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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperBusinessSigns of an unlikely-to-finish project?
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Author Topic: Signs of an unlikely-to-finish project?  (Read 4653 times)
Klaim
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« Reply #40 on: February 04, 2013, 05:10:46 AM »

There are also studies showing bad effects of todo list, but the difference in these studies is the definition of todo-list.

Just in this discussion we are several to have a different definition of the thing while agreeing on having a set of tasks to do is important.
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Graham-
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« Reply #41 on: February 09, 2013, 07:47:14 PM »

I keep a lot of todo lists, that are created on-the-fly for whatever purposes I come up with. Managing todos is like managing code. You don't know the best structure at the beginning, so you just write down what you do know, then later you re-organize it into something better. You have to redo more stuff this way but you never lose anything and you learn a lot.

Signs of games that won't complete:
  . no one knows what the game is about
  . no one can confidently describe why the game is better than obvious competitors
  . no one can describe the competition
  . good work isn't getting done on a regular basis
  . no one really believes in it
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Muz
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« Reply #42 on: February 15, 2013, 03:00:31 AM »

Wow, this is very interesting. I wonder how much it applies to things beyond making games.

There's a nice book on this. It's written by the guy who wrote the Chicken Soup books, a little too optimistic for my taste, but the principles given are solid. Also good for a checklist to see if your project is healthy. I find that some dying companies/projects often fail to meet those principles, e.g.:
  • they start expecting someone else to do the work
  • they have epic goals in which the implementation is not visible
  • simple goals are not set
  • people are pessimistic
  • nobody dares to criticize or be honest with each other
  • conflict between team members are pent up
  • no constant effort is put into the project (daily)
  • people start complaining about the flaws of the industry (mobile is won off marketers, everyone is going to pirate our games, someone will steal our ideas, nobody likes JRPGs)
  • there's only partial commitment from everyone, nobody is 100% committed
  • people are in it for the money/glory/resume/external factors and don't have passion
  • too much focus on planning things perfect, things aren't implemented as soon as they can be

Todo lists are great because they let you visualize the final product/features AND how to do it. It's like a map. If you drive somewhere without knowing how to drive there, it's demoralizing (and you will get lost). If your directional map is designed in such a manner that you have to check it every minute, it's demoralizing. If the directions is several pages long, so much so that you can barely hold it, it's demoralizing.

It doesn't even have to be a to do list, just as long as you're communicating in some form where you're going and the route you're taking to get there.
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Graham-
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« Reply #43 on: February 20, 2013, 09:10:48 AM »

i remember there was once a study of successful people vs unsuccessful, and they found that the number one difference between them (even more important than what social-economic status they were born into, or how much education they had, or IQ) was whether they make to do lists or not

I've seen stuff like that. From what I remember the conclusions were like: successful people have a clear sense of what they need to do, in the next day, month, year etc. Clear goals, whether mental or not.

The key point is that the goals are well defined. Big difference between a high quality todo list and a low quality one. A high quality one is a representation of what the owner actually believes he should do. Knowing what you believe is important is the key. That's the hard part. Writing it down is easy.
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Klaim
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« Reply #44 on: February 21, 2013, 07:52:00 AM »

I remember it was not what they concluded, but that successful people have clear LONG TERM goals and think about the future like each decision is making them a bit closer to their long term goals; while people focusing on the immediate short term goals will get burnt.
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Graham-
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« Reply #45 on: February 21, 2013, 09:43:21 AM »

Knowing what you want, being clear about it, then trying to follow through.

I've for a long time been the "idea guy." I sit in a room with my head on the desk, sweating, focused, then jump up with a solution several hours later. I can solve the really tough problems that require a creative insight or two to get going on.

Sometimes this gets me into trouble, certainly a few times on tigs, because for every idea guy there are 10 who pretend like they are one, but really they just like to talk. You criticize their ideas and suddenly they're like: "What's the criticism for? I wasn't being serious serious."

