Also, clear ideas of exactly what needs doing. My small teams and I find that productivity is helped a heap by stopping every so often, getting around a table instead of a computer, and itemising everything that’s left to do and who should do it. Also, slash things off that list if you can, because why do work that isn’t necessary? Ask yourself “does this need to be done now, or is it something I can come back to later if the game takes off?”

Also, having multiple projects to change between can be cool. I usually advise against it, but it’s not always bad. There’s still more stuff I want to do to Master Thief, but until I worked on other stuff for a while after releasing it I really couldn’t get motivated enough to go back and do them. Now I’m slowly getting more eager to do so as I’ve had a break from it for a while.

9

True dat.

Also I find that during the early days of development, it is easy to put aside some of the “little” issues. Either because you are more concerned about dealing with the larger issues, often small details may depend on implementation details of other elements not sorted out yet. (like the width of a button or whatever, when the whole of the UI isn’t finalized.) As you get to the end, things become more final, and you have a ton of little issues to polish up.

Personally, (and I have found this true of other developers as well) I find that in my head I often inappropriately interchange the terms “easy” and “fast”. Luckily, I have good producers/directors who recognize this is a fairly common mistake, and will clarify. If am asked for time estimate, and it is something that is not complex or nothing that needs to be “figured out”, I have a habit of saying it’ll be a “quick” job. In reality, “easy” still can take a long time to actually do. Often because of this perception of developers, usually games end up the “crunch” time. In fact, I don’t ever recall the last 10% not being a mad dash.

We call these “long knives” meetings, where we cut things down to core, needed for shipping, elements. Often we get people who are not on our projects to help with this, to give a fresh perspective.

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For me, I rely very heavily on super-anal, way organized producers/pms. My time management and prioritization is just miserable, I can easily blow a deadline by chasing after something shiny. It used to eat at me and I would spend so much time trying to figure out how to manage my time. Then, I had a moment of clarity in my mid 20’s that led to me realize that I was spending too much time on trying to do things that I wasn’t good at and and not doing the things I love. It may sound weird, but other people are much better at managing my time than I am, I relax and and let them do what they are good at. Even for my bigger personal projects, I get someone to help me organize my time. I get to spend more time chasing shiny things. :wink:

10

Oh, nice topic. I think the 90% number is arbitrary, I get that feeling probably every 10% of progress. Here’s what I think is happening. Did you guys read the recent thread on flow in games? This right here is a topic about flow in programming.

Let me give you an example from my other hobbies, digital painting and playing piano.

While painting I will breeze through the base shape, and when it comes to detailing, I will start on the eyes, then skip to ears, go back to eyes, abondon them for the beard, come back to ears and so on. You still see this jumping in professional videos, where the artist starts one detail, then without quite finishing it jumps to the next one.

While practicing piano I will breeze through the songs I already know, then start practicing a new piece, but every now and then still return to something I already know just to make myself feel better and release the stress instead of working through it in discipline.

Those examples just show me going out of flow and into unfamiliar territory which requires concentration and actual brain power. I was made aware of this issue quite early and was told to recognize that and work through it. But really, it’s ok if you don’t, I am sure you saw much of the work now before you much earlier, but decided to work on easier things which you now have finished, with nothing easy left to do.

So now you can either work to finish the project as fast as possible just to get it done, or you can wait until you feel motivated and slightly masochistic, and end up with a slower done, but most likely much cleaner code. Really up to you and to the “seriousness” of your deadlines.

But yeah, in the end, I think this is a very common issue people should be more aware of to use it to their advantage.

Edit: And for the record, things that feel dreadful to do, still feel amazing if not more amazing when finished, even if it’s just a bugfix. So there’s that. The longer and harder you work for something, the better it feels in the end.

11

What reason do you actually have to think you are 90% done? Can you get someone else to verify that? I’d recommend getting someone experienced to have a look over your work and tell you what % they think you are really at.

12

I was referring to the amount of planned content for my game; it is mostly in. Of course, this dosen’t account for end-development play-testing, bugfixes, and the changes to the NPC text I am planning to make.

13

I’m about 90% done on a project also and what I thought was a 1-2 week thing has taken several weeks, and it seems like I keep discovering more little things which I hadn’t realized would be needed and have to be done. I too can see the end in sight but the burn of dev fatigue is setting in and making it annoying to have to keep doing this work. It does tend to suck the fun out of it when you’re just having to do stuff to get something done rather than putting something new into it. What you long for is creative expression, not deflation. There is such a thing as a let down after a party. It’s really the promise of what could be, in the future, and the chase after that dream, that contributes greatly to the excitement about it. Once you actually get it, and it gets done, then where’s the fun in no more chase? The attraction of what you don’t yet have is more appealing and magnetizing than when you can freely have it… and when you’re actually getting the sense that a project is nearly finished and the best stuff is behind you, then understandable it seems far less appealing. It’s like you’ve used up the novelty factor, seen the sights, wore the t-shirt, and now you see greener pastures which beckon you with the same promise of something exciting and wonderful to explore. It seems like work to finish what you’ve done because you’re enticed by the same illusion of the dream of what could be, which calls your name from somewhere different now that you went looking for it and found it was nothing but smoke and mirrors. Or something like that. It’s commendable to stick with it and get that sucker finished off, but maybe give yourself a hard-fixed deadline of how much time you can take away from the project to have fun… 1 week? And when the week is up, you absolutely must go back to the project. Also you can perhaps visualize yourself after the whole thing is done, looking back, rather than seeing obstacles ahead of you, and feel that freedom and sense of accomplishment and recognize that it’s just a matter of time. Most things in life are about chasing after dreams that are imaginary goals and once you go looking there you find out they don’t really exist and until you realize this is an ego game to always get you chasing after an illusion you will keep being pulled away from where you are. Be still and be at peace!

