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[PompiPompi]

Hmm, I think "Small vs Big" is not the only parameter.
I would say, is your game heavy on the technical side? Or is it "content driven"?
Some games are more suitable as being small, such those with one good gameplay mechanic. But some games rely more on content and a lot of variety to make their gameplay more appealing.
The problem is not necesseraly with the scope of the game, it's about how much time you need to spend on technical stuff or general time for how much content creation.
If you are going to make a 3D game, with your own custom 3D engine, with tons of shaders, effects and what not. Then setting up a playable demo will become much more difficult.
And personally I need to see decent artwork to get a feeling of the game. I don't like to have placeholders. I know it's not very efficient, but that's the way I like it.
3D also means you need to model characters which takes more time.

I guess you understand my point. When a game is heavy on technical features such as graphics, complex physics and etc, it might be a lot more difficult to create content and gameplay.

[Jacob_]

Big projects, with small ones when ideas come up to prevent becoming bored of the big project.

That ended up working for me. In the spring I was working on a major project, then it started to get boring, and buggy, so I made some small games, originally intending to abandon the big project completely. Late last month, I was finally able to take it up again--I even trashed 200+ classes and started from scratch. Using my improved programming knowledge, I've now gone far past where I was when I abandoned the game, and I'm not going to stop anytime soon. :

[AndrewFM]

Big projects are risky. I've had times where I'd work on a project for 1-2 years and after all that time, it still eventually winds up getting scrapped, and never finished. It's a terrible thing to put that much work into something, just to eventually have it dumped in the trash. Not only that, but repeated instances of this can rapidly throw you down the path of Learned Helplessness, severely crippling you when it comes to future projects.

Now, to make things clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't make big projects. However, you need to be a person with a high level of willpower, and need to be mentally prepared for the possible outcomes of such an endeavor. It also helps to have some support behind you, to push you along the way.

[AntiPseudonym]

I kinda enjoy big and small projects in different ways.

Small projects are great because you don't need an awful lot of planning and can pretty much just do whatever feels right. It feels way more loose and creative than a larger project. Although with that said, when a big project finally starts coming together it's an absolutely amazing feeling, especially when months of planning finally start paying off.

[Nix]

It depends, I suppose. If I'm very inspired, I'll go for a small project, but I've recently decided that I don't really like working on little games/projects.

For one, I tend to feel rushed, even when I have no deadline. I just feel like taking too long on a small project is waste of my time and I'm doing something wrong. With larger projects I can take my sweet time to make things work properly and to write clean, flexible code.

The ideas behind programming small and large games are a bit different as well: programming small games tends to involve a lot more hard-coding of features and gameplay, whereas large games have a clearer separation of content and engine. I start to go a little crazy when I find myself hardcoding too many features or too much content. One could of course enforce that same large-game-content-separation with a smaller project, but that gets back to the issue of spending too much time on small things for less reward.

So we'll see. In the past I have done pretty much nothing but smaller projects, but I'm currently working on a much large endeavor with hopefully 10+ hours of content. When I'm done with this, I'll be able to really decide which I prefer.

[Fauxfox]

thing is its easy for a small project to seem like a big one, I have 3 in the works atm 1 for prototyping all my other games, which is a small one. and 1 large and 1 small game depending how i'm feeling that day. although all my time spent on my games is mostly making assets, then hacking away at programmer code... constuct for the win.

[cliffski]

generally small projects are better when starting out, because they actually get finished then, and they are best for learners. You can make a total hash of the code in a 3 month game, and it won't haunt you for years.
Big projects are what you do when you seriosuly know what you are doing, and want to make something that actually sells and becomes popular.

Even some simple looking games (like zyngas, or popcaps) are really big projects. The majority of the time goes on iteration, playtesting and balancing.

[ink.inc]

Medium sized projects. Ones that take <1hour to beat.

[Bood_war]

Much projects have always started small, and grow too big for me to finish.

[QOG]

Small projects. It's really rare that I spend more than ~5-8 hours on a game.

[BoxedLunch]

i find it hard to work on anything small. it needs to be open for my endless want to add ideas, although it is rare i ever finish the game.

[ANtY]

Small projects. It's really rare that I spend more than ~5-8 hours on a game.

Yes, but only if it's only single player

[Razz]

Small games, probably because they're easier.

[dantheman363]

Small games at first. And then once you have completed some small, confidence-boosting games then you can try a larger one. Even the games that seem very small have a lot of work involved.

[bento_smile]

There's something really fun about small games really, like the type you make at jams or in klik of the month. I kinda like using those as an excuse to make silly crap and loosen up a bit (because large games are serious business!)

[JigxorAndy]

Small projects are always nice because it's fun to actually get something finished once in a while. But big projects make you feel really proud and may even bring financial rewards

So I would say a big project always running in the background with small projects to stop you from going insane along the way.