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0xDEADBAAD
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« on: March 09, 2016, 09:34:54 AM »

I just need to hear what other thinks about this and share my experience.

I'll put you in context first:

A few months ago I made a small prototype for a local multiplayer game. It turned out to be a nice concept and worked pretty well so I kept working on it and showcased it in almost every event I could (second half of the year tends to be where most of gamedev-related events happen here in Argentina).

I was just so hyped I could implement new things and fix bugs over the week (after an 8 hour work day), code all night before an event and just stay awake and (almost) fully charged during the whole event the next day. I'd usually would spend Sundays sleeping, too. I lived like that for around three months and I must admit it was, although tiring, extremely exciting.

I just felt this was going to be the first game I published, so I started building this huge, huge expectation around it. Backlogs, level concepts, roadmaps, milestones, a release date estimate... All that stuff you always read you should have to organize your development process.

Then life started happening again and pressure started to build up. My tightly planned schedule didn't allow me to come back tired from work and just relax and play some games, cook something nice or just sleep a couple more hours than usual: that should be development time.

I was being my own shitty producer and that made me explode out of anxiety and pressure, leaving me unable to do any development at all for almost as much as I was high on hype.

I honestly wasn't enjoying making my game anymore so I had to stop.

Now I'm finding my way to come to terms with organization without charging me with too much pressure, but the development isn't obviously going that fast and I'm trying to learn how to handle that.

The best thing I could come up with so far is some sort of "go with the flow" and do a lot of development when I'm at the top of my motivation/energy sine wave and try to do alternative, non strictly productive stuff (write ideas down, look for youtubbers/journalists to give a presskit to, etc) and it's way more bareable.

I gave up any kind of roadmap and planification more than a priority list of stuff I need to make. Leaving dates aside helped me greatly to cope with anxiety and start enjoying development again.

Going with more of a step by step mindset and don't constantly thinking about the big picture helps a lot.

The thing is I don't really think I can build up a game development studio (which is my ultimate goal) without some organization and planning, but I just seem to be unable to handle the standard stuff you should have pinned on your wall everyday.

So my question is: how do you handle that? Do you have any advice?

What alternatives are out there?

I really appreciate you taking the time to read this and even more if you take a few minutes to give some kind of answer.
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« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2016, 12:27:40 AM »

You've hit something really important here. I'm pretty new to the realm of game development as a craft, but I think the same process can be applied to any sort of discipline that requires a great deal of long-term effort.

I think the most important thing you can do when working on a project as big as a game is to relish the small victories. It's important to time-table big keystone things that need to get done, but also not focus so heavily on "the big picture," as you already said. If you finished some new character concepts for your game, I'd consider that a victory in itself. Busted through a nasty bug that was crippling the player's experience? Another victory. Segmenting tasks in this way and creating a more detailed list of things to accomplish will be more reassuring and satisfying than trying to tackle one large group of tasks at a time that could easily be broken down into smaller chunks. It's the difference between "designing the first level of my game" and "Making sure the first obstacle my player faces in game is teaching them a key mechanic they'll have to master in order to move on to the next task." Being able to pull off that second thing effectively comes off as a much more gratifying task to accomplish than just trying to push through a whole level.

I'd perhaps try picking certain days of the week to focus on particular tasks (you can tweak these on a week to week basis if a particular deadline is requiring more of a certain discipline from you than others). Say on Mondays and Wednesdays you focus primarily on coding. Tuesdays and Thursdays you work on research and business oriented things involving your game, as well as any social media-esque tasks. That leaves Fridays and Saturdays for ideation and concepting, which could range from drawing concepts for some enemy characters or designing a puzzle for a level. Save Sunday to recharge your batteries and veg out a bit, there always needs to be time for that. Structuring your week in this way will not only give you varying tasks to perform on different days to reduce the grind of doing the same exact task a grueling number of hours in a row, but will force you to step back from that task at a certain point, allow you to evaluate with fresh eyes, and return to it a few days later with perhaps a stronger idea of what needs to be done to improve on it.

