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[Ryan]

I am mainly posting just to say I think your avatar is hilarious, Icedemon :D.

On a more serious note, I think 1 project at a time is best. That's all I can handle, anyway, without getting side-tracked. Yeah, if you have crazy ideas I think it'd be beneficial and refreshing to stop your main project for a few days while you hammer out a quick and simple prototype (no graphics, just primatives / quick programmer art) to get a gameplay idea down.

But yeah. Anyone who can manage multiple projects at the same time (while finishing any of them) is an indie god. I'm having trouble getting progress done on my single project. Lack of coding experience and the time it takes to learn as you go really hurts productivity.

Er...final thought. Based on your posts, start with something very, very simple. Get something completed under your belt. Maybe something with the depth of Ikiki's Games?

[SurplusGamer]

Reviving this since I came here from a link from 'How to start an indie game business.'

I thought I'd just share some of my early experiences. I'm no expert by any means, but we're just finishing our second game, me and a friend, and we've definitely learned that ideas are cheap. We can come up with some idea for a game any day of a week. One of my favourite things to do is look at the list of upcoming Ludum Dare competition themes and coming up with a game idea in 30 seconds.

The important bit: Don't hold ideas like they are some sort of precious thing. Hold them very lightly and be prepared to drop them in favour of what will actually get done. Of course there are some ideas that are simply irresistable, but most aren't, really. Don't get seduced by them!

Surprised Man (that's the name we go by) keeps a wiki where we have a list of game ideas we may or may not one day develop. But as a rule, we are only actively working on one at a time. Next time we make a game, we may grab one of those ideas or we may come up with an entirely new one. If we thought we had to make every one of them, we'd go CRAZY.