Anyway, it means I come up with business ideas and game ideas and such really quick. I have known a lot of people who try to do the same thing. I met them in university, and they are everywhere on the internet. Lots of people want that creative visionary spark inside of them. They often ask, "what is the difference between me and Steve Jobs?" What does this have to do with finishing a project? I'll tell you.

My sister is having some life difficulties, choosing what she wants out of her career etc. She's a senior university student and questions her abilities and so on. She often comes to me with effectively this idea: "I don't have any skills like such and such a person. I will fail!" Her mistake, like the mistake of all the wannabe idea guys I see on a regular basis, is misunderstanding what it takes to be successful. Success takes talent, yes, but it takes a ton of talent, way more than you have at the beginning of your journey. Way, way more. So what do you do to get it?

You must care about the work. The way you have a brilliant idea is to have 10 billion bad ones, that you treat like brilliant ideas, and analyze and critique them, and try to follow through on them when they are good enough, and probably fail somewhere. You learn from these experiences then move on. Anything I am good at I am good at because I cared about it and tried like a million times. "How do you know that you can design a game that has X, Y, Z qualities?" Because I produce designs 4 hours a day, and have been, voraciously, for 8 years (maybe a little less at the beginning Wink).

You want your project to finish? Do you believe in it? Do you want it to finish? Do you want to put in the work to get it to finish? Are you sure? You have to be sure. If you're not sure do something so that you are sure. Study, practice, learn. You can try something out, or change the design. The value of iteration! Don't believe in your project? Flex it in a new way. Flex is important that way.

Talent is nothing. Projects finish because the people working on it believe in it finishing. Successful people are successful because they know what they believe in, then apply themselves towards it. When they stop believing they change their plan. Hence the up-to-date "todo list" they all mentally have. Want to know if your project will finish? What personal stake do you have in it? Is it the best thing you can do right now? Will it continue to be until completion? Will you do whatever it takes to see it complete? Will someone else? Everything else is transient.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 09:56:29 AM by Graham. » Logged
TomHunt
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« Reply #46 on: February 21, 2013, 10:19:37 AM »

My own latest project was dragging on for quite a bit, and this was really becoming frustrating to me because it is not at all big. I started beating myself up over how much time I was spending doing other things, and that wasn't very productive, either.

So what I did was I started keeping a to-do list as plaintext file checked in with my project, so it would get versioned and everything. It started with two sections: TODO and DONE.

I added a third section later - CUT - and this is important. It's important to know when to cut a feature. It can be really emotionally painful - you've got to rip the band aid off on some of those things. It's a tough call, but finishing a project is much much better than a "perfect" game noodling around in your dreams. "Bird in hand better than two in bush". Know when and how to cut features.

What's been working out really well with this is the DONE section keeps getting bigger and bigger, and I've only had to cut a few things related to just one feature in particular that was just bogging everything else down. It's important to be able to keep moving forward with a project, to have some visible path to the goal.

The TODO list also helps to put checkins into context. Before checking in, I run a diff check ("hg diff > ..\diffs" in mercurial, then open ..\diffs in a text editor), go through what I've done, and log all that stuff in with the checkin and X off the relevant items in the TODO list and moving them to the DONE list. While not quite the same as a dev log, I think it serves a similar purpose of affirming what you've been doing and the progress you've been making on a regular basis.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 10:25:33 AM by TomHunt » Logged

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« Reply #47 on: February 21, 2013, 10:35:14 AM »

I think it is super important to know what needs to be done, how you are progressing through it. The situation becomes difficult when you have a lot of things to take care of. I know my stuff is always getting out of hand because there are so many interlocking pieces.

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« Reply #48 on: February 21, 2013, 11:41:35 AM »

Honestly, I didn't expect this thread to get as much attention as it did.

One reason I'm not committed to making my own game anymore is because I acknowledge that any game ideas I have are quite disorganized. However, as a composer for other projects, it kind of troubles me how disorganized some of them are. I was writing music for other Amnesia custom stories, but I'm losing confidence in them because even if there was more than one other person involved, that other person, who's the head, doesn't seem fully committed, and understandably so, given what I feel is poor dialogue and story development. Not completely relevant because they're game mods instead of actual games, but still....

