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[Icedemon]

Hah! I have a post that's not a question.

 

oh yeah...

Well, kind of. I just want a few opinions on the amount of projects one can take on and be fine. How many is too many? that kind of thing. Personally, i have 2 right now, but i'm ambitious, and there are several others i'm prospecting. Thoughts y'all?

I mean, it would obviously depend on the game sizes and types etc, but yea...

[axel]

I'm usually working on like three thousand projects at the same time. I just never manage to finish anything. I WONDER WHY :D

[Derek]

The more projects you work on, the harder it will be to finish any of them.  End of story.

It depends on who you are and what your experience is.  Icedemon, from what little I know of you, I can guarantee that if you take on more than one project of a significant size, you are doomed to failure.  In fact, I would say that even ONE ambitious project might be too much for you at this point (depending on your definition of ambitious).

Start small... real small.  Like... Pac Man or Tetris small.  Learn the basics, then work up to larger and larger projects.  At a certain point you may have the confidence and know-how to plan, execute, and complete multiple ambitious projects at once.

[PoV]

I'll 2nd that motion.  Obviously in game design you'll want to work on more than 1 concept, but more than 1 game at the same time requires some real management discipline.  But even then, the more projects you're involved in, the less attention to detail each of them gets.  So for projects outside your main project, take notes instead of working on them.  Exhaust all the thoughts running through your head, and get back to your main project.  Or if there are practical reasons to change projects (new concept is smaller, significantly less content, can be built of engine tech at this stage, ...), then evaluate doing that.

[lowpoly]

echoing what everyone above has already said, pick 1 thing that you know you can complete and do it. It's ok to keep developing ideas in the background but when you start splitting time with them, eventually you will leave the 1st for the 2nd or burn yourself out on both of them.

Also, this advice works for women.

[Icedemon]

alright, that's what i thought... like i guessed that on my own, because the two projects i have ARE pretty humble (and one of them hasn't even begun, its just a concept) but now all these other interests are coming in, and i don't think i want to take them...

haha WORD on the women comment, though.

oh, and not to sound like an ass or anything, but it's pretty fun turning people down . 

thanks all, exactly what i was lookin for once again; not like hardcore lessons or anything, just general feedback...

[TeeGee]

Actually even the smallest and humblest projects are not so small, as you will soon find out. Making even the simpliest game takes some good time (if you want it to be half-decent), especially if you are just starting out.

Completing one project from the very beginning to the very end, is a great excercise/test of your patience and dedication. If you are able to focus on one thing and finish it, you are on your way to become a professional game dev. If you are constantly struggling between few games (and come up with a new idea every day), it's okay - I guess we all went through that point, but it certainly means that you need some more time and experience, before you will get any serious game done.

It's especially true when you use game creation tools such as GameMaker (I know you do from your GGE profile). It's just so easy to prototype a game with such software in matter of hours, that you can get the feeling that making a whole game will be short and simple too. Don't get tricked - GM offers simple and nice interface and lets you get some basic colisions/movement/graphics done in minutes, but it will still take you months to make a serious game from that. Actually it will take you a bit longer, as you will have to bypass the tool's limitations somehow.
I know - I've worked with GameMaker - my MAGI is done with it and it worked out great, but it still took me more than year to finish.

Few weeks ago a kid, I knew from some forums, asked me to prepare a simple top-down car physics for him. It took me about an hour to make some nice, semi-realistic movement system.
So... I have a car, a road, the car moves nicely... just add the other cars and the game will be almost done, right? Wrong. It will be just a good start. There are menus, AI, good graphic engine, different mode, and all the polishing to be done.
The kid I've made it for, dropped the project month later. He didn't moved too far from what I gave to him and he was dead sure that he will finish the game easily.
Don't get tricked by the feeling that you can finish the game quickly. It's hard already with only one project.
 

[Slash - Santiago Zapata]

Having 4 in-dev roguelikes I can tell splitting your (scarse) work-power into more than one project can be hellish, you need a lot of willpower and dedication, and even so you risk your projects being mediocre. A game is never something easy to make, even if you master the tools and the concepts (else it is even harder), there are lot of issues to address, more than your mind can handle if you do it just for love.

One thing that helps greatly is having something to show, at least (semi)finished products so you know you CAN finish something, (and thus are different from the common sparse-mind dev).

It is very easy to get carried away into making new projects after motivation is lost. the key is to push forward development into something implemented and showable before motivation loss happens.