I know you're thinking in terms of building a game studio of your own, and the best part about that is you won't have to accomplish these tasks on your own. You'll be working in a team, which will allow you to bust through these micro-tasks that make up macro accomplishments even more quickly. I understand your concerns, but don't convince yourself that it isn't going to happen if you're having some trouble working in this vein of though right now. You sound like a committed guy, you'll get there!
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« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2016, 01:30:18 AM »

I honestly wasn't enjoying making my game anymore so I had to stop.
I'd focus on this and accept that making a game is also not always enjoyable and is mostly a hard unfunny work in most parts.


and this
My tightly planned schedule didn't allow me to come back tired from work and just relax and play some games, cook something nice or just sleep a couple more hours than usual: that should be development time

you made your development time into a constraint. but yeah life is hard

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« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2016, 02:40:46 AM »

I don't think there is a perfect answer, especially when you work on your project on the side of another job. We're all different, but I know that I need to relax sometimes, my productivity would just immensely drop if I was to force myself to work on my side project on every free hour I have.
A month ago, I setup a schedule for the end of my project, a precise planning, while keeping big margins on my tasks so that I wouldn't stress myself too much. I think it's good to have a planning, it allows to keep track of the progress and to concentrate on the important aspects. Yet, of course, it didn't go exactly as planned, but it's ok. There are some points I gave up, that didn't seem so crucial in the end, and some others that were added. Now I'm a week from final submission on the store, everything isn't perfect (and I have two partners who I can't control, I have no idea if they will be able to deliver everything they have to), but it's a side project. If won't be perfect, but it will be out. I'll probably do an update or two in order to improve what I can, but the most important part is that I'll publish it.
Now, the day you really go for your studio, full time, maybe you will have to be a bit more strict; but if you do this as a side project, don't be too harsh with yourself, I'd say. Do things as they come, try to plan, but adapt when your planning isn't good anymore, and don't kill yourself, it's a lose-lose situation.
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« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2016, 08:07:21 PM »

About a year ago I tried just doing the #1GAM challenge and that alone made me a bit strung. I mean, I'm sure you've heard the "start small" mantra who knows how many times and I certainly think there is validity to it (I've made some games before but have switched environments a couple times.) But--hello--I work a full time job that already has me working on code during the day. So should I feel like trash for not making a game in a month or feel like trash because I drove myself into the ground to release by the end of the month? I've finally come to the point where I'm just kind of like "screw it, who cares if what I want to make isn't small or doesn't fit into a month?" I'm trying to get better organized so I can keep the momentum up, but otherwise I'm just sort of doing what I can even if it is a bigger project.

Random rambling aside, the point is I don't think there's a silver bullet for game devs. We all have different lives and different priorities. Game dev is a priority to me but other things do outrank it. Does this make me less passionate and caring about my practice than other devs? I guess it could, but I'm not sure that's a technicality I'm really that interested in arguing. Life is a gift; that's not to say it isn't a roller coaster, but we shouldn't despise it simply for the fact that it isn't exactly the roller coaster we envisioned it being. Roll with the punches, keep moving forward and see what happens.
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« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2016, 08:20:33 PM »

I will give you my advice from atop my castle wrought of abandoned projects and good intentions.

I have created two rules for my game development:
1) Don't tell anyone what I'm making until it's playable. This one is particularly hard, but the satisfaction of people telling me it's a good idea unfortunately is strong enough that I end up losing motivation to actually bring the idea into reality.
2) Don't allow myself to work obsessively on anything. Churning out 2000 lines of code in 12 hour days is great fun for a very short time, but just like an all you can eat buffet of pancakes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. In the same vein as a good entertainer, I always leave myself wanting more. Even if I'm in the middle of something, I just write a handover note for myself the next day, and clock out. It's just like dieting - if you try to do it all at once, you end up back where you started.
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« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2016, 07:18:20 PM »

Keeping motivation going can be a hard thing to do. The only advice I can give is always have milestones to decide when to quit a project.

An example of this is if you are doing a prototype then get it to function to show gameplay. If you don't quit then you have accomplished a prototype. If you decide to quit then because the prototype sucks then it's no big loss because that's what prototypes are for so you still feel positive and you have learned more.

If you decide to go along and turn the prototype into a game then plan to do a one level demo and see if that works or sucks.

What I'm actually trying to say is your main goals should be a decision point on when to cancel the project. This is actually a good feedback loop because you are building a quit option in the design process. And if you decide to quit you have done it for positive reasons by reaching a goal and making a decision. I tend to find that this is a very good way to cull bad ideas at different stages in the process but at the same time you are learning what works and what not works.

And by doing this as your experience builds up you will more or less choose the right options from the word go when you start a new project and because those decisions are based on experience, your motivation should be pretty good most of the time.
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« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2016, 09:04:10 AM »

Almost a month has passed since I opened this thread and I must thank you all guys, because all of your answers have been of great help to me.

The least I can do is take the time to quote you one by one so expect a wall of text.

TL;DR
I took pieces of advice from all of you and I'm doing well better now. If I had to bullet-point what is helping me so far, that would be:

  • Accepting the fluctuating rhythm I can work at instead of attempting to force one upon me.
  • Approaching my work more on a task-by-task manner instead of pursuing an unrealistic milestone.
  • Focusing on non strictly productive, lighter tasks when I'm blocked or tired (i.e. setting up a devlog).
  • Stop taking spare and recreational time as "holy fuck! I'm not coding" time.
  • Stop pressuring me with the "build my own studio" thing: It'll come when I'm ready for it and not a minute earlier. After all, I make games for the experience of making games and not for an ultimate goal.