Other projects seem to lack the communication between team members, at least when it comes to what brings us together. I've been on a few Skype group conversations over a few different projects, and roughly 95% of all discussion has absolutely nothing to do with game design, the only "defense" for one of said projects being that it's officially on indefinite hold.
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« Reply #49 on: February 21, 2013, 12:05:36 PM »

My sister is having some life difficulties, choosing what she wants out of her career etc. She's a senior university student and questions her abilities and so on. She often comes to me with effectively this idea: "I don't have any skills like such and such a person. I will fail!" Her mistake, like the mistake of all the wannabe idea guys I see on a regular basis, is misunderstanding what it takes to be successful. Success takes talent, yes, but it takes a ton of talent, way more than you have at the beginning of your journey. Way, way more.
I don't see talent as being that important. Much more important is to work hard. Do stuff again and again. Gain experience. Work hard. Push through the barriers.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #50 on: February 21, 2013, 12:39:10 PM »

i think that was his point -- he was saying that talent comes from practice, and practice comes from working hard

even the most brilliant game designer in the world's first game will be worse than the average game designer's third game
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« Reply #51 on: February 21, 2013, 01:35:26 PM »

Quote
I don't see talent as being that important. Much more important is to work hard. Do stuff again and again. Gain experience. Work hard. Push through the barriers.

I agree! A great work ethic and passion is much harder to acquire than most skills.
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« Reply #52 on: February 21, 2013, 02:16:06 PM »

Yeah I was talking about working hard. You believe in the work, you do the work, the talent comes.

Python, the thing you're talking about sounds like a lack of leadership. Sometimes beginners, or those who haven't had to be in charge of a project before, underestimate how much effort it takes to keep momentum going. You can't show up for a meeting and just expect ideas to flow out of it. You have to have a plan, or at least the desire to accomplish something while you are there. Ideas spring out of controlled discussions. Effort itself isn't spontaneous, not without practice.
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« Reply #53 on: February 21, 2013, 03:00:23 PM »

Python, the thing you're talking about sounds like a lack of leadership. Sometimes beginners, or those who haven't had to be in charge of a project before, underestimate how much effort it takes to keep momentum going. You can't show up for a meeting and just expect ideas to flow out of it. You have to have a plan, or at least the desire to accomplish something while you are there. Ideas spring out of controlled discussions. Effort itself isn't spontaneous, not without practice.

Perhaps you're right when it comes to my current situation. And I agree with your idea of having structure in a meeting completely; it's a shame that many of the people I'm collaborating with don't seem to get it....
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« Reply #54 on: February 21, 2013, 03:38:15 PM »

That's the price of inexperience.

The cool thing about passion is that it is malleable. For example, if you came up with a plan, or drove the discussion, you would likely find your collaborators contribute quite well. They will naturally apply pressure that threatens to derail you, always, but when you are in control they will do their (productive) thing. Their passion is obvious from their attempts at making games. Making games is not easy. This activity is something that requires passion.

Build it and they will come. You'll be surprised. I always am. People are cool like that.

They will only "get it" if someone else shows them an example, continuously. Getting it is not something you can talk your way towards. You have to get it first, then demonstrate what that means. They must see, then they will learn.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2013, 03:45:08 PM by Graham. » Logged
ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #55 on: February 21, 2013, 04:11:17 PM »

also, get a smaller sig! we have rules about sig sizes in this here forumz
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Graham-
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« Reply #56 on: February 21, 2013, 06:44:22 PM »

his sig?
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #57 on: February 21, 2013, 07:03:57 PM »

his sig?

yeah it's fixed now -- it used to take up half of my screen
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Graham-
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« Reply #58 on: February 22, 2013, 12:46:55 PM »

right, I remember now.
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« Reply #59 on: February 22, 2013, 01:20:42 PM »

Please save further complaints about my signature for somewhere else? It's off-topic for this thread.
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