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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think that motivation does exist, and there are ways to improve it, but i also think that oddball is right in that there are people who need motivation in order to work on their game, and people who can work on their game even absent motivation (just through self-discipline)

so as i said in the other thread, often the best advice to give someone who is worrying about not having motivation is to 'work on your game anyway, the motivation will come later'. and even then there are always going to parts of working on your game that are boring and that you'll have to slog through even though you aren't motivated to do slog through it.

i think basically what oddball meant (even though he said it too aggressively) is that being able to force yourself to do things that are unpleasant or uncomfortable is a useful skill to have. it also helps you with regular exercise, for instance, and many other things.

and he was also sort of saying (although this is an unpleasant truth) that people who ask 'how do you find the motivation to finish your game?' don't like to believe that what really separates them from people who finish games isn't motivation, but self-discipline (or willpower or whatever you want to call it). but it too is something you can learn and practice, it's not something inborn. i didn't have much of it when i was younger, but i gradually built it up over the years.

i mean, even though i work on my game every day (and have for the past year), it's not like each day i'm happy to sit down and begin work, sometimes (even most of the time) it's uncomfortable and i don't really want to do it, but i do it anyway

[george]

I agree with the above that self-discipline is a learned skill, and I think motivation is largely a red herring that disguises a lack of awareness of being in the moment. The more important thing to focus on is production, or in more words productive capacity, which also is a learned skill. Combine self-discipline and production and I think that separates the prolific makers from everyone else.

I don't use an editor because though I've tried Construct, GM, etc., I haven't found one flexible/nimble enough to make it worthwhile for me.

[INFINITE LIGHT]

I believe that motivation exists. I also believe that after motivation wears off the only thing that keeps someone going is discipline.

[Richard Kain]

I would always run into limitations with game dev editors, and that usually killed my motivation. I tend to be rather anal-retentive when it comes to details. If I get hung up on a specific detail, it makes it much harder for me to continue with a project. With game dev editors, it isn't always possible to get around such roadblocks.

By learning more about programming, I've improved my understanding of the underlying principles and mechanics of a game. I don't believe it is necessary to start from scratch. I'm currently working on porting someone else's engine. But a strong grasp of the guts of a game (the coding) will help you in making future alterations.

It is a truly rare individual who can effectively create an ENTIRE game by themselves. Game development has become such a multi-discipline field.

[Balrog]

Why are indies so obsessed with everyone else's tools/methods?

[moi]

Show me yours, I'll show you mine

[LemonScented]

Why are indies so obsessed with everyone else's tools/methods?

I think it's because game development is hard for indies. Big game studios either have the money to buy in expensive middleware, or the manpower to build engines themselves without worrying too much about the time/cost. If you're making games on your own, you want to know about anything that can give you an edge(tm) in helping you get your game finished. Indie devs, being the friendly and community-spirited types that they are, like to get together and discuss such things to try to get an idea about what works best for certain types of game.

[Balrog]

Show me yours, I'll show you mine

PM SENT

[ChevyRay]

Why are indies so obsessed with everyone else's tools/methods?

Being interested is not the same as being obsessed. And it's like this in all facets of life. People are interested in how others approach things, for their own curiosity, to learn more and expand their thinking, sometimes just to see where they stand. I don't see why this comes as such a surprise, it seems quite natural to me.

[Balrog]

Why are indies so obsessed with everyone else's tools/methods?

Being interested is not the same as being obsessed. And it's like this in all facets of life. People are interested in how others approach things, for their own curiosity, to learn more and expand their thinking, sometimes just to see where they stand. I don't see why this comes as such a surprise, it seems quite natural to me.

Yeah, I get that, totally. I guess what I'm getting at is why do people have strong opinions about how other people create and release their work? Like when I was in college I did the majority of my painting in oils, I don't think I ever had someone come to me and say, "Why don't you use acrylics?"

[Matt Thorson]

Why are indies so obsessed with everyone else's tools/methods?

Being interested is not the same as being obsessed. And it's like this in all facets of life. People are interested in how others approach things, for their own curiosity, to learn more and expand their thinking, sometimes just to see where they stand. I don't see why this comes as such a surprise, it seems quite natural to me.

Yeah, I get that, totally. I guess what I'm getting at is why do people have strong opinions about how other people create and release their work? Like when I was in college I did the majority of my painting in oils, I don't think I ever had someone come to me and say, "Why don't you use acrylics?"

