Why am I so fed up with this project??

Hi guys, I've just found myself very unmotivated and at times sick of my project. I wouldn't say fed up like in the title, its just... idk the lack of proper art is making me really dislike looking at it. I dislike Unity's UI designing too. Its too easy to click once dislodge something, or select the wrong item.

I'm quite impulsive too, so that doesn't help.

I don't really have a game even implemented. There's no meta. Its just fly around and shoot bullets, though I've been working at adding some bots to fight!

What would you guys suggest I do? I rarely have spare time any more but when I do work on it at that kind of time, I can't bring myself to make much progress on it.

 

It happens. You can burn out on anything.

Anyway, there are a few different things I will throw out. Maybe one will click for you.

• There is no reason you have to work on this game. If it is something that you really want to make then sure stick with it. The way I see it this stuff should be fun. It's not like it is your job and you're being paid to build this game. So... if you no longer have any passion for the project set it aside and find something else you do want to build. Just this simple change be all you need. You can always revisit this project in the future.
  
  
• If you absolutely cannot stand to look at your game in its current state then just go the asset store and find some new art assets (if possible). Or just stop working on the functionality of your game and instead focus your time on creating art. Maybe this will be just the change you need.
  
  
• Are you sure there isn't some other explanation for your burnout? For example, are you wrestling with technical hurdles like not able to get something to work functionally and maybe that has you frustrated? If so, then just focus your time on that problem and certainly ask here on the forum.
  
  
• Are you sure Unity is the right tool for you? Have you tried any other game development tools? I know everyone here (or at least the vast majority) are obviously very much into Unity3D but that doesn't mean it is the right tool for everyone. It certainly cannot hurt to take some time to check out other options and see if one of them clicks for you. Of course, if you love Unity3D, it makes complete sense to you and you enjoy working with it then definitely stick with it.

Hopefully some of that may help at least a little.

 

Answers to those questions: this project has never been a lifelong dream of mine. It began as a prototype, and with someone's suggestion I decided to turn it in to a game. It was my decision, but what they said I really liked the idea of.

I feel like I have to keep people interested too. I have a tiny presence on social media, and I was hoping to find someone else interested in working on it.

I also don't want to throw away that much work. I hate the idea of starting over...

Q#2: I do want some art in it, but I would rather it be custom. I can draw reasonably well, I've done it since I was small, but I don't have the skills to make digital art in to something believable.

When I do work on the art side of it, I get stuck in a period of Unwrapping and texturing, one thing is off so I have to start over, I do that and then discover something else which doesn't work. Easy to burn out that way. I don't have much of an idea of what to paint my models either, or how to make the textures. I've been watching tutorials on this type of thing.

Maybe I oughta try that again.

Q#3: Technical hurdles are not a problem for me. I'll solve them eventually and I usually do.

Q#4: Hell yes. Its so cool, and I couldn't imagine doing it any other way!

 

I get fed up when I'm doing stuff I don't like like art/visual rather than coding systems. i probably get more mentally burnt out than anything else. When I get like that I pop off and play some video games for a week or so, which usually frees my mind and lets me get back to it with renewed vigor.

 

Games that you want to make, you make time for. Games that you don't want to make, one can find any reason to do no work on. I think your current game is in the latter category - you've fallen out of love with the concept.

Try taking a break from it, first, on purpose.

 

Dump it, it's making you miserable for a hobby.

 

God I hate that feeling. If you're sick of working on it let it die.

This might seem harsh, but honestly, its the best thing you can do.

I recommend starting something fresh. Get excited about a new idea and work on it until you get bored of it. Then do something new again. This is the blessing and curse of being a solo developer. You can not let those long projects drag you down forever. Get excited about something new, learn what you can, and if it's the right fit, you'll finish it because you actually enjoy working on it. Don't let game dev become a chore.

Good luck. I believe in you!

 

This. Work on projects while they are interesting and engaging. Then move on. If you need closure release the project on a throwaway portal like Kongregate.

Chances are if a game doesn't engage its creators it won't engage an audience.

It's my understanding that most successful studios cut dozens of games for each one they make. Knowing when to quit is important.

 

Think of a good (and I mean really good) story that you can wrap your work around - It might give you some motivation to know where you're going - It seems to me, your only problem is that you're out of ideas, so think!

 

If your game doesn't have some story background and some appealing features like upgrades or new ships, locations and bosses and some backgound , or specific gameplay it won't motivate anyone to play it. It's like you coded a simple shooter demo not a game.

