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[joulimousis]

Just dropped an idea that I've been working for the last weeks. It was a fun concept but I never got to make it "work" completely so I've decided to let it go.
The question is: How do you feel about leaving projects to start new ones?

It's a common practice in indie game development to drop ideas like nothing. A new idea always brings energy and excitement and it's very difficult to resist.

I've made a post about it in our blog if you care to read.

[Geti]

Depends on the project. Sometimes there's something you really should finish, and moving on to another idea would only be alright if you're planning on coming back and just need to look at some different code for a while. Other things that're just experiments or whatever could easily be dropped for an awesome idea though, but I tend to want to develop a concept before switching to developing it to see if it's got any staying power.

[Nix]

Like Geti said, it really depends on the project, but it's my feeling that there are very few ideas that are truly ready to be dropped. If you can't make it work, I feel like there's usually something that will work just around the corner. So, honestly, I hate dropping ideas, especially ones that have more than a week's worth of effort put into them.

[joulimousis]

Yeah, it depends on the project. But sticking to an idea trying to make it work can be as dangerous as dropping it.

[Christian Knudsen]

It almost seems as if there are two types of indie developers; those that move on from one project to another almost daily, and those that stick to one big idea for years. I'm the latter, so I probably won't abandon an entire project, though I have abandoned single ideas from time to time if they didn't work or didn't add enough to the game...

[increpare]

I've abandoned a couple of biggish projects.  It's always hard for me, even when I think it's for the best.

[Nix]

It almost seems as if there are two types of indie developers; those that move on from one project to another almost daily, and those that stick to one big idea for years. I'm the latter, so I probably won't abandon an entire project, though I have abandoned single ideas from time to time if they didn't work or didn't add enough to the game...

As I said, I hate giving up ideas, but at this point, I don't think I can see myself spending more than a month on any one project. If I see a project going on too long or stretching itself out more than I'm ready for, I try to break it down to its bear-bones and say, "How can I simplify this so that it doesn't take up years of my life?" If it comes to it, I may put one of these big projects on the side and say to myself that I'll work on it from time to time, but that never happens. Whenever I put something on the back-burner, I forget about it and come back to find a melted pot.

Also, I think about ideas conceptually for a while before I start them. I think those people who spend a day on an idea then switch over are more the "try everything I can think of until something works" type, whereas I won't even start working on something unless I'm convinced it will go somewhere, and since I tend to over-think things and poison my own mind, not very many ideas get to that point.

[joulimousis]

Also, I think about ideas conceptually for a while before I start them. I think those people who spend a day on an idea then switch over are more the "try everything I can think of until something works" type, whereas I won't even start working on something unless I'm convinced it will go somewhere, and since I tend to over-think things and poison my own mind, not very many ideas get to that point.

That's an interesting point, I too tend to over think ideas. That's why people like us must be very careful when deciding to drop a project. It's important to take a moment to ask ourselves if it really has to do with the idea or if we just spoiled in our minds.

[namre]

I've been working on this game for three months already even though it is supposed to be just a short game initially planned for two weeks. It took longer because I wanted to expand the gameplay.

Unfortunately, right after the second month, I began to have doubts with the "fun" factor of my game that I seriously considered trashing it in favor of a new idea. I eventually decided to continue with it since I felt that it would be such a waste since I'm already 2 months invested.

After a few more additions and tweaks to the gameplay I played my game again and it turned out to be not half bad.

I just got lucky this time, I guess. Next time I'm going to make absolutely sure that I'm okay with a game idea before I start working on it.

[Nix]

After a few more additions and tweaks to the gameplay I played my game again and it turned out to be not half bad.

I think that's a very useful thing to think about. Even games that are seriously "unfun" can probably be tweaked or changed in a way that makes them fun. I find it very hard to believe that there are many ideas that don't have something in them with the potential to be fun.

With my last game (and my first to be completed to a releasable state), I started with a very simple idea that I prototyped. The idea turned out to be totally boring. Then I started screwing around, adding in features, changing features, going back and forth and play-testing, and eventually I found something that actually had replay value and developed it into something worth playing (and paying for on FGL). The "How can I make this game fun?" process took a few days, and a few times I almost said, "Screw it, this will never be fun," but with persistence and a bit of creativity, I pulled together a bore-fest into a decent flash game. Don't feel like you have to stick with your original idea or forget about it entirely. Design is an iterative process.

P.S. In case you have an FGL account, the game is called "Up". It's open for other developers to see.

[nihilocrat]

I get rid of new ideas by writing up a "design scrawl", kind of a stream-of-consciousness super-lazy design document. Thinking though my ideas intensely generally leads to one of two results:

• This is actually a kind of bad idea! I shouldn't make it!
• This is a cool idea! For some reason I don't feel the need to start working on it!