Well why don't you?

[ChevyRay]

@Balrog: Well all that tells me is that you never had anybody that was curious enough to ask, which I find quite surprising (and unfortunate, really). This isn't exclusive to indies at all, just something you'll find quite often with creative people. I get it all the time in all kinds of ways.

[harima555]

well, for me, i dont use game-dev-tools/editors because i enjoy so much coding game mechanics and little demo levels than making actual content for the game  , ofcourse i do use some kind of middleware that takes away basic work of graphics/resources management but at a programming level, maybe that why i prefer using java rather than c/c++ 

[Chaoseed]

I don't know what it takes to license something like Game Maker or Unity.  I don't want them to sue me for making a game.  I know that since I paid for Flash, for example, that I can probably create games with it and sell them if I want.

[baconman]

I am using one, but on a similarly-related level, I'm not using a pre-built game engine for it, because I expect that my project doesn't fit within the scope of one, and I'm completely unsure of how to combine two or more; or even if you can. I'd hate to build a Zelda-like experience or a Shmup only to have them blindsided by platformer-gravity physics. Or for the BGM in the game to not play unless you're banging a drum controller while you're still trying to play it! XD

[bart_the_13th]

I've been making game since... along time ago(I forgot 'when' actually) but I started making games with Turbo Pascal 7 and Turbo C 3.(yes, that long)
Since then I stumbled across into many Game Dev Tool from DIV GameStudio, Gamemaker, 3D Game Studio, Unity 3D, and rightnow I do AS3 with flixel(Using FlashDevelop, I have no intention on spending my money to buy the pricy Adobe Flash CS4). And from my experience, I do feel that using some tool has made my life easier.

[Muz]

Those game dev editors are the best tools if you just want to get down and make a game. IMO, they're the best place to start off. Once you get a little experience with game design and planning, you could move on to squeezing more power by doing some lower level programming. I don't think Dwarf Fortress would work very well in Construct, but then again, no beginner would try and code Dwarf Fortress right from the start.

[Eraser]

I don't know what it takes to license something like Game Maker or Unity.  I don't want them to sue me for making a game.  I know that since I paid for Flash, for example, that I can probably create games with it and sell them if I want.

Usually these companies tend to make this information easy to find (and it is). If you're interested without being bugged to look yourself, here's what I remember from reading over them last:

GM -- You can charge money for anything you create with the product, free or lite. Obvious limitations on the features + splash screen though.

Unity (free) -- You can charge money for anything you create with the product, assuming you make less than $100k off of the title. Splash screen is also forced into your game in Unity free.

[Akari]

Construct - You can do whatever you want with anything you do in Construct - while the program itself is licensed under GPL, it does not affect anything made with it. So you can sell your game without any need for splash screens or other stuff and you also don't have to pay royalties of any kind at any point. Though you might have to do that in case you're using plugins that require paying royalties to the plugin author(s) (though so far no plugin like this exist).

[Triplefox]

I used all of the editors I could get my hands on But it just wasn't good enough man I needed a new drug

It really comes down to the assumptions you're using for the game you're making and what models fit those assumptions. As a game IDE becomes more and more focused and complete, it has to narrow its specifications more and more as well. Stay in the specs and all is well. Go outside of them and you're in trouble.

So your options in making a powerful system involve some tradeoff of performance, features, and ease-of-use. Most of the time, code is code, data is data, the engine is there for code, the tool is there for data. When code and data intermingle, that's a special case that is optimally resolved either with tool features to work visually or language extension to express verbally - but a lot of the high-level tools only have a few features to resolve these cases. So you end up with a lot of code written in the scripting language, all of it kind of junky because the language lacks the expressiveness to do what you want.

On that note, most of these high-level IDEs will use proprietary scripting languages rather than encouraging engine recompilation or at least using an existing popular language; this makes it impossible to leverage the coding tools(whiz-bang code editors, debuggers, build systems, etc.) used in industry. But when the scripting language is good and well-suited to the game's needs it can still pay off. That's the main thing I miss in framework-driven development and it's led me to investigate game-specific languages that can be used like a library and customized "just enough" to fit into any engine, rather than being locked to one alone. I have some of my own ideas, but also want to build on what's already out there.