Development sucks. How to avoid this depression?

That's the key for sure. Finding the thing that really drives you. Whatever it is that lights a fire under your arse and gets you super motivated. That's the thing to focus on.

I get a lot of motivation from the same thing you said. Looking at a game that does certain things so well, had so much potential but most went unrealized due to poor implementation or simply oversight.

I also get a lot of satisfaction from figuring things out and doing things "my way". Sure I value not reinventing the wheel and taking advantage of the work of others before me. But... a lot of my enjoyment is figuring out how to do things simply. Breaking something that seems complex down until it is very clear and simple. If I do not do that and instead just string other people's work together my satisfaction would be very low and burnout would occur. So a big part is knowing what drives you and what you need to feel satisfied.

 

That and That. I can't agree more.

Although this time is different, I usually have to take breaks when I hit a brick wall OR just overcame a brick wall. Either way, a brick wall will cause a micro-vacation for a few days- regardless if I felt overwhelmed bc I didnt know how to do it, or because I had to learn a ton of boring technical concepts to push through it.

Having no one to talk to about all the technical details, ESPECIALLY when you run into unknown, murky waters (difficulty)- is extremely draining. I truly believe working solo really brings out this weakness alot. If I was working with a senior programmer (2 programmers on a team) I think even things I knew how to do would become easier.

 

Oh, be careful about playing a lot of games until you get bored! You might never get bored. I have seen too many game developers sucked into some one else's game and never come out. However, taking a break is a great idea, even if it is game playing for a bit.

I have felt a lack of motivation lately, although it is now getting a little better. My problem is that I have so many different things to do, both in the game and in real life. Sometimes I just feel overwhelmed.

The best cure for me is to have several sub-projects within the project and if something gets boring or frustrating, I can spend some time on that and then go back to the other parts later. My kids' have a great art teacher who suggested they work on two drawings at a time and when they feel burned out, move to the other one for a bit. It feels fresh and new, at least for a while.

Success motivates me. So if my house in Maya starts looking great and works in Unity, I feel motivated to keep working. When I discover that I am having a UMA problem, and the lack of documentation means I can't solve the problem without begging someone for help, then I feel frustrated and want to go watch TV. Watching videos of the new Unity UI motivates me and gets me excited! Trying to make new animation controllers for UMA prefabs makes me go shopping for new shoes.

I see a pattern here. lol

Sorry to hear you feel burned out, MisterElmo. Working on a project alone would probably not work for me. I need the feedback of my tiny team and game fans to keep going. The Design forum folks help me a lot which is why during my burnout times, I tend to visit there more than usual.

 

One thing that I find helps for me is being able to see feedback really quickly... if something entails working on a complicated script etc for a long time and I'm not seeing visual results from it, it gets boring quickly. Thats maybe partly why I like the art/visual side of development, or dabbling with graphics effects. When it takes too long to see some results it starts to look like I'm not getting anywhere.

 

Lol, like that's never helped in other art mediums...

 

Now let's show all the works that were ruined be cause the creator was just some dumb high dude

 

I was thinking, I hated my job when I started. Every day, I thought about quitting. One day, everything was easy because I'd done it before. Now I don't mind my job. I think I need to get to that point.

 

One way to help with motivation might be to throw out a thread on the WIP forum. Post screenshots / videos basically making a developer journal. Just knowing the "whole world" is watching you may provide some extra incentive to keep pushing forward.

Don't really think about any feedback (people pointing out obvious things missing that you have not got to yet). It is more just for you. To make a public record of your work.

 

Nothing to show for now... besides people will Steal My Idea(tm)

 

I remember reading a blog by Jonathan Blow, where he said that during some holidays, where he was supposedly on holiday, hence he didn't HAVE to do anything for his game, he started trying some new ideas he wanted to try and he said it was the first time in years where he felt really productive and not burned out.

Burn out in the middle of the project always happens. You have to push through in general, but doing small breaks helps as well.

I also find that participating in Jams, in kind of invigorating. It's really tiring, but seeing how much you can do in little time, does re-invigorate your enthusiasm.

 

I had someone message me, telling me they will be making a game similar to mine. They were extremely polite and made sure to let me know also. I was respectful in response, telling them "The more the merrier!" and confident that my game will be different enough.