[Icedemon]

thanks for all the great feedback! in my case, i'm struggling NOT to take on anymore projects, not because motivation is down, but because ambition is so friggin high. I mean, iv'e been helping make games for a couple years now, and since i decided to make my own studio, some of the output looks veeerrrryy promising. But i'm just saying, it's hard if things seem to be going pretty successfully, its hard to say no to something else. But yea... thanks all...

[ravuya]

Incidentally, I find 2D car physics really hard to get feeling "right". I've read all kinds of books about how inertia, torque, etc, work, and I understand them, but it seems like people who wrote racing games in "the bad old days" never had the computational power to build a rigid-body physics system on an NES to get car inertia working quite right.

I've tried implementing a few cheap inertia systems, but they're too hard to steer for my taste. Tips?

[TeeGee]

Hmm... we're getting a bit out off topic here . I only used the car physics story as an example that game making tools can make it feel easy to complete the game, while it's as hard as always anyway.

Oh well... so what kind of game are you making? If it's just an arcade racer, then I say: screw real physics! Just use some tricks to make it look/feel nice, dynamic and exciting in the Micro Machines way. No need to use loads of computing power and read all those books if the game isn't meant to be a simulator.
Actually I think that those old NES racers we're pretty good and fun. And who cares that the cars behaved unrealistic - games are about fun.

[ZombiePixel]

Do first things first, second things not at all.

Try making your version of a Carver Matrix of all the projects you have in mind and score them.  The carver matrix uses the following parameters, giving values of 1 - 10 for each parameter for each project (1 lowest value, 10 highest)...

Criticality (how critical is this project to your overall plan?)
Accessibility (how easily can this project be completed with the tools available?)
Recuperability (how quickly can you find a return / recover from the effort?)
Vulnerability (can you do this without overextending yourself?)
Effect (how much impact will the finished goal have on your life?)
Recognizability (how big an impact will this have in the public / community eye?)
(note these are the definitions I use, you can create your own)

It should help you isolate the project you should be spending your time on.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

ChanceOfCompletion = 0.1 ^ NumberOfProjectsAtOnce

Accurate for me anyway.

[sergiocornaga]

I say your maximum should really be working on one project on your own and one with a team. Feel free to disagree though everyone.

[Outer God]

Oh well... so what kind of game are you making? If it's just an arcade racer, then I say: screw real physics! Just use some tricks to make it look/feel nice, dynamic and exciting in the Micro Machines way. No need to use loads of computing power and read all those books if the game isn't meant to be a simulator.

heheh, i completely agree.  i made an RC racing game/prototype that was a pain in the ass to make that used semi-real physics.  that caused lots of slowdown...which really pissed me off cos it was the game engine's fault for delivering a real shitty physics engine, so i wasn't able to adjust the code for the actual physics functions directly.  it made me wonder if it would've been better gameplay wise to give it simple physics.

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Lessee... GenRogue, DoomRL, DiabloRL, Berserk!, AliensRL, Valkyrie, StarDreamer, Desert Planet, Darkness, Atomic, Starline... and a few minor ones.

No wonder I can't finish any of them .

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Yikes. 11.

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Yikes. 11.

And that's only the list of those that have code and/or graphics started for them and are not abandoned :/. There's a big directory of abandoned projects, and a big lump of no-code/gfx design doc's :/.

[fish]

im working on 6 projects. 2d/3d game, a series of 4 prototypes/minigames, and a game event.
with the eventual addition of a 7th in due time.
but RIGHT now im only working on 2.

you'll see.

[Sharpfish]

Same as 2 years ago, I still have 5 "main" projects that will be done (in time), but I only work solidly on ONE game at a time. I then use 'spare' or 'hobby' time to work on the other game ideas (prototypes, designs). It keeps the fun there and the incentive to finish the current game so that you can get to the next one. If I started to dev the next one too soon I may get more excited by it (superficially) and dump the current project. Ok I admit this happened once, but never again. I now choose carefully which game I'm going to be spending the next year on before starting.

Games take so long to make that you need all your attention focussed on one project imo. However, as I said, weekends/spare time can be used to get other stuff started but don't try and seriously finish two projects if they are both more than mere 'mini games' or quick projects. Moving to a new project (on the side) can feel very exciting and give a sense of forward momentum that may be lacking from the 'main' project but it's a very long path to take and will only slow down the release of the main game.

Well that's what i've found anyway.