Are you really making a game?

Quoted for truth. This also gives another goal to word towards.

Here's a couple of other things I do to keep myself motivated. They nay not work for you, but they work for me.

1. I make sure to make a little bit of progress everyday, no matter how small. This means the project never completely loses momentum.
2. Each day I decide on a piece of code/algorithm/data structure that I'm going to work on and stay with it until I'm proud of it, it has nice comments, and is something I would show others. Don't get me wrong - I prototype/iterate/turf a lot of code. But when I'm writing something I'm happy with I resist leaving lazy //TODO's in it, and I make sure that the variable names are clear and the comments and good.
The reason for this is that sometimes the finish line seems a long way off. But I can always look back at what I've written and be proud/inspired by it, which is a bit of a pickup. If the code was was in a 'eeh I'll rewrite this properly later' condition then I would be more discouraged and likely to give up. Over time the accumulation of quality code provides its own momentum to finish the project.

 

I think with indie gamedevs, there's this loooong stage where you just make game projects, fail, and start again.

I'm currently working on a game, for realsies. But it is indeed taking me long for many reasons, all related to this being my first real game. A) I focus on learning more than quality, and quality more than productivity. B) I need to stop the project every now and then to work on 3D animation jobs, and

screenshots:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/11214337/Zerky/Test.jpg

 

Oh don't feel too bad. I got a very lengthy and thoughtful email from a CEO** today via LinkedIn who has a company that is making an MMORPG that is a cross between Planescape, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and whatever other thing takes his fancy, that includes full destructible environments and hardcore PvP permadeath with no way to switch it off. He already has investors lined up as soon as he can find a CTO to be his cofounder and was wondering if I would be interested.

** CEO is 20-something, never had a job, never developed a product, played a lot of MMORPGs "since forever" and so knows exactly what goes in to a good MMORPG, dropped out of school, dreamer.

<sarcasm>Of course, I jumped at the chance</sarcasm>

 

I actually recall posting a game project on here maybe 1-2 years ago now not sure called "Sword of Destiny" a small multiplayer rpg / arena style game.... little did i know i was working towards building a MOBA but i didn't even know what MOBA was at the time lol... but anyhow that project failed badly, but I learned alot from it, and rebuilt something new from scratch making sure not to make the same mistakes again.

The Key is to Fall, Learn, and Do it again until you get it right.

 

Exactly... and boy it sure seems like it's a neverending cycle... but it's not! It's just pretty darn long phase in the self-taught indie gamedev career, give or take a few years depending on the person.

 

i am not making a game, at present. I am still learning my way around unity and its mechanics, and procesing my various designs to decide which would be most suitable as an initial project.

I am "making" a game only when i start actually developing it

 

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

 

My first post was silly. And so were the subsequent posts after that. It's incredible how those ideas never really leave you. Seems like every few days I revisit the super cool story with super cool art and the game will just be fun because its a game right?

That being said though. I'm really freaking close to calling my project finished. It's art/sound and bug hunting now! Which really has been over half the development time.

 

I think the original post has some degree of skapegoating in it. This isn't the first thread where people on these forums isolate a certain group of `offenders` and then get all angry at them and seem all justified as to why those people are wrong. What it really means is that the op has become attached to needing something external to be a certain way in order to be happy, and is then resentful when those external things don't oblige. I would ask you to ask yourself, why do I need this group of people to make changes on my behalf, rather than change my own attitude.

 

You really want to battle a wizard in a war of nonsensical rambling? Hippocoder will be physically ripping out chunks of servers to erase all the pointlessness.

EDIT: Let people talk about their games.

 

I am working on a number of things in an effort to hopefully have built a game at the end of all the tasks

Easier to say I am building a game lol.

 

So if anybody didn't post here we're all just going to assume you're not making games

 

Your observations are interesting, and I can confirm I am observing the same thing. There are no true definition of when you are actually developing a game or when you are simply prototyping or idea sketching. However, the way I personally identifies whether a person is actually developing a game often depends how far that person leaves his or hers comfort zone when it comes to develop a game.

What I mean is, making the core functionality of a game takes relatively short time compared to polishing your game. When a programmer gets a great idea, that person sketches up a game world consisting of basic geometrics, and refers to these as "Temporary models". In a short period of time, that person have developed the games core functionality while completely ignoring the artistic site. Artists on the other hands, spends a lot of time sketching, modelling up a neat game world with beautiful game characters and nice scenery, but with poor or none functionality.

When a certain team / person begins to leave once comfort zone, I am more convinced that you are making an actual game and not just idea / sketching. By leaving your comfort zone, I don't mean programmers trying to take up a new programming paradigm, or an artist using a new expressive style, but trying to expand their games to use certain fields which they have never explored or have zero skills into, which will require a large amount of time or money.

I don't personally believe this holds true for all occasions, but it is often the justification I do.

