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[Player 3]

System requirements and power. Stuck on a Linux with 512MB of RAM and a Pentium 4. It was worse once, with 256MB of RAM.

I dream of the day I'll be able to play that one game I bought on Steam, even on LOW.

[baconman]

Pussy. Seriously, my libido and it's inconsistency is a tremendously distracting force, and when I really get into something (else, I mean), the excitement from creation fuels it, which totally throws me off.

Second is programming. There's a number of skills where you can be "good enough" and make something fly, but that doesn't work like that. You can't always come back and touch it up later, and sometimes the problem is overanalyzing/overcoding, too.

Third is money, fourth is how much I love playing games, and fifth is how much I'd love to make one gigantic, seamless project instead of numerous smaller ones.

[Tiderion]

Coding. Long gone are the days when I could code something halfway decent. Everyone else has far surpassed my ability in that.

Of course then my next weakness is that what I am good at is the writing and design aspect because there is never a need for people who can do that.

[baconman]

Untrue. There's always a need for that. Unfortunately, TIGS is pretty overabundant with talent in every regard, which I think tends to give a lot of us that perception.

[superflat]

At the risk of sounding like a swooning teenage girl, of all the TIGS members hanging around here I'd like to do a project with you and superflat.

Wah!  I totally missed this *(if you actually do mean me... if so:  )

So right now I'm trying to get into a position where I can work fulltime - my problem I found is I keep starting but not finishing large projects.  I thought that was due to simply over-scoping, but when I was made redundant last year I managed to finish Soul Brother in 2 months from scratch, a game I previously failed to finish in 6 months.  I realise I just need time to plough into the work, and suddenly my scope seems much more modest again.  With a fulltime job and baby, making time to do indie games is frustratingly hard.  I tend to need a few days straight to get into the flow, which is impossible right now.

So I hope to go indie fulltime this summer again, and one thing I've decided is I also want to do more collaborative work (was really fun doing something with increpare and Terry recently.)  So I'll let you know when the time comes man!

[Tiderion]

Untrue. There's always a need for that. Unfortunately, TIGS is pretty overabundant with talent in every regard, which I think tends to give a lot of us that perception.

Well, I think my frustration comes from a place of having to compete with a large group of people for the opportunity to write for a game. Writers are always needed, certainly. However, many games, especially indie games due to the limited size of the project, do not lend themselves to needing anything more than cursory writing.

I prefer working on the big picture and so I do not take the time to learn more advanced coding techniques or new languages. It's my crutch.

[baconman]

That's not necessarily a fault of yours, it's more the "indie" nature of indie gaming. Writing a story around a gameplay concept, or a gameplay concept around a story can be kind of a tricky thing to do.

Also: I enjoy TIGS way too much.

[Ozoh]

My weak point is that I think too much that I suck at coding & pixel art.

[noah!]

I'm gonna jump on the "crippling perfectionism" bandwagon here. I can't believe how much time I spend making sure that a single thing is "just right". Heck, it's even come to the point where I'm unwilling to do something that would require significant time if I haven't planned the whole thing out yet (like level design) for fear that I'll have to throw it all out later. Unfortunately this results in my simply not doing the thing, leading to my workflow being so slow that I'm fairly sure that Congress gets more done than I do.

Also, I have a tendency to get in over my head with projects. Stupid big dreams...

[Coz]

To all the people who lack programming skills:

try learning python / ruby / flash or some other language that makes things easier for you.
C++ is probably the most complex programming language on earth, and unless you are making anything
AI / physics intensive, I doubt you'll miss C++.

In fact, prototyping games in python is quite fun!

[Player 3]

I have this habit of requiring my art assets before beginning.
That improves some of my art skills, but leads me nowhere.

[FTLRalph]

I'm also a jack-of-all-trades - somewhat.