Even if someone steals your idea, you gotta remember:

1) You are already ahead of them- so your game will be released first. (Although not a guarantee, it's legit reasoning.)

2) Just because they have your idea, doesn't mean they know how to implement it. Good game design is worth far more than a game idea- and only a good game designer knows why/how your game works and what to add to it to finish it. So any missing pieces, will be filled in by crap by an incompetent thief. Good game designers won't steal your game- because they will have their own games already. Although they could steal the idea, then make a better version of your game if it was somehow an idea they absolutely loved. This would only be bad if you are slow at developing and they are fast (#1) and even significantly more rare of an occurence than someone just stealing your idea.

3) Even if they steal your idea or copy your game- the chance they will even finish the project is extremely low, just because that is true for all projects.

4) If they succeed, you will then have two games just like your game- with enough differences to play both. Even if two games with identical theme, genre, and even features are released- that doesn't mean fans will only buy yours OR theirs. Most likely, they will buy yours AND theirs. If someone loves one game, they will most likely ALSO buy the clone of it- as long as it's good. So it's not so much competition against them, as much as it is cooperation to make games people love.

5) A huge bonus would be that anytime they market their game, there is a huge chance people will find out your game too. So they can actually help you BOOST sales by cloning your game. "Wait, Dragons of Azeroth is awesome but people are saying they also like Dargons of Azergoth. What is that? Oh awesome, I'll get that instead/too." This is especially beneficial if your game has less marketing or their game has AAA marketing. Free exposure!

6) If they are an amazing AAA team that steal your idea and clone it exactly or do better- you get to play your dream game without doing ANY of the work. That is just awesome.

7) If they beat you to release, and their game sucks, you have the glorious opportunity to fix the flaws in your design, make it better, then release it- stealing ALL their audience with a legitimate claim that you "did it right" because they are thieves. Nothing is better than the creator saying "Ha, ignore those thieves. This is how you do it!" People love a winner. They never have to find out that you'd have been a failure if they hadn't stole your design

8) If you are any good, chances are you will destroy them because they won't be that good. (Insert popular quote: "Your first ten games will suck, so get them outta the way!")

Although I wouldn't post your game design document on a forum unless you're confident it won't be stolen or- like me- would love for it to be stolen, the chance of it being stolen is very slim. Then, even if that slim chance occurs, there are benefits that come along with it. Possibly even benefits which help you more than hurt you.

I'd love for anyone and everyone to steal any and all of my ideas and turn them into games I could play- or even bad games that at least TRY to innovate. I want the gaming industry to be filled with great games. Although I can't say how I'd feel if someone ACTUALLY did steal an idea.

If an indie that wasn't greedy wanted to steal your idea, it's MUCH more likely they'd want to join your project. In my case, I told them no, in which they responded they will have to start their own project then. That is just a choice you have to make.

Now that I remember someone else is making a similar game... I should be a bit more motivated to get back to work and stop posting here- haha.

 

Also, you can start putting ™ next to all your marks. This is actually a good way to start making your marks. It's not as good as a registered trademark ® but those are very expensive ($375 just to file the paperwork YOURSELF.)

The ™ is free.

 

I'll just use that on everything I do from now on.™

 

That's actually a........Great Idea™

Now I'm the only one with Great Ideas™

 

Thanks™
I'm Glad You Like My Idea Enough To Steal It™

 

But stealing ideas was my idea! You can't steal that!™

 

I Just Did™

Misterselmo,
Stealing Your Ideas Since 2014

 

I thought Mechanim was supposed to make animation easier? Is the workflow very complicated, buggy or what? I don't even know what Mechanim is. Is that the Animator component? I have no doubt that would cause burnout spending 4 to 5 times as long animating a character as making the game itself.

 

It's Unity's (kinda) new animation system. It's powerful, but I also find it frustrating.
http://unity3d.com/unity/animation

 

Ah thanks. When I get into 3D one day I will check it out. I see no need for Animation, Animator or Mechanim for 2D. I used the Animator on my first unity project last winter and all it did was add more work to the process. I mean it is hard to get any simpler than having an array of sprites and then defining arrays of integers to build animation tables right in code. BUT if I was using complex objects composed of multiple sprites that would make a difference I think.