If the game is no more interesting you and you don't have some fun making it , just let it down, take a break and have good time. Then come back to game developement when you'll have a great game idea and something you would like to create and play.

 

Agreed with everyone here. As @Gigiwoo would say, don't fall victim to the Sunk Cost Fallacy. Just because you've already invested a lot of time into getting to the point you are doesn't mean you should continue putting time into it. If you're not feeling it, let it go.

That said, putting a project on ice in no way means deleting it forever. Tuck it away and if you're ever in the mood again, come back to it. If you're anything like me, you'll feel compelled to rewrite 90% of the code because of how "terrible" it is, but you've still got it to come back to in any case.

Life's too short to work on things you're not passionate about. Especially when you're not getting paid to do it!

 

Don't be afraid to give up, some people just aren't cut out for game development. There's no shame in admitting this, if you don't get any enjoyment from you should really consider something else perhaps?

 

Additionally you may find some of the assets you've assembled for the project may be of use in other projects.

What does this have to do with losing interest in a project? You make it sound like losing interest in a project somehow indicates that someone may not be cut out for game development. Yet it's fairly normal to lose interest in a project and I guarantee you that everyone else in this thread has done it at one point or another.

 

The only right time to "give up" is when you're dead.

"Give up" means you still want it, but decide to surrender. "I'm not cut out for it" is an excuse for lazy people.

However, it is reasonable to stop pursuing something you no longer want.

What is required is re-evalution of the situation.

Is the project very important for you? Do you want to complete it? If yes, continue, if no, scrap or put on hold (indefinitely)

If it is important, and you're burned out, take a break (small one), make detailed plan for it, then clench your teeth and work through the plan.

However, to me it sounds like you're working on something you don't personally enjoy. In that case it will be very hard to keep yourself motivated. You'll need to find some really enjoyable aspect in your work to finish the project.

Also, it looks like it will be a good idea to collaborate with someone who's more experienced at modeling/texturing aspect of the job. Either that or you'll need to go for some sort of stylyzed look.

 

Yeah, I don't find this a productive comment at all. @Braineeee didn't indicate he wasn't getting any joy from development in general, he was saying he's losing interest in his current project. If everyone gave up when they got bored of what they were working on, we wouldn't have 90% of the games we currently have today.

 

I lose interest in projects "all the time". Sometimes simply working on the same project for more than a certain amount of time is enough for it to go into the Revisit Someday folder.

There are a number of different reasons for this. Ranging from most of the time I am simply dabbling just having fun to other times the goal is just figuring out a clean way of doing stuff and I need some project to use as a testbed.

Then there are times when I actually am working on a game for the reason to actually make a game and release it. Those projects are probably 1 out of 6 though.

 

Can you bring yourself to start over? The reason we all end up 'fed up' is that game development is hard. My advice is to go MUCH smaller. Pick a project you can finish in 2 weeks. Start, build, finish. Then, take a break before moving on. The break allows you to relax, to stop feeling that constant, low-level anxiety that you should be doing something else. Then, get back in there with another small-project.

TL;DR - FINISH SMALL PROJECTS to become a game developer.

Gigi

 

That's a bit like talking to someone on the edge of a high building:

"Hey, you know what? May you should just jump - there's no shame in being a failure, so do yourself a favour, maybe it's a good idea to just take that one final step...

 

Maybe you answered your own question.

I know that feel (to look at your own work, not like what you see).

You could dump your entire project. Or roll back to the last time you felt good about what you were doing, if applicable.

 

Yes sorry Ryiah was right. I assumed wrongly that the OP felt this way about every single project.

 

With digital medium you can ALWAYS fix it, improve it and make it better.

The issue is that getting there is quite tedious. Especially for the first time.

 

I understand. Inferno has been stalled for ages now. High chance Ill never finish it. I spent years on that fu****er too.

Considering chopping it up and selling it on asset store.

 

Wheres your game maybe if we can see we can offer some ideas.

But i guess in general buy some assets from the asset store, I personally hate using primatives so I use stock art.

Im guessing you got a space or jet game I think if you made 4 player split screen ala starfox 64 battle mode it could be cool.

 

I made a somewhat similar thread that contains a lot of great replies:
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/finishing-projects-why-is-it-so-hard-to-let-go.372556/

I think that is just delaying the core problem and after a while you will be sick and bored of those assets as well. But I can relate, I've told myself that I NEED to get some gameplay with cubes done, but I just keep getting distracted by more visual tasks over and over and over.