Quotes:

I think the most important thing you can do when working on a project as big as a game is to relish the small victories. It's important to time-table big keystone things that need to get done, but also not focus so heavily on "the big picture," as you already said. If you finished some new character concepts for your game, I'd consider that a victory in itself. Busted through a nasty bug that was crippling the player's experience? Another victory.
I'd say this is THE key for me. Once you can get into that mindset, the amount of unnecessary pressure you throw away is fucking huge.

I'd perhaps try picking certain days of the week to focus on particular tasks (you can tweak these on a week to week basis if a particular deadline is requiring more of a certain discipline from you than others). Say on Mondays and Wednesdays you focus primarily on coding. Tuesdays and Thursdays you work on research and business oriented things involving your game, as well as any social media-esque tasks. That leaves Fridays and Saturdays for ideation and concepting, which could range from drawing concepts for some enemy characters or designing a puzzle for a level. Save Sunday to recharge your batteries and veg out a bit, there always needs to be time for that. Structuring your week in this way will not only give you varying tasks to perform on different days to reduce the grind of doing the same exact task a grueling number of hours in a row, but will force you to step back from that task at a certain point, allow you to evaluate with fresh eyes, and return to it a few days later with perhaps a stronger idea of what needs to be done to improve on it.
This might be the next thing I try (I couldn't get to it yet).



I'd focus on this and accept that making a game is also not always enjoyable and is mostly a hard unfunny work in most parts.
Yeah, I kind of idealized the task at some point and that was kind of fucking me up. Thanks for the reminder.



I don't think there is a perfect answer, especially when you work on your project on the side of another job. We're all different, but I know that I need to relax sometimes, my productivity would just immensely drop if I was to force myself to work on my side project on every free hour I have.
A month ago, I setup a schedule for the end of my project, a precise planning, while keeping big margins on my tasks so that I wouldn't stress myself too much. I think it's good to have a planning, it allows to keep track of the progress and to concentrate on the important aspects. Yet, of course, it didn't go exactly as planned, but it's ok. There are some points I gave up, that didn't seem so crucial in the end, and some others that were added. Now I'm a week from final submission on the store, everything isn't perfect (and I have two partners who I can't control, I have no idea if they will be able to deliver everything they have to), but it's a side project. If won't be perfect, but it will be out. I'll probably do an update or two in order to improve what I can, but the most important part is that I'll publish it.
Now, the day you really go for your studio, full time, maybe you will have to be a bit more strict; but if you do this as a side project, don't be too harsh with yourself, I'd say. Do things as they come, try to plan, but adapt when your planning isn't good anymore, and don't kill yourself, it's a lose-lose situation.
Yup. Accepting that there are things you can't control and that most likely nothing will be perfect is essential. Also, if I ever get to have my own studio, I'll have full work days to get things done and not get to work almost exclusively after a long day.
I now see clearly that what was wrong was not the fact that I was planning but how I was taking the planning itself.



Random rambling aside, the point is I don't think there's a silver bullet for game devs. We all have different lives and different priorities. Game dev is a priority to me but other things do outrank it. Does this make me less passionate and caring about my practice than other devs? I guess it could, but I'm not sure that's a technicality I'm really that interested in arguing. Life is a gift; that's not to say it isn't a roller coaster, but we shouldn't despise it simply for the fact that it isn't exactly the roller coaster we envisioned it being. Roll with the punches, keep moving forward and see what happens.
Understanding this was also essential to me. All advice I was following was based on other people's experience. This doesn't necessarily make it right for me and my work.

I find also important to give up the expectation of having all of your path to release drawn before you event start coding. There's a great amount of unexpected shit (some good shit, some bad shit) that you just won't be able to predict and a more step by step approach works way better for me.



I will give you my advice from atop my castle wrought of abandoned projects and good intentions.

I have created two rules for my game development:
1) Don't tell anyone what I'm making until it's playable. This one is particularly hard, but the satisfaction of people telling me it's a good idea unfortunately is strong enough that I end up losing motivation to actually bring the idea into reality.
This is a good thing to have in mind. I don't think it's my case since receiving good feedback only makes me want even more to finish it, but it opens a lot of questions and observations about how our brains work (thanks, Raph Koster).