 

What is frustrating about it. I can make Mecanim state machines in 1/10th of the time it takes me to animate the parts of it and code it to boot. It is not complicated and I think that might be where the pitfalls occur with some. Code for it is a bunch of boolean switches and conditionals in code with some floats thrown in to control the motion. The legacy animations system would take a scroll forever script to do some of the things I can do in Mecanim with a hundred lines of code or so...and I could preview if the transition times were correct without compiling and running and trying to trigger the blends I was checking.

 

It's like anything else.

You look at it and say "for #$&@'s sake, that's going to take me weeks to learn!"

So you avoid it where you can, dabble here and there and eventually end up learning it over a long period of time.

That's like granny shifting in a street race. Vin Diesel taught me to double-clutch. Learn the system entirely, first. Then use it.

The frustration is because you don't know what you're working with.

 

Make sure your project is short. And maybe just give up and move on to a new one.

 

No. Don't. You create a precedence where giving up is ok. Unless for some reason you believe there is something fundamentally wrong with your project, I don't see how giving up is a proper solution.

Taking a small break is fine though.

 

Just Give Up™

 

When the going gets tough the tough throw in the towel.

 

NO
I "believe" this is referred to as 'the prostitute' effect, as in, the excitement / eagerness of the services "to be" rendered greatly exceed the feelings, once said services have been rendered. <- that's why 'you' pay up front... I'm told

I've managed to get myself re-energized by working on my games web site and other non-programming stuff.

 

Game Development is Hard™ so
Just Give Up™ so you can Play Games™ and Do Drugs™

You'll need money to Go Shoe Shopping™ though, for that and everything else in life, there's...

Prostitution™

Another successful thread.

 

I'm curious to know what you mean by this. There's definitely a slog to finish things once you get past the exciting part of a project where you're breaking new ground, but that's not "burnout".

 

Well maybe its better just to put your project on hold. I know I was working on a project I didnt have the art assets to finish it but now with the asset store I could actually go back and finish it. Another project I ran into a problem where it kept crashing because I was using a 3rd party fracturing tool so I will wait until unity5 comes out and adds proper physx destruction support.

 

If that middle part goes on for too long (2 years in my case), burn out happens. You start to lose sight of the end, what you are doing feels hopeless, you're exhausted and you're wondering if there's any meaning to what you're doing.

At least that's what happened to me.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. By the way you said it "always" happens I thought you might just have been talking about the point where the most interesting part of a project is over and you're up to the part where you need the discipline to finish it.

I suspect that of you're doing too much of anything for too long then you'll get burned out from it. For me, I think it was more the lack of everything I was pushing aside to focus on the project than the project itself. It sounds like a cat poster, but balance is important.

 

Yeah, "always" was too strong and absolute a word. I tend to do that. It always happens to me when I do a large project.

But I think you hit the nail on the head. When the slump comes and you feel like giving up, my solution so far has been to double down on effort and push everything else aside. And then if at any point you feel hopeless about your project, you feel hopeless in general <- not healthy!

Taking small breaks and balance, is good.

 

I have a detailed idea completely planned out, and I can't help but get demotivated at the thought of so much work to do.

So I lose focus and start working on a fleeting idea, which I stop working on because it can't exist outside my head because there's no substance to it, just a single vignette I can see clearly. There's no real mechanics or style or anything, just a feeling.

I try to think in detail about a game that is small and limited and easily within my capabilities, and I think that the kinds of games I want to play are not the ones I want to make. I want to make games that are about an abundance of content but I hate producing content. I like to make a system and maybe produce one example for it.

I can't work with a partner because I will lose motivation and I will have to stop working with them and feel awful about it.

I can make things, and I have lots of projects with neat trinkets and shaders and ideas but nothing fits together. I just can't start work on a game and continue to work on it.

 

I'm making a web page about game development pitfalls... this is one, I'm calling it "Your Quest Tracker is Full" because you start things and never finish any, but keep taking on new ones.

