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[armedpatriots]

Does anyone have trouble sticking to a particular game design idea? I have three or four different ideas that I keep coming back to and loving. However, after spending a couple weeks with them I start to feel that the idea is no good. Am I alone in this? 

[Savick]

Oh, yes, constantly. I'm actually learning new programming stuff each day since I'm doing things myself art and code wise now. But, man, yeah I've just wandered around from concept to concept working on what I like and not really getting anywhere solid yet. I think it's all part of the design process, but you also need some form of commitment to a singular idea eventually.

[FranLesko]

I used to have this problem and I think I discovered both the cause and the solution.

Beforehand, I just want to make clear that this is what happens to me and this is how I try to deal with it. You guys might have a different approach to this problem and it is completely fine.

Cause: If you are a 1 man team, you are probably trying to learn stuff ALL THE PHREAKING TIME. This is good, because you are most likely going to improve your skills, but since you are better than before you previous work will start looking ugly to you. Another thing that could happen is that you learnt something new that would look amazing in your current project and you try to implement it just because.

My solution: Try making short and very concise project. Set a clear goal that you can accomplish within a short amount of time so that your skills remain fairly the same while you work on your project. Stick to your original idea but write down any new ones for future references. Also, study in between projects: make a pause to evaluate your work, identify the aspects that you don't like and/or you want to improve and do your homework.

I hope this helps you tackle down the problem.

[Dino_Salad]

I used to have this problem and I think I discovered both the cause and the solution.

Beforehand, I just want to make clear that this is what happens to me and this is how I try to deal with it. You guys might have a different approach to this problem and it is completely fine.

Cause: If you are a 1 man team, you are probably trying to learn stuff ALL THE PHREAKING TIME. This is good, because you are most likely going to improve your skills, but since you are better than before you previous work will start looking ugly to you. Another thing that could happen is that you learnt something new that would look amazing in your current project and you try to implement it just because.

My solution: Try making short and very concise project. Set a clear goal that you can accomplish within a short amount of time so that your skills remain fairly the same while you work on your project. Stick to your original idea but write down any new ones for future references. Also, study in between projects: make a pause to evaluate your work, identify the aspects that you don't like and/or you want to improve and do your homework.

I hope this helps you tackle down the problem.

I think you just hit the nail on the head there for me too. I think Phil Fish mentioned that when he was making fez he re-did the entire thing 3 or 4 times art wise because he was getting better and noticing his past mistakes.

[armedpatriots]

I think that this advice is going to help me guys, I am going to try it 

[Democritus]

That's some solid advice from FranLesko.

Alternatively I'd try to focus on getting one game done, even if you could do better by the time you're done. Still it's better having it finished than having it rot away in your desk drawer.

[GeorgeBroussard]

Does anyone have trouble sticking to a particular game design idea? I have three or four different ideas that I keep coming back to and loving. However, after spending a couple weeks with them I start to feel that the idea is no good. Am I alone in this? 

Very common.

Here's the hard reality. Prototyping is fun. Solving early problems is fun. What happens is that people get past that, then the real work begins. Oh yeah, have to make a game now. That means lots of work and lots of unfun stuff to work on. So it's easy to pivot to another project and the cycle repeats until you have 20 unshipped prototypes.

My advice is to pick something really REALLY small scope and ship it. Set a 3 month time frame. Make it mobile so it's small. Ship. Ship and get customers and fans. Ship to get experience and to know you can. Then over time, increase scope as your skills and confidence increase.

Now then, it's 100% ok to just prototype forever and be a hobby dev tinkering. Nothing wrong with that at all. But at the point where you have the thoughts you are having you need to focus on completing things, or accept the reality of your situation.

Ship. Even if you don't think it's very good. You will get dramatically better each game. Put your game in front of people. Take the leap.

[RareSloth]

This happened to us early in our development, we burned through several concepts.

For one reason or another through this discovery phase we determined we didn't want to pursue it. This didn't mean we had to entirely start over, we kept the good "nuggets" from the previous concepts. Eventually we did settle on something that we're confident with. The early phases can be really ambiguous but sometimes you just have to embrace the ambiguity and just keep rolling with it.

I think one key thing is to not go too far down the "rabbit hole". The more you can flesh out and iterate on your idea in a low-fidelity state, the more the vision of the game comes to life. With a strong core and at least an overall vision in mind your code is going to be cleaner and you'll be able to focus on pushing forward.

[CaptainKraft]

This happens to tons of people all the time from what I've heard. I can't stop getting excited about the newest idea in my head and that kinda makes me bored of my last project.

The general advice, as you have seen, is to pick a small project and knock it out quickly. Great advice, and you should totally do that.

If you do end up trying to work on a project with a larger scope, what I have found helps me is taking breaks once every few weeks to just jam on a cool idea. I start to look forward to my jam weekends when I get to have a break from my current project and I make sure to get a solid prototype of what I'm jamming that weekend. If the prototype turns out really fun, I save it to work on when I finish the bigger project.

Most of the time I spend a day or two on the small jam game and feel refreshed. This is when I start to get excited about the bigger project again and dive in for a few more weeks.

In the end, I think it will take time to find a groove for what works for you. If you look at Vlambeer, they can't be happy unless they are working on three games at a time and prototyping tons more throughout the year. Some devs like to put all their focus into one giant project.

Eventually you'll find your sweet spot. Keep it up

[Eadow]

This happens with everyone, not only game developers. I usually recommend releasing another game when you start to feel this way. It will clear your mind and you will feel a sense of progress that will probably allow you to go back to your idea. Just make a game in a couple of hours and put it on the internet, don't care about the end result. Then go back to your other project, because if you stop working on every project you will never get anywhere.

[SimplyRivet]

Honestly, when you're designing a game, you're always going to have an idea for a better one. It's the blessing and the curse of being a designer.

The issue is that when you're making a game, the beautiful idea that you had is being turn into reality. In this process, something will go differently than you'd planned. The art doesn't look quite right, or it isn't as fun as you first thought. At this point, a new game idea is that much more tempting.

The problem is that this will happen with every game idea that you have. The best solution to this is to sit down until you have a working prototype, and the have people playtest it. Let them give you feedback as to how you can make your game better. Once you've released a game, then you can move on to one of your many other ideas. The key is just committing.

It's really important to throw away the idea of having the "perfect" game idea. Most games start out terrible. It's only through testing that you can make it better.

[baconman]

Only in that last part. I keep 3-4 project ideas bouncing around too, but I iterate on each one. Sometimes I'll go on a heavy binge on one project, which is good, because that's when I get the most headway. But two things you don't wanna do is never get around to finishing something, or being off the ball more than a month or so, or you'll totally lose your place for where you were at. It takes awhile to get that disorientation out, and by then you'll be making that disorientation on another project.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is just let one fizzle and pick up another one. But you should certainly stick it out as completely as you possibly can.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

either write your other ideas down and save them for later and continue to work on one, or include your other ideas as mini-games in your main idea

this is a pretty common thing among indies though, and i've come to feel that it's a part of perfectionism. someone desires to make the "perfect" game, or even the "perfect" first game, and they can't decide which of their games is perfect rather than bad. the solution is often to give up on perfectionism, to admit that it's okay to make bad games sometimes, as learning experiences. i think everyone recognizes that it's better to *finish* a terrible game than to start a bunch of great game design ideas that never get done and constantly move from project to project. everyone that is except a person's own unconscious mind or ego.