 

Well in theory you would replace those stock models with custom made ones (made by an artist) later on if it seemed worth it or if you have more money to throw around then I do.

 

Wow thanks guys you are really helpful. Its not that I'm not excited about the idea. I'm always inventing cool new ideas for it, none of which I've actually gotten in to implementing.

I did say all I've got is a flight prototype or something like that. There's nothing to really do, you can't exactly call it a game. I have a rudimentary damage system implemented where when something gets hit with enough bullets or bombs it gets set inactive. I do think its the lack of art that's bothering me...

I don't have a story (but I do have some long awaited morals I'd like to make a game story around), or sound FX (I'm not above using stock assets that come to think of it), anything to "play against" but I do have a book I'm reading off and on about AI. Its becoming difficult to test AI too. Maybe I ought to make a solid side AI test project and just copy it over in to my project, because atm my best testing methods have been to create a second camera, place it high above in the scene looking down, place a primitive for a way point and watch the "AI" travel to it.


That's while my player still responds to input in the scene. The controller scripts are inseparable, and its too much of a hassle to do that for me.

I just want to get from "Shooter/flight prototype/demo" to "Something I can add cool new stuff to". I think that's the problem here. I've got to find viable solutions to these problems, ie. testing AI, getting decent Art in it. Part of me wants to make the art myself, the another part thinks having someone else do it would produce something I dislike, and still another part dislikes creating art because like others have said, that starting point is really tedious.

You know what? I'm gonna put up some ads at my school, and on the school's Facebook page to see if any art students want to collaborate. I'll create a separate project for AI debugging too.

I try to be what I call "Solution oriented" but its not always on my mind.

@Aiursrage2k yeah if you want to see it check out my signature. There's a link to both my Youtube and my Twitter.

 

Years! Sweet jebus, I can barely spend a week on something.

 

Poorly phrased perhaps. But sound advice. If you are burnt out, doing something else completely is a good idea. Close the editor. Learn to sew, write a book, cook a new dish, volunteer at the local community centre, chase girls (or boys), go for long walks in the forest or the beach.

Make sure your break is long enough that you are not drawn back in by guilt. After a few weeks or months, you may find yourself drawn back because you love game dev. That's great. Or you may find a new calling. That's great too.

 

Great advice. I've never understood why around here whenever someone suggests a person consider just getting out game dev it is seen by some people as committing a horrible act. I mean it's game dev. It's a hobby. Some people play frisbee or go hiking and get as much satisfaction as we do working on games. Heck I even do those things and find them satisfying. It doesn't make a person any less to not be into game dev. So thanks for posting that.

 

How many times have you seen it suggested? At best I can only think of two situations and this was one of them.

 

Unknown. I suppose I could search but am pretty sure it has been more than a couple of times. Mainly I am getting at the general tone that is often taken when anyone even hints toward "game dev might not be for you" in whatever words that may be. It's almost like other people get defensive about and take it personally. When it may really be good solid advice. In the end people should be happy. Whether that is playing around with game dev or taking up cycling.

 

I hear that advice a lot, and I'm sure for many that's a fine approach, especially if you're still in an early learning stage.

I think that can actually backfire once you've learned enough to do a proper game with a tiny bit of depth. I did a simple (but fairly polished) game in 10 days once just to experience what that's like, and published it. It was fun, but for me, doing super basic games like that would not inspire much passion.

My current hobby project is probably going to take something like four years total (I'm two years into it, with good progress). But it's what I actually want to make and what engages me. In other words, the tiny games approach isn't for everyone past a certain point.

Regarding the OP's question, I agree with what most have already said. If you don't feel passion for a project even after taking a break from it, something's wrong. Move on to something else. If you "let it go", you may find that the project pulls you back in later. If it doesn't, either way it's a win.

 

thats my current problem... haha

 

Why is a naturally philosophical question.

You're doing something and not getting the results you want. You're pushing and the obstacle isn't budging. You take two steps forward and one step back. You work on this project, but it doesn't get more complete.

Before you just slap some random's solution on your life, want to take a moment to examine what's happening?

The things you are doing are ineffective at achieving the result you desire. See? It's not that hard to understand.

So, you must figure out what things actually will be effective. For this, I recommend making a list of your goals and then writing down something tangible you can do right now to achieve each one of them, don't bother with anything you can't immediately act upon.

When your actions start producing results, your frustration will be replaced with satisfaction.

And don't forget to have fun!

 

What does "getting there" mean?

No one ever gets to a point they think "this is it, I finally got as good as I want to be, it's over". The feeling that you're not there yet is a constant. And hopefully so, it's a good thing.