 

I believe you're making a game once I can play it.

 

I assume everyone that didn't post here was too busy making games...

 

I can quickly hack up a game which only displays a fraction of the intended design and also be playable. Then spend a couple of hours describing its grand design in a forum post. Personally, that wouldn't do it for me, but I guess it will do for you

 

Yeah that makes sense life is a binary choice either you're making games or your posting on a forum... Clearly no person who develops games would ever post on Unity forums.

 

Oh yeah, cuz no extremely simple game that didn't take very long to develop could possibly ever be worth playing...

I'm going to stand over here and cast level 10 bubble on myself so I'm not caught in the crossfire you're going to take for saying that.

 

Single hobbyist here, shipped a couple for mobiles (worth 2-2.5 / 5) and now aiming at 3/5 for desktop in 2015. Yes we can.

 

Haven't said a game couldn't take a short time to develop

 

Hmm it appears you took my reply more seriously than I intended. It was more of a joke/slight tease.

And yes, if you are posting here, you are not working on your game at that very moment, makes sense no?

 

Right now yes, I'm working on a mobile game and hopefully I can have it released in a month or two depending on my schedule.

 

What makes you think mine wasn't intended as a joke?

I'm making a game where you post in different forums and this is how I generate the layouts for the stages and the dialogue for the characters............

 

Hmmm... touché!

 

I'm making working protoype games before putting all energy on good 3D assets.
One is a rpg adventure, another is a old school shootemup, the prototype is complete, it needs now 3D models instead of prototyping models. I begun some 2D retro platforming action ,but nothing very advanced until i finish the others.

Hummm ... from mathematics and galactic science , some ice barrier level 50 would be better against such threatening things.

 

No. Ice is weak against fire geez. I didn't spend eight frickin years in frickin wizard Academy to be lectured by some internet noob.

 

Wow. Bit of a cynical post? Why shouldn't people be making real games? Making games is not that hard. I could make a Tic Tac Toe game in about 3 days and that includes uploading it to the app store. Not saying it would be the best tic tac toe game in the world... As another example I made a snakes and ladders game in Unity in about a week and that gets rated ***** stars all the time and gets a fair bit in advertising.

I think what you mean is... is anyone really making their MMORPG in their one person company by themselves. And you know what I'm sure some people are!

 

Not sure how to respond to this..?

 

Nice way to dis people with autism

 

Shouldn't you have, then, concluded with how to describe a game? Or provided links or something for those who really want to know? I guess that would be much more helpful.

 

Just for you.

 

I can see sense in that. Thanks!

 

This is erroneous. Expectations of others are what hold functioning communities together, and with the rules set forth by many communities, people do have the right (in varying degrees) to express dissatisfaction when certain parties do not uphold these common expectations. It is furthermore erroneous, if not irrelevant, to attach "happiness" or "resentment" to the motivations of others when human behavior is more complex than simplistic projections.

 

Nice one.

 

that's deep... lol!

 

Not really ;-)... The whole armchair psychology substituting as objectivity routine gets kind of old after a while.

 

I gotta remember this one... downright sexy way of putting it.

 

So by your own logic you are not making a game after all then because we can't play it yet.

 

I'm nothing if not fair, so no I'm not currently making a game.

 

Which is some odd logic, must admit. If you're able to play a game, then it's generally near being finished and you're not really making a game anymore you're tweaking it.

It's like making dinner, you can't (or shouldn't should I say) eat raw chicken but you're still making dinner..

 

Once a game is playable, it's near completion? That would explain some of the worse games I've seen.

 

Well some peoples idea of "playable" and "game" is vastly different to others, a dude running around in foliage doesn't equate to a game for me.

 

For some people... it does.

 

But hopefully you're in the process of actually preparing and cooking the chicken instead of merely discussing how great dinner would be meanwhile you and your flat mates starve.

 

Most people are just talking about making dinner for themselves, while partaking in copious amounts of KFC, Popeyes, Church's and Chick-fil-a.

 

MMM KFC!.. Nice.

@high-octane

It takes a long time to make big expansive 3D worlds with a lot of sauce, it's just a matter of shutting up and getting on with it and one day getting the damn thing released. Nowt wrong with creating a bit of hype, but y'know at some point you have to try and live up to it.

 

@ShadowK

I've already alluded to this, action vs discussion. You can address directly the people who are not making their big expansive 3d worlds.

 

Well it's not really strictly related to "big worlds" games just suck time away like no tomorrow don't they? All you can do is keep going.

Although you need something to do whilst you wait to bake, forum discussions are the best place to discuss and cause havoc.

 

I find the threads discussing games, even if they are in their planning stages, a lot more productive than the recent slew of posts debating semantics and/or people's abilities and seriousness.

 

@ShadowK and @Misterselmo, all I have to say is... "Cookie dough".
Edible and delicious before forming into baked cookies. Puppy approved too.