NO MORE EXCUSES!

After several years of trying I've decided that this is it for me.

I've been struggling finding time to work on game design on and off for years now and I've always let projects fall apart when I get washed up in 60+ hour work weeks and a constant stream of social demands.

All I've ever wanted to do was make games and all I've wanted for the last five years is to make video games to raise money for abused children charities. But after what must be well over 5,000 hours of learning, hundreds of false starts and dead ends, and thousands of dollars spent on assets it's time I either start releasing stuff or walk away.

I love doing it but I just can't keep spinning my tires in the mud getting no where.

And as it so happens life has given me a real good cold hard moment to consider where things are going.

Today is my 35th birthday.

Literally no one but my wife has said one word about it and I'm realizing that my social life is in shambles and there are very little people who care about me.

At work I've gone as far as I ever will with my limited educational opportunities and will be stuck bellow the poverty line my whole life if I continue things as they are.

And on Friday I'm going in for a very serious surgery that (if all goes well) is going to leave me bed ridden for weeks.

I've decided that during those two weeks I am going to do nothing but try to finish Bravely Bear.

If I can not do this one thing I am going to cut my losses and walk away from game design. Something needs to give and this is a critical moment in my life that I need to make that change one way or the other.

For those of you who have helped me over the years thank you so much and I can not understate how much what you do for people on these forums means to others.


But this is not a pity party thread.


Over the next few days I am going to outline my progress to stay on course and stay motivated. Each day I plan on drafting a schedule and checking off the boxes as the game moves towards being published.

More to come.

 

All the best with the surgery, hope it goes well.

We expect a link to a build in two weeks

 

Don't give up. I hope everything will go ok for you. Just believe in your project and your self. what i seen from your projects your on right track on things. Game development takes time, but in the end its worth it. Its like building a house, once buildt any one can enter it. Happy birthday, positive thoughts from me to you.

 

Sounds pretty normal actually. I think people have this hollywood ideal of what life is, and when they realise that doesn't happen for them -when they want it- they feel a failure. That's not true. Life will have S***ty bits and good bits. It's not your fault.

 

All I can say is, get a prototype finished and get it out there. There's nothing that kills projects faster that the stone-cold tomb of your hard drive. If you want people to notice you as a developer, you need to start putting stuff out and making noise.

 

Happy Birthday.

I care about you.

 

Very true.

Best of luck for your surgery and happy birthday!

I've had a super persistent cold for a few weeks recently and spent a lot of time in bed. I didn't get sh!t done on my game. I think you shouldn't beat yourself up if it turns out you can't crunch out a game while you are recovering from friggin' surgery. I really don't wanna mess with your motivation because imho it's one of the most important things to have, but that seems like a rather unhealthy expectation to make that time your "make-or-break-moment". I'd focus on getting your health back first.

 

Happy birthday!

Good luck!

If you want to keep motivated one idea is to post a couple of minutes of YouTube footage of your progress or what your working on. The worst that will happen is none will see it and the best is you can get some subscribers and potential customers. Also, I want to see what this game looks like so far.

 

I was thinking 2 weeks isnt enough time but if you can put 60 hours into your game per week you might get it done.

 

MVP Minimum Viable Product, if you focus on the core of your game and just deliver the minimum at least you can say you have done it.

 

Nonsense check out Ludum Dare, some people are producing great little games in a weekend.

Actually less time can be a good thing as it cuts down on feature creep and limits you to the core of your game.

 

Good luck with your surgery!

Maybe this is your enlightenment to finally reaching your goals! Could you share your wisdom / experiences with us on why you believe it hasn't worked out so far so we can learn from it, or any general tips? 5,000 hours of knowledge is a lot to learn from, you are probably so close to releasing something great just need a new perspective.

 

Something tells me you'll come back to visit us no matter how this scenario goes. You can add me on facebook if you wish, I'll pm you the link. Sometimes its hard having no friends with common interests. I've watched your threads as time goes by and I can tell you know what you're doing. Hell, maybe we'll even work together someday. No one said us forum dwellers can't be buddies.

 

Best of luck with your surgery.. Hope it goes well and you come out feeling better..

As for the rest, well at least you figured it out whilst you're still young. It annoy's me when people say I'm 30 is it too late to start X? Forgetting the fact on a good run you'll live your life another two times over and you're pretty much just starting out on your journey. It doesn't stop anyone who can be bothered to try..

