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[lithander]

What's the main reason you haven't finished (or even started) your game-project?

I personally find it hard to keep my expectations low enough for the project to be doable and remain interested in it long enough finish it. All cool ideas are far beyond my possibilities and everything doable seems not worth the effort. :/

[Xion]

Perfectionism and overambitiousness are my bane. Also, graphics. I get bored working in a single style very very quickly.

[Gravious]

motivation to do another chunk of code after 9 hours of coding for work.

i wish i could find the solution

[letsap]

Repetition is something I try to avoid cuz it bores me really quickly. Then there's my lack of musical talent, I know what sounds good but can't spin a melody to save my life. Repetition also drains me pretty fast.

[andy wolff]

My expectations and ambitions are too high, and I always start more projects than I can finish. Rarely, having too much actual work to do can stop me from finishing a project as well.

[Lynx]

I would say, the sheer complexity of implementing a game in every technical detail.  Any one component isn't all that bad, but getting a game-embedded GUI has been a nightmare (which is not done, only deferred) and on top of that I need to work out resource handling.  What seems to be working for me is to break it down into manageable chunks, but if I ever lose track of what I'm doing, it'll be back into a morass of frustration for me.

[KennEH!]

Lack of being able to transfer my ideas into a proper art form.

[Melly]

Perfectionism and overambitiousness are my bane. Also, graphics. I get bored working in a single style very very quickly.

Then make a game with a ton of different art styles in it.

[Nessiah]

Ambitious ;_;
Lack of talent in programming and...graphics...

[gunswordfist]

Myself. Specifically my lack of focus, motivation and direction.

[AaronAardvark]

I would say, the sheer complexity of implementing a game in every technical detail.  Any one component isn't all that bad, but getting a game-embedded GUI has been a nightmare (which is not done, only deferred) and on top of that I need to work out resource handling.  What seems to be working for me is to break it down into manageable chunks, but if I ever lose track of what I'm doing, it'll be back into a morass of frustration for me.

This is exactly what demotivates me the most.  I'm fine if I naively implement things as I go, but when I try to rearchitect (or architect from scratch), the sheer interconnectedness and complexity of all the systems as a whole deters me from getting down to actual work.

It's similar from either the graphical arts or programming infrastructure perspectives. 

[Lucaz]

Managing to actually start and continue making it. And giving more priority to playing games than to making them.

Then there's my lack of programming, drawing and musical skills.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Habits of short-term pleasure which I allow to distract me, interruptions (it's hard working from home when you have a big family), the weather (heat and cold -- I don't have very good heating or air conditioning, and the window doesn't close completely and is drafty), noise (I live in a rather loud apartment building next to an active construction site).

Another big reason is disappointment in how my previous finished games were received keeps me from really wanting to make more. Often I feel a game is fairly good, and get a lot of good reviews and fan mail for them, but that they still are largely ignored or unfairly ridiculed, usually by people who haven't played the game. I know that one should ignore such stuff, but it's practically impossible. I think all game developers who read user feedback too much are put off by much of it. I don't mean this in a thin-skin way, since I've a fairly thick skin and most of the time recognize that the people criticizing games without playing them are idiots. But it's more like: these are the people I'm making games for? This is the reason? So people can just laugh at it and not even try it out, or try it out and see it for something completely different than it's intended to be?

I know that most of you haven't run into this problem yet, only a few of you have had your games popular enough to encounter that type of negativity about them (for instance, I'm sure Derek and Alec also came across maddening comments about Aquaria like "the game doesn't tell you what to do" or "just swimming around is boring" etc.), so this may not be a problem most of you have experience with. It's weird that finishing games for me actually becomes harder the more of them I finish, because each one that I finish, while it gets a few people who love them, also get a large number of people who hate on them, ignore them, or otherwise give feedback that amounts to telling my unconscious "don't make anymore games if this is what you're going to get for finishing them". I know the way to avoid this happening is not to read such things, but it's hard to miss it, especially when it's found in the same place as genuinely constructive criticism and genuinely positive feedback. It's also weird that a game could get 99% positive reaction, but the 1% that is negative overpowers that psychologically.

[Lan Auren]

My programing skills are sort of... nonexistent.

[Evil-Ville]

I simply get bored of my games very easily. I don't think I've ever worked on a single game for longer than a week. I also get stuck on little details. Working with short time limits doesn't help because I'll still spend ages fucking around with graphics no matter how much I try not to.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I actually think it helps a lot to make all the graphics of a game before you start making the game, rather than to code the game first and add the graphics in as you need them. Resources are harder and more time-consuming than coding is, and if you finish all the graphical resources a game will use (as well as its sound and music) you're more than half done with that game, and you'll feel that all that graphical work will be wasted if you don't actually code it.

[Balrog]

Time, laziness and lack of organization usually kill my projects 

[skaldicpoet9]

Pure laziness, that is all :/

[Zaratustra]

That I keep having bigger and bigger ideas until the games are too big to finish in a couple of weeks and then I forget them forever.

[Gravious]

i'm also suffering a little from wanting to do too many projects..

Theres probably 4 or 5 i want to do right now, 2 of which are serious but none will come to fruition without a damned engine >8(

I really need to get the editor sorted.. bah.