 

I'm currently having an absolute ball making (and playing) a casual puzzle game, despite the fact that I've never had an interest in playing one before aside from a brief stint of Angry Birds.

Give it a shot. Put one week into it and see how you go.

Worst case is that you learn a bit in your week of trying something new.

 

I may have discovered another problem:

My entire life is work. I do not play games any more, except I have been playing PvZ with my 2 yo on my lap because my 2 yo thinks it's hilarious and it keeps her quiet for 25 minutes.



That's pretty much how I feel lately.

I made a thing where you click the screen to change colors or to change a number 1-10 so my 2 yo could mess with it and say colors/numbers. It took 20 minutes of being climbed on, it was fun to watch it be used as intended. I think if you know exactly what you're making and how it's supposed to work, that's best.

So, I'm going to play castle crashers tonight and observe how the enemies move around... then I'll have something in mind how it's supposed to look/act. I think discovering what you're trying to do while coding is a bad mix of engineering/creative thought processes that don't get along so well. One seeks to constrain, the other to break free. Sometimes it feels like my brain is locked.

I think you must be free to be creative when it's time to be creative, but be a scientist when it's time to make it happen, but never both at once

 

I am Misterselmo™

Since I am now Misterselmo™, I am unfortunately going to have to ask you to change your name as it impedes on my trademark.

Also, now that I am you, does that mean development now sucks for me and you get a fresh slate? Oh crap...WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!?!?!??!

 

No, I was so powerful that after you became me, I resorbed your energy and now you exist only as a nagging voice in my subconscious mind. It happens.

 

Try doing weekend projects completely unrelated to game programming. Also you have to realize that at some point you are going to hate your game but just have to push through it to finish it.

 

I totally agree if it's about the money you should find another career choice. I currently make $2000 a week at my day job but I hate going to work everyday. I would make games for $200 a week. My passion is developing. While I'm at work I am writing code or ideas. The minute I leave no matter how tired I am home working on my project.

Most days it's tough. I work industrial construction and often work 12 hour shifts...then work 4 or 5 developing and doing it all over again the next day. All the while dreaming of being successful enough to quit my day job and developing full time. Is the development side always fun? Not at all. Sometimes I get so burnt out I fall asleep sitting up. Some weekends I'll stay at my computer two days straight working to get as much since as possible before I have to work again monday. I do this because I would rather barely get by financially making games than making good money doing something my heart and soul isn't into...one day looking back wondering where my life went.

The point is no matter what you do there well always be a struggle. A challenge. What matters is how far are you willing to go to make your dream a reality?

Remember this. A wise man once told me you can always make more money but you can never make more time. Time is the most valuable asset you well ever have.

 

I think I'm narrowing down on why it sucks. I've played Minecraft and only gotten 3 hours of sleep, and been jazzed to do so. It sucks because I'm doing it all wrong. I'm not planning, I'm getting the gist of my idea down but "not worrying" about how it needs to be done. I'm "worrying about that later". I'm so bummed out because it's "later" now. And it's not automatically falling together. I have more than 2 weeks of programming physics and collisions and states now and I know if I had this all planned out I could have had something good in 2 days. So, lesson learned. I'm not writing a line of code until I've drawn every menu, every gui element, everything. I don't mind programming, I mind programming the same thing 38 times because I'm experimenting... talk about dumb inefficiency.

 

Yes!
/truth

Shoot, I thought I made that one up all by my little self

 

You learn by your mistakes, don't be so hard on yourself... experience is worth a lot when it comes to avoiding the ways that don't work.

 

That reminds me of a video by Ira Glass.

 

Clever name.

 

A couple of decent techniques to delay or overcome burnout:

Set both a minimum and a maximum amount of time you will allow yourself to work on the project.

Most people are innumerate, they believe they have, "All the time in the world" to complete their project, and this leads to poor pacing and procrastination.

Deadlines and constraints are the best weapons against this fallacy. Most people know about the value of deadlines re: getting things done, equally important are constraints. Time constraints work in both directions so set a budget of N hours you can work on your project and hold yourself accountable in both directions. The first time you're in the flow and go over your allotted budget, you lose.

Make yourself stop when it is time, make sure you give yourself enough time to hit your deadline. If you have to push back your deadline, realize that this was either a problem with pacing our your original estimate. Learn from your error.