So yeah, have a crack at the end goal.. If it doesn't work out, then you can spend a year focusing on sorting your life out (c'mon it's a blip in the ocean really and worth it). Get out a bit and meet people, go back to Uni / specialise or even open a company, just do something else for a while. World's your oyster chief and games will always be there, you can do it as a hobby at any point and if it's becoming a negative aspect of your life then it's easy to dump / move on. Glass half full and all that..

Also just to say, I doubt this is uncommon. It's ridiculously simple to sink thousands of hours into research / how to's / things you think you need and going off on wide tangents. Also stress, it's odd what types of lethargy psychological stress can add to the simplest things.. Like you can get stressed because you're not working on your game (which you probably shouldn't be working on it, you do need a break) then lethargic when you come to work on your game because you were stressed about not working on it..Which ends up in you not actually achieving much if anything..

If that made ANY sense at all.! Anyway, best of luck and it's nice / honest / brave to share.. Keep us updated.!

 

That's pretty much me for the past... years.

 

So Unity is actually creating an environment of mental illness and broken promises, shattered dreams and failing health. Unity KILLS PEOPLE! Why don't people see the dangers?!*

*not really.

 

Happy Birthday, and all the best with the surgery and recovery.

Keep on devving, Bravely Bear and other games are inside you waiting to get out. All the best

 

Happy belated @Not_Sure! Keep pushing forward, we are all here with you on your development journey!

Shhh you're not supposed to tell people @hippocoder....

 

From the Unity webpage:

Sorry, could not resist .

 

Marketing blurb. "Can" doesn't mean "will". :-D

Good luck on your surgery and game attempt, OP. Don't be too hard on yourself. Set a goal but don't come down on yourself with a ton of bricks if you don't meet it.

 

Hope your surgery comes out good...Most all game devs go through similar problems...I myself have come to the point of wanting to quit...Just give it a little time away and get well...

 

Good luck.

 

Another Happy Birthday and hoping your surgery goes well.

My question with your game is this: are you focused on finishing it, or are you focused on working on it?

If you're not careful, a lot of work you can do actually results in more work. This form of scope creep is really easy to fall into if you're focused on "working on your game" rather than on "getting your game finished". The distinction is subtle, but important. When you're about to start work on something for your game, one of the things you should ask is "will this bring me closer to being done?"

Surprisingly, there's a heck of a lot of work you can do that in fact does not get your game closer to being finished. An example is adding a new feature because it's easy to implement and makes the game better. There's a potential hidden cost, though - how long is it going to take to integrate with all of your levels? Do you need to teach players about the feature? Does it need new art? How long are you going to spend playtesting and tweaking it? Is it an opportunity for more bugs and quality issues, and how long will they add to your project? Something that you start doing because implementation is "a couple of hours" could easily add tens of hours to your project that you didn't think about. And while "tens of hours" doesn't sound like much, it's days of full time equivalent work and weeks or even months if you only get to work on games part time.

These days I try my best to figure out the "focus" of a game. I only add something to my game if it directly supports my focus. Every so often I also look at in-progress or planned tasks, compare them to the focus, and drop (or maybe tweak) anything that's no longer closely aligned. If something is going to make my game less focused then it is not something I should be spending my limited time on. I think a Blizzard designer once described something similar using the concept of a game's "pillars" - the core structure of the experience you want your player to have.

The point is this: be ruthless about what you spend time on and what you drop. As an independent developer working alongside a job you can't afford to waste time, so having strategies to make the most of your time is critical. @Arowx is calling it a "minimum viable product", but in my mind it's just a focused product. Do a small number of things really well, and drop anything that's going to distract you from doing that. This gig's challenging enough without accidentally making it harder for ourselves!

- - -

Edit: On that note, just dropped a planned feature from a major project last night. Discussed it with my artist, we both agreed that it wasn't closely aligned with our focus, and so we're no longer going to pursue it. With just a few words we saved ourselves probably dozens of hours and I think made our game better as a result.

 

Making a decent video game solo is an effort of biblical proportions. My first finished match-3 puzzle game took me around one year full-time (C++, DX9.0c). That's around 2k hours for a tiny 2D game. It's normal that you can't finish anything. You need to be VERY careful about project scope and features or it will take decades to finish solo.