I have worked in Flash since I was about 15 (20 now).  At first I was 100% interested in animation (I still am, I just divide my time between that and game dev).  As a result, making art and animating sprites is very easy (and fun) for me.  Coding is also easy (mostly).  I know my way in and out of AS3 and have been majoring in Computer Science for about 1.5 years now so I'm also learning C++.

My weakest points?  Keeping focused.  I can work steadily and very productively for about 2 or 3 days, and then I'm suddenly "burnt out."  As a result, I have to force myself to get back to work on the project again.

Oh yeah and sfx and music.  I want to learn to use FL Studio one day.

[iffi]

Attention span shorter than that of a goldfish.
Can't create art for my life. (any school assignment involving drawing scares me to no end)
Never really tried creating sfx and music, so I can't say much about that.

Perhaps I'm best at programming, but my aforementioned attention span prevents me from learning anything besides the basic Java I learned years ago, and when actually coding stuff I get mired in planning and never actually get anything done.

It really stems from the attention span issue, since given a better work ethic and ability to focus I could probably do something about the rest (though chances are the time gained from better efficiency would just go into more academics).

[HyperNexus]

Fantastic thread. Props to danlthemanl for bumping it back up.

I have several problems that have started to hit home over the last few years.

I seem to take ages to make games. When I started programming games about 7 years ago when I worked in Flash and could knock them out pretty frequently. Two years ago I started using C++ for all of my game development which makes things much slower but I'm glad that I did as I feel reasonably comfortable with the language and have taught myself a tonne. On top of that I've been slow to put together my foundation code. Over the past two months I've spent a solid amount of time fixing my foundation classes so I think things will move along much faster now.

I tend to work entirely alone. I'm very picky with who I like to work with and I don't like the idea of working over the internet. I've recently tried to remedy this by working with an artist on a game using the Wintermute engine.

I find it hard to schedule time to develop games. Last year I helped run a game development club while working part time and doing 3 subjects at University. The only time that I could find to make games was during the game jams we'd hold during the holidays. This year isn't looking much better as I'm helping organise an Indie Games room at a local convention and working part time while still doing Uni. I should be able to fit it a bit more time than last year but not too much. I'm really thinking of going full time with this after I finish University to see if I can make something of myself.

I can't do art. As a result most of my games aren't art focused. I've started doing some basic pixel art and am starting to find my own style. Doing a bit of art between programming really makes the process much more balanced and enjoyable.

I can't do music. I bought Fruity Loops a few months ago to get myself into learning how to make tracks but I haven't yet invested the time into it.

I'm too idealistic and am a bit of a perfectionist. Luckily this hasn't effected my designs yet as I'm pretty good at scoping my projects to be rather small. I'm sure it'll get in the way later on. Doing week long game jams has definitely helped me try to break my perfectionist qualities.

[Ego_Shiner]

i have terrible friends :C


joking aside, i tend to be unable to get any work at all done unless i'm 110% invested in a project, making getting paid work near impossible to do. also, i tend to dream too big, but i like having that so whatever.

[goshki]

I get easily distracted (Facebook, Twitter, internets - I'm looking at you) and tend to procrastinate especially if the task at hand seems too big for one bite.

And now reverse it: big, composite tasks make me procrastinate to have a go at them and thus I'm subconsciously looking for distractions and folding back to refreshing Facebook, Twitter, et al.

And now reverse...

[J. R. Hill]

Either follow-through or setting realistic goals, lol.

[DavidCaruso]

I procrastinate like shit.

Also I need to have all art and music ready before designing an area or level. I just can't get motivated when I'm working with black boxes or little MSPaint scribbles.

[Muz]

I love the team aspect of making games. I'm great at macromanaging, but I suck at micromanagement. Basically meaning that I can't manage myself when doing it solo. I keep flip flopping between different tasks and just end up accomplishing nothing.

[Nix]

I love the team aspect of making games. I'm great at macromanaging, but I suck at micromanagement. Basically meaning that I can't manage myself when doing it solo. I keep flip flopping between different tasks and just end up accomplishing nothing.

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