2) Don't allow myself to work obsessively on anything. Churning out 2000 lines of code in 12 hour days is great fun for a very short time, but just like an all you can eat buffet of pancakes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. In the same vein as a good entertainer, I always leave myself wanting more. Even if I'm in the middle of something, I just write a handover note for myself the next day, and clock out. It's just like dieting - if you try to do it all at once, you end up back where you started.
This is also a good observation that I think might fit me. I think a good part of what happened me was because of this. It's a satisfying thing to do, but doing it a lot less made me a happier dev overall.



Keeping motivation going can be a hard thing to do. The only advice I can give is always have milestones to decide when to quit a project.

An example of this is if you are doing a prototype then get it to function to show gameplay. If you don't quit then you have accomplished a prototype. If you decide to quit then because the prototype sucks then it's no big loss because that's what prototypes are for so you still feel positive and you have learned more.

If you decide to go along and turn the prototype into a game then plan to do a one level demo and see if that works or sucks.

What I'm actually trying to say is your main goals should be a decision point on when to cancel the project. This is actually a good feedback loop because you are building a quit option in the design process. And if you decide to quit you have done it for positive reasons by reaching a goal and making a decision. I tend to find that this is a very good way to cull bad ideas at different stages in the process but at the same time you are learning what works and what not works.

And by doing this as your experience builds up you will more or less choose the right options from the word go when you start a new project and because those decisions are based on experience, your motivation should be pretty good most of the time.
This is actually an interesting approach.

I already have the "build something and see how it goes" thing going on, but don't actively and constantly evaluate quitting the project. I take a more "see how we can make it work" approach, but consciously having the "cancel it" thing around sounds more healthy.

I'll see how much of it I can take and fit into my mindset.



Anyway, thanks again to all of you guys and expect to see a devlog for my game and an entry for this topic later this year (I'd like to have some experience on my own to add).

I feel you really helped me a lot.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2016, 09:21:35 AM by stinkfist » Logged
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« Reply #8 on: April 10, 2016, 05:20:30 AM »

really great read, thanks to everyone who contributed!
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« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2016, 12:47:17 PM »

It's a bad idea to put constrains on yourself when you already work full time. I tried to put all of my free time into making games while also having a day job, it's only really possible for so long. Also, becoming obsessed by the craft, and having so little time to do it, I ended up not doing anything else because anything that took time away from dev time made me angry.

I don't have a solution, but as long as you don't depend on making games for a living, consider it for what it is: a hobby. Enjoy it, but realize that as soon as it become a full time job, it's no longer a hobby. Maybe making games is only good to you when it's for fun, and making it a job will ruin it? I don't know.

But I think it's pretty common for solo dev to be a terrible, terrible boss to themselves. Ask yourself: would I accept those working conditions if I actually had a boss and if it came from him? Don't be a dick to yourself. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Slow, steady progress is way better than an explosion of work that only leaves a crater behind.

That topic was a good read anyway, hope my point of view helps anyone!  Gentleman
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« Reply #10 on: April 23, 2016, 04:32:24 AM »

Here are mine 50 cent:

There's one phenomenon about making games which i consider to be almost paranormal. When you go to your computer, sit on chair and start working the first thing you do is thinking about what's next., looking at ToDO list.. So, aha, here's the bug that needs to be fixed and one animation to be drawn. No problem.

It feels like 30 minutes has passed, you've done two little ToDos (out of gazzilion) and you know what? It's not 30 mins, it's 5 hours already. Holy macaroni! Time flies like a banana as they say. That's probably an obstacle that may drive someone nuts. Game development consumes oceans of time and this could daunting.

What would you do in this case? Unfortunately there's no magic here, you just do it faultlessly.

----

Basically, everyone who had similar issue as author of this had and managed to overcome the problem have their own methods of so. It could be various Mantras or self-discipline plan, friend that kicks your ass constantly etc. There's is no 100% solution that works for everyone - i have to agree with the posts above. You need to find your own solution.

It would be better for you to imagine/visualize an opponent, exact replica of yourself - there's a fight between you two, winner gets to live. Now, analyze your opponent, seek out the weakness and try to outsmart him. Once you start thinking about yourself from the different perspective you may develop solution that will work only for you. The man is the obstacle to himself.

If you really want to make the game, you will make it - despite all the possible obstacles you may encounter.
At least, it works for me.
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« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2016, 03:55:28 AM »

I'd chime in - that to watch out for dead time, especially if your overall # hours you can dedicate are small. To expand on "dead time": those stretches where you're trying to solve a code problem, or design idea, and you're just spinning your wheels. And you think that if you spend just 1 more hour you'll get it - but stop. Take a break. Come back tomorrow. You'll probably solve whatever problem you were on in 5 minutes instead of a wasted 5 hours the day earlier. I find this happens a lot when working on projects after a day job.
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