 

Happy Birthday and I am waiting for finished gamelink

 

Happy Birthday, and good luck with the surgery. Make a WIP thread and share a link with this crew! (unless the anxiety of a thread makes you want to die)

I would love to see your stuff, and root you on as you go

 

Happy Birthday! Yesterday

Good luck with the surgery. Don't be hard on yourself if you can't get too much done after the surgery. Surgery can really wear you down, both from the surgery itself and from post surgical pain. That and any pain meds you are taking can limit your ability to focus. Maybe not, it depends on both you and the surgery but don't be hard on yourself if it is hard to work on your project.

Otherwise, I feel that I am in a similar situation to you. I've been working on my project for a long time and I really need to finish it.

Good luck.

 

Thank you everyone for the well wishes.

Today was my surgery and I'm pretty loopy right now, so please forgive any typos 9r nobsense.

Heh, see?

Anyway, they used a robot so it should be a fast recovery. But they also found a bunch of other stuff and my 3 hour surgery turned into six.

Needless to say my doc expects more bed time and more time off from work, but he also underestimates my stubbornness to be active.

So I may start later, but I'll also get more time down.

Maybe.

Okay, I'm too high eight now and need to resy.

 

Get well soon and take it easy!

 

Glad all went well in the end

 

After seeing you make that new post I was wondering what you are working on now and if you've recovered from your surgery already. My condolences about the lost post, I know the feeling .

 

Yeah, so long story short it turns out having your body cavity pumped full of air, organs shuffled around, and kidney filleted and stitched back together is both REALLY PAINFUL and REALLY EXHAUSTING.

I didn't do anything but lay in bed and sit in a narcotic haze for two weeks.

Then Christmas.

Then work.

Now I'm back up and running and will be working on Bravely Bear when I can while studying for 70-483.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone.

 

Don't beat yourself up over it, that was absolutely to be expected. I'm glad to hear you are back on your feet! Take it easy, burnout is no joke either. Playing games is important too.

 

Yeah, this. I certainly wouldn't expect myself to pull out the laptop and start coding after that...

 

Not checking date I was just going to post that having gone through several surgeries that left me bed ridden, and most of them not even involving my organs (more like breaking knee caps and things), its unlikely you will get anything done in those two weeks.

But at least you are still soldiering on.

 

Since what you're wanting to do I believe is intended to help abused & underprivileged children.... any chance that maybe you get some funding from your job (or even if you had to personally run a KS)?

Was just thinking then you could work as the PM and GD directing the efforts of contractors to build the game OR at least help you to build it.

 

Why not get involved with a charity that covers this and then approach developers who already have games in a similar fashion to the Humble Indie Bundle.

I've tried making charity/social focused games and there was little to no traction (Cancer Wars (Cancer), Save The Silly Earthlings (Climate Change)).

And I can understand the drive/passion to make a difference but if the market is not there or ready for charity/social awareness games you could be wasting your time. Unless you know of some successful charity games?

Think of the impact you could have if you got together with or started a charity/group and lobbied the developers of a AAA game to produce a Humble Bundle style charity version.

Or you could run a game Jam event with a theme focused around raising money for your charity.

Or just make an amazing game then as a side feature give some of the proceeds to charity?

 

Of all the Arowx posts, this is my favorite idea I've seen.

First, @Not_Sure, glad to see you're out of surgery and recovering (though I missed the fact that you were even going into surgery!) and happy belated birthday!

Finish your game. Just finish it. Cut features, round things off as "good enough", and get it out the door. The sense of achievement you'll get from that will far outweigh the nagging need you have to make it the-best-game-you-can-make. And it'll motivate you to do more!

Back to Arowx's idea, once you have the game finished, you should bundle up a bunch of assets you use, especially your Bravely character. If possible, various versions of him, like a high-res rigged model, a low-poly version, 2D sprites, the works. Then organize and host a game jam where devs make a quick small game featuring Bravely Bear using the assets you've provided (or their own version of him, if they prefer). Winners are selected based on message and whatnot, with the idea being to raise awareness, encourage healing, etc.

Maybe there's some kind of condition where all submissions grant licensing rights to distribute their builds as part of a charity package, whether that means selling them in a Humble Bundle style sale, or loading them up on USB drives which are given to victims of abuse.