14

I printed this, and taped it near my monitor. I inspires me, when the end is near, and the weekends become 14 hour days…
Gigi

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15

From what i’ve taken from the last few years and especially this year, making your project a collaborative endeavour can massively reduce the stress and fatigue over a development, if its with people you trust and enjoy the company of (Never worked in a studio, wouldnt know how to work with relative strangers)

From that i’m seeing the next year as being the most productive and enjoyable ive had doing this stuff, all my work will be collaborative, responsibility will be delegated appropriately, and hopefully the last 10%s on the two things I have planned will be as much just shooting shit with pals and having fun as the first 90% was

No way in hell would i be trying to work in an industry like videogame production if i didn’t really, REALLY enjoy it. It seems like hell, otherwise

16

You already know this but it bears saying. Real artists ship. Not finishing is not really a tolerable option. Especially as cool as your game is.

I want to cut against the grain on this one. If you’ve been living and breathing this project for 9 months perhaps consider a set amount of time per day you will allow yourself to work on it. Look in to timeboxing if you need to go extreme with it. Put yourself on a schedule and cut yourself no slack. Consider a 2 hour workday. You can do two hours a day. If not cut yourself to a single hour a day.

Look at your project as hour long units of work and kill what you can given your time constraint. When your time is up put the project down and don’t think of it again until your next scheduled work session. You’re at the 22nd mile of the marathon and you’re going to have to convince yourself to take each individual remaining step until you cross the finish line. This is the manual labor part. this is the callouses on your hands part.

Consider treating this last part like a job. You don’t not show up for work in the morning because you’re not “feeling it”. You have an obligation. By the same token you don’t go home from work and do more work. You leave it at the office or work site. Assign yourself a work schedule and then show up and do work. When the bell rings go home and have fun with friends and family.

A final quote to back my point:

“I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” ~P eter De Vries

17

@jmatthews: I’m particularly honored that you think my project is cool. That really helps, thank you!

Fun fact - I’ve been working roughly one hour a day for nine months on this project (sure, some days so far have been as short as 15 mins, and others have been 2-3 hours, but still. It usually averages to about one hour.) It’s helped me maintain my momentum, but you’re absolutely correct. Maybe I should be more firm with how I spend my time, as you say. More than one hour? Needs to be reconsidered. Less than one hour? Maybe I need to find other low-hanging fruits to group with it to get one hour’s work out of it. Or, maybe one hour is too little. Maybe I should set two hours of work per day, with two ‘rest days’ in every week where I do not touch the game.

I’ve been resting for a couple of days, and I’m not even planning to fire up Unity again until December 30. I already feel better and have some ideas on how best to finish this game with the resources I have, and get it into shape so it can ship (as many others have said - a work that dosen’t ship dosen’t matter.)

I still think I came off whiny in my first post, because many people don’t even hit the part of a project where I’m at. I’ve had lots of support, and people telling me how to make my project better when I strayed from a good path. Long made short, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for with this project. When I’m rested, time to finish this thing and make it rock. I’ll save the self-criticism for the post mortem.

18

@ Asvarduil - I’m talking tough to myself as much as you. I have 9 days left on my 1 game a month entry and this is my last free weekend where I can really make progress. I’m also at the 90% mark, maybe even the 95% mark and I’m losing will. Tomorrow is the death match between my desire versus my akrasia. :slight_smile:

19

I haven’t had a holiday for 20 years. I work all day every day, until silly o clock. I’ve been pushing 10-16 hour days since 2010, and have had no breaks although I want a break. I have to continue until september 2014.

But, hard work can lead to good things. My company is on the rise. We are licensed console developers. We have a good future.

Work hard and the rewards will come. Think of the reward now, and push that extra mile. Now is the time to do some crunch, make a big list of jobs that need doing and nail them one by one like a machine to push to the finish. It’s that or spend time in limbo neither working nor resting, because the shadow of the project looms across you.

Just push for it. Once it’s done, take 2 weeks off without work and begin refreshed on your marketing plan :slight_smile:

Sometimes avoiding the work is worse than doing the work.

20

Reading that, hippocoder, it reminds me how profundly circumstances can alter the gravity of something even when you could say the hours are the same - i guess necessity keeps you focussed and you know its an investment. I seem to do similar sort of work pattern, as in wake up, be productive for 16 hours, sleep, no breaks for weeks or months, but with no financial incentive (or threat) im just doing little random things here and there, learning a trick, and looking on that i dont like it very much, and its time to get things finished!

I havent been past the first 10% in ages nevermind burning out at the last hurdle. I have learnt about myself that I can knock out models and textures and scripts and whatever else contently and mindlessly for indefinite periods while i listen to music so i think that will be what gets things finished - giving all the design and authorship to a friend, they just give me a list of things to model and features implemented. Im actively looking forwards to that because it’s a new way to work that takes all the brainache away and i can get a fave idea actually done. Then my main thing, going to try something new there too really, people can colaborate randomly with it and enter and leave as they please, i know the people well and nothing i do is made to make money, hopefully these will prove to be answers to some of the things mentioned in the thread and i’ll get some more stuff actually finished! And while im not sure about saying ‘real artists’ ship,i’ll say ‘read products’ ship

Been randomly checking the status of my one thing on google play, submitted quite a long while ago, 28 reviews, you could say ‘well, bit of a failure then’, but reading the reviews reminds me why i do this stuff in someways

I’d like more of my things out there and being good to read on a bad day, so definitely have to finish