Both in which results in me being able to concentrate on whatever project I'm currently working on. Before I started doing this I would keep getting distracted and leave a trail of unfinished games. Now I have.... a trail of unfinished games punctuated by a few complete ones

[Montoli]

The thing is, you never really "leave" your ideas.  You can put them aside for a while, but pretty much any project you start, even if you don't finish, will stick around in your head and make later projects better, either because you can take parts of the old one that you liked and work them in, or because you learned a terrible lesson in what not to do.

[Montoli]

Also:  It is a simple fact that it takes much less time to come up with an idea than it does to implement it.  By like several orders of magnitude.  Most game programmers (heck most people) I know have TONS of game ideas they'd like to try someday, and FAR fewer actual games they've had time to make.

So this simple math means that you might as well get used to putting ideas aside, since you're going to end up doing it a lot either way.  The only other real solution is to somehow limit your idea output to match your level of production, but that is probably difficult and not a good long-term solution...

[increpare]

The thing is, you never really "leave" your ideas. 

There's always the possibility of forgetting.

[Montoli]

Leaving aside metaphysical bibble-babble about how the "you" of today is not the "you" of a week ago, and is shaped by all your thoughts and ideas, even the ones you can't remember - I recommend notebooks!  Personally I keep a pretentious moleskine in my backpack at all times, for the random ideas that come up while taking the train.  Alternately, several friends keep a google doc around for much the same purpose.

Side benefit:  Writing an idea down, even if it's a 1-page scribble, helps flesh it out tremendously!  Since you want to write down enough that you can figure out what the idea was in a couple of months if you've forgotten it.  Ideas are often nebulous to begin with.  Writing it down forces you to de-nebulize it to the point that you can write/draw it.

[namre]

So this simple math means that you might as well get used to putting ideas aside, since you're going to end up doing it a lot either way.

Good point. But easier said than done. Some just don't want to waste the time and effort that they've worked on which is why they are having a hard time leaving that idea.

Then again. When I think about it, I guess it's a matter of case to case basis for me. There are projects I've pushed through and some I've abandoned. It's all a matter of gauging the pros and cons.

[RCIX]

Leaving aside metaphysical bibble-babble about how the "you" of today is not the "you" of a week ago, and is shaped by all your thoughts and ideas, even the ones you can't remember - I recommend notebooks!  Personally I keep a pretentious moleskine in my backpack at all times, for the random ideas that come up while taking the train.  Alternately, several friends keep a google doc around for much the same purpose.

Side benefit:  Writing an idea down, even if it's a 1-page scribble, helps flesh it out tremendously!  Since you want to write down enough that you can figure out what the idea was in a couple of months if you've forgotten it.  Ideas are often nebulous to begin with.  Writing it down forces you to de-nebulize it to the point that you can write/draw it.

I agree in principle, but i write slower than a slug goes for a banana, more illegibly than your typical doctor's hand writing, and my drawing is pretty awful too. I stick to text files on a computer

[namre]

Side benefit:  Writing an idea down, even if it's a 1-page scribble, helps flesh it out tremendously!  Since you want to write down enough that you can figure out what the idea was in a couple of months if you've forgotten it.  Ideas are often nebulous to begin with.  Writing it down forces you to de-nebulize it to the point that you can write/draw it.

I, on the other hand, make use of Microsoft One Note to take down notes since I'm in front of my computer 90% of the day.

[Draknek]

The thing is, you never really "leave" your ideas.  You can put them aside for a while, but pretty much any project you start, even if you don't finish, will stick around in your head and make later projects better, either because you can take parts of the old one that you liked and work them in, or because you learned a terrible lesson in what not to do.

I agree with this completely.

I'm really bad at finishing games off, but I'm constantly finding that I can take old unfinished projects and turn them into something totally different, that I wouldn't have thought of if I hadn't made the original thing first.

[Alistair Aitcheson]

All this talk of scribbling ideas down is fantastic, and something I really should be doing. Lots of comic artists talk about carrying a notebook around and scribbling down any ideas they have as and when they have them. I think the same applies here.

Normally when I've discussed ideas with friends, I've found that either trying to explain them will reveal big holes in the concept, or that I'll end up explaining it more fleshed out than I'd envisaged and get a clearer idea of how it could work and how I could get the most from it.

The way I tend to work, in anything creative, is that I'll be working on one project and thinking up ideas for the next. If I don't get tired of it I'll know it's a keeper

Finally, as for forgetting ideas I never really worry. I tend to believe that the most interesting elements I'll still remember, and the only things I'll forget will be the unnecessary or clumsy bits.