Get a working prototype up as fast as you can.

Auditory and Visual feedback become a virtuous cycle. It's hard to over-state the benefit of being able to see your code "do something". To achieve a flow state(the biometric opposite of burn out) requires a challenge in the upper third of your ability gradient, and near-immediate feedback on your efforts. A functional prototype solves the general case of needing feedback.

As for making tasks, especially the grunt work type, appealing from a challenge or curiosity state, I have no silver bullet on that one. In an ideal world you'd have a tool which eliminated these types of tasks.

Because you have a presence in your head that will attempt to sabotage you, your mind will immediately suggest you code a tool to solve this issue. It is at this point that you recall that you have a deadline, that it is Serious Business and that you don't have time to code a tool to automate a task that is boring but achievable.

Realize that your taste in games far exceeds your ability to create them.

This is something that every creator struggles with. You want to make games because you have great taste. You can pick apart a well made game and name 100 flaws and offhandedly spot places where a different design decision would have made the game better.

When you start making games your great taste will remain, but your ability to execute on it will be that of a novice. You may be horrified but just how large the delta between what you envision and what you are capable of. Every sculptor learns to make compromises with the clay, that is their medium. You will have to make compromises with the code, that is our medium.

This is another place that constraints come in play. Linked in my signature are two mediocre games I made. Each one was made start to finish in one month. One in December, one in January. They are not a reflection of "my best", they are not a referendum on whether I am a good game developer or not, they do not speak to my character, they do not resign me to one camp or another. While I am proud of both of them they do not define me.

The ease at which I dispose of both of these labors of love is that I had a hard deadline and a tough constraint. I had one month to complete them and a 60 hour a week full time job to work around.

That's a lot of cover to hide your ego in. Unacknowledged by most people is the fear of being judged for your efforts. Most people will dismiss the concept but trust me when I say it is part of your wet-wiring. Using constraints is a great tool to overcome this fear. The one game a month website was what opened the door for me. For others it is game jams. Find something that works for you. How can you ship code at whatever your current level of ability without having to fight the fear of judgement and rejection?

It's a bitch of a problem.

The pros of the One Game a Month site is that it helps you with the deadline part, and you get to practice making a game from start to finish without having to headbutt your natural fear of judgement and rejection. This will make you a better developer and build your confidence.

The con I've ran in to is that it has been hard to go from a one month deadline, where cutting scope and features is easy, obvious, and outright necessary, to tackling something with a longer time window. I will probably need to mentally invent my own, 1 game every two months competition to start tackling larger projects.

What it absolutely did is allow me to code two games in two months with a win and lose condition, something I had struggled with for years and years to accomplish.

 

Right now I'm building a GDD for a MORPG/AA that I have 0% intention of actually making, because I want to get the idea I have out on paper just to have it out.

 

That can be fun.

I did that for like, 2 years or more alongside learning to game dev.

The result is a massive, ungodly excel sheet, a hard drive littered with way too much unorganized and unlabeled word documents, and stacks upon stacks of real life notepads filled with game design. It's so bad, during those 2 years- I often forgot I even invented a unique feature- only to reinvent the idea 1-2 months later as if it was new.
I regret not researching the best way to organize a GDD and all that smart stuff.

Still really fun though! I even enjoy looking back on it and skimming through it. So many fun and interesting ideas I completely forgot about. So much so, anytime I think about the game, I want to quit my current project (or anything else I'm doing or not doing) and immediately jump back in full force. I have to resist doing it, so I can finish my space game.

 

Yeah, my intentions are far greater that what I can achieve, for now. I'm really still just an amateur for all my bluster. Thank God I learned to code in the before time, in the long, long ago from a whacky computer science teacher who was a bit of a ball buster, and I guess thank me for reading books and generally being a geek weirdo with no friends. I can code just fine, I see a lot of elements of that in people's burnout reading through... that would suck more than I can imagine, if I couldn't reliably get things working. No, I just am a big ass baby and I expect unrealistically fast results.

Now if y'all will excuse me...

Well, I'm going to go try and make something inspired by this:

With elements of this:


.... because, because, because....