To me, this sounds like not only a great way to throw fuel on that motivation to finish fire, but a solid way to build the brand I know you've been focused on creating as well.

Keep at it, man.

 

Thank you guys!

This is a FANTASTIC idea.

I was actually planning on making a library of BB assets then make them available to anyone who wants to make a game of their own in which a portion goes to a (legit) charity of their choosing.

A game jam is an excellent idea too!

But first and foremost I really want to get this one finished.

I think the #1 thing that has held me up is FSM's.

I started to do it all in code, but then it was just WAY to messy for me to handle at my current skill level. So I got Playmaker (fantastic asset, btw) and used it for my game state. Then I was struggling with my player state which was still in script. So I made a back up and scrapped it for another Playmaker FSM.

Finally I had a "Duh!" moment and realized that there's absolutely no reason to have two separate state machines at all and just combined the two.

Needless to say everything is a lot cleaner and more readable.

All I CURRENTLY have left is the HUD and the static variables and I can have my Alpha up very soon.

 

This is awesome news. Sound like by 1st of next month you may be able to get it out and get some feedback! Good luck I hope it all goes smoothly.

 

I'm hoping to post it within 8 days.

EDIT: Oh, and I'm not wanting to ask my work for anything other than being mentioned on the site and on social media. I want to make sure to put money into the charity no matter what.

 

This.

I'm 47 and currently shopping for a new skateboard. Haven't been on one since 1987 but I'm going for it, because hell yeah. It's never too late to start anything you want to do.

Also... Happy Birthday, @Not_Sure

 

Well, it took me a lot longer than I wanted, but it's something!

WIP Thread
Alpha Build

Sleepy time now.

 

Glad you were able to recover somewhat and finish the alpha build. Don't ever give up, I had been working in the gaming field for 7 years before I found a tiny bit of success

 

Some things to note, I wanna address some of your original post, you are worried about your social life but who cares about a social life realistically speaking? I am 31 and I could care less about some useless social life the few friends I tried to make did nothing but drink Rum with their "social life" I decided against that lunacy and instead spent my time learning HON and Street Fighter along with Mortal Kombat series so I could be competitive online and I have had much more entertainment and joy from this hobby. It probably wasn't the best idea for furthering my life and doing something more productive like I dunno becoming an Engineer and moving to USA? yeah I am sure that would be a massive achievement but it isn't for me life where I live near the sea is great, life is short, and I love spending it enjoying it without a care in the world. I bought a telescope and I enjoy star gazing at nights where I live the nights are always clear anytime of the year. All of this to me is superior than a social life.

What is weird some people seem to either hate or envy me for doing this, you would think how on earth can someone envy someone who isn't doing diddly squat with their life? well apparently a lot of people realize the burden of children and they think everyone else should suffer like they do and also have kids. When you don't they think your life is too easy. Well the only reason I do nothing to further my life is because I now own a coconut plantation that will make me a rich man in 5 years time.

As for the poverty thing well sure I will agree that sucks I currently live on a small amount of money aswell but wouldn't call it poverty.

As for making money from your game for charity I do not engage in charity I am more the let nature do its thing type of person I consider myself a realist and I believe the solution to our problems is a very low population the whole reason poverty and suffering exists is people have kids they cannot properly take care off. I do not believe in things like liberalism but more power to you if it makes you happy I think that is what is most important in that it makes you happy doing it as opposed to what you are doing will change the world because it will not and it is something to keep in mind because for every one child you save with charity another 1000 is born in a slum in India or China.

And at some point an asteroid will hit earth and wipe out everyone.

 

Glass is half empty, huh.

 

Perhaps, but that is how I see the world from a scientific perspective, you probably see it much differently I see it as life is not precious because it is short and in the vast universe we exist for a very tiny fraction of that time and by nothing but luck and chance we are here and we will not be here for very long either

You could save the whole world with a gazillion dollars and an asteroid could wipe out the planet in the morning. No matter what you do it doesn't change the laws of nature. In the coming decades the planet will not be able to support the over population and when that happens you know the rest.

 

Great armchair theorizing. Or at least it would be if it were accurate. The real world is more complex than that. Poverty can and does exist for many reasons and they're not all tied to overpopulation. Some countries have little to no resources with any real value to them, some countries provide very little education to their citizens, some countries have governments that negative affect their citizens, some countries have epidemic diseases, and the list can easily go on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_poverty