When feeling bad, you have to know that tedious feeling, the disconformity throughout the process, is then followed by a sense of reward when you manage to do something better than before. It's a cycle.

It is important to aim for goals you can accomplish, just as much not to settle for something you don't feel good about.

 

"It is roughly what I wanted it to be"

No, you didn't get it.

It is not about you. It is about the "thing" you're working on. Just ONE thing.
You WILL get to the point where you can look at that "thing" you've been working on and say - "I think it is good enough".
And then you can start working on the next thing.

 

Provided that you actually have an idea of what you're trying to do.

I have noticed a lot of people don't know what their goals are to begin with.

 

This is why it is better sometimes to define small step goals for your game instead of having only the final game as unique goal.

 

I think it's that and more. Defining tangible steps is critical. Start big picture, then subdivide your creation into fundamental components, then think about how to make those components work, then establish an order of stages of construction whereby you begin with the foundational systems that don't have any reliance on other systems and build the more reliant systems upward until you have a functional component, then make the components interact and bammo, you did it.

 

Whether it's one thing or several things, it's a matter of how high you set your bar.

Even if you've been making games for over a decade, if you set your bar way too high, you'll still feel discouraged. There's not an upper limit of how high you can set your expectations.

If it's difficult at first, it's the same problem. Expectations vs results.

But it will never cease to be about refining your work using the best of your skills, and/or put less pressure over yourself, until you find a good compromise. Only way to avoid this, would be to do same thing over and over, until you can do it without effort, by repetition, then it would get easy... and boring.

Sometimes it's easier to cut some of the work lose, and start from a point you feel more confident. More than once I've binned weeks of work built around sloppy foundations, and I'm glad I did.

 

Alright. You're thereby tasked to make completely white square texture. RGB 255, 255, 255. Make sure it is perfect. Then raise the bar higher.

There is no bar you can set "higher", when you already know exactly what you wanted to achieve.
If you don't know what you want, then it will be either impossible or extremely hard to "achieve" it.

When you sit down and start WORKING on whatever it is you need, then whatever it is you're trying to do will be quickly reduced to stream of tasks and problems that need to be dealt with. A lot of those are bland tasks, with only ONE way to deal with them. You'll just need to work through the pile, and that's it. No magic.

The whole talk about raising bars sounds like pure wordplay with no substance to me, honestly. There are no "bars", just things that needs to be done.

 

Hahaha. Well, a geometric shape is already mathematically perfect. But raising the bar there, would mean aiming for something more complex, other than basic shapes. e.g. If my character is a square box... I could be satisfied, or I might add some eyes. Then a lot of new factors come into play.

Actually that's a good point. There's a difference between working for yourself, no deadlines, no wrong answers; and working for someone else, where there's literally a point your client gives you an 'ok', and the work is "completed.

Other than that, "Art is never finished, only abandoned." So literally you can keep raising the bar, find new ways to improve, it never ends.

 

Da Vinci? He is relatively famous in engineering circles as the ultimate ideas guy. He made contributions to almost every field. But the vast majority of his work was never published or built.

 

Ha.

Kind of wakes you up.

 

Yup. They reckon if he had published his medical work we would be about 100 years ahead of where we are now in medicine. If he had been paired with a manufacturing wizard then manufacturing would be 100 years ahead. Same with flight or mathematics or war.

Don't get me wrong, the guy was a genius. Some of his ideas were amazing. Many of his inventions we still use today. But he did a lot more thinking, designing and drawing then he did building.

 

That sounds like a belief to me, not an argument based on experience or logic. And as a belief it doesn't make much sense.

Any artists working on a piece eventually stops working on it and completes it. And then releases it. And then starts working on the next piece.

You cannot raise the bar forever, you will hit the ceiling at one point. Any work usually represents some sort of idea, and once the idea is represented well enough, there's nothing else to do.

Imagine that you're drawing a bowl of apples. You can keep improving the drawing for some time, but with enough effort you'll hit a point where your painting looks like a photograph or a real thing. And then there will be nothing you can improve in it.

 

Neginfinity, if you decide to set your limit to a very specific bowl of apples, it doesn't mean you can't improve it. It's circular reasoning. "There is a limit, because previously I set a limit"

Think of photography. Every picture is already like the real thing. Is every picture perfect? You can always improve (change framing, lighting, DOF, apple layout, add different fruits).

Think outside the white (255,255,255) box.


You told me "The issue is that getting there is quite tedious. Especially for the first time.", all I