What motivates you to complete a game

Hehe .. Hardly for everyone.

 

Because I want to finish that damn thing to play it. You could say that I'm filled with determination.

 

I want to finish that damn thing , so OTHERS can play it. lol

 

I'm filled with mostly water and some bones. It's a hard life.

 

yes

 

Here is the algorithm to complete a game:

10. Make a list of what needs to be done.
20. Do at least one thing on the list.
30. Goto 10

Unfortunately there is no way to prove this program terminates in a finite time.

 

Because I can't sleep if I don't work on it...no sleep is motivation enough.

 

Money. Otherwise I'd be tinkering it forever and never release it.

 

Just getting rid of the massive monkey on my back anxiety of having worked on my project for 6 years, and being able to tell everyone I know, "It's been released", instead of "Its still in development" when I get asked about it.

And yeah, getting back some of the cash from the 4000+ hours invested time and $30 000+ spent on artwork, would be nice too...

 

That is scary on how long it actually took, very impressed by the videos and you going through it all! good job! I really hope it pays off for you!

May I ask how long you expected the project to go when you first started?
How much money you thought it would take at the start?
Did you do everything solo?
If you did everything solo, looking back would you of made a team instead of being solo?

 

Thanks for the compliments.

On the first iteration, I actually quit my job when I thought I was halfway through the project, and expected it to be done in 6 months. (So 12 months total). But after 6 months I ran out of money and had to get a job again. When the first version was 'ready', I wasn't happy with it at all, the game looked terrible, it was very basic, had horrible vehicle physics, and just sucked, and I promised myself I'm only going to release something I'm really happy with.

So the game went through another 7 UI/Menu iterations, and about 4 track/environment overhauls before it got to a point I was happy with. It also went through 3 game design overhauls, going from a PC Standalone game, to a F2P game with basic monetisation, to a F2P game today which has modern, deep monetisation and lots of social engagement.

Its at a point now where I'm happy with it, from an artistic, gameplay and monetisation design perspective, all it needs now is another 300 hours of dev to finish it off

I thought $5000 for artwork would be enough. But if I did the game from scratch today, it would have cost $15 000 for the current artwork. I hired artists, I am the sole programmer.

 

Three.

For me, it's other people enjoying something I put my time and effort into most of all, but the point from @zombiegorilla about gaining mastery is also a driver. My dream, simply put, is to be the best at game development.

 

That's a good goal, I must admit when I first started out I wanted to quickly master every type of game inside a month or so, and to master unity (coding and ide) within a week. As soon as I realised how crazy this was I ditched the idea and I'm now concentrating on ONLY one genre of game and just getting it looking and playing like the dog's balls. I'm learning much more this way and focusing on one thing and it's coming along nicely.

Can I say I am at a 'pond wars' level of gameplay or 'zombies vs knights.' No, it may be a month or so more, but I'm trying whenever I get some free time.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/wip-the-horror-room.375789/

 

Wish I had a good answer... I guess for me it's deadlines. The deadline has to be URGENT and REAL. If there is no pressure from outside, forcing me to finish my game, then I usually get excited about a new idea and move on to that.

 

Earlier this year I invited some friends for a playtesting party at my place. It's a two player local coop game. Watching them play, having fun, laughing their asses off, shouting insults at each other when one screwed up, etc... that's what I do it for. Making friends smile and laugh and shout.

Afterwards we had homemade burgers to help mend some broken friendships.

 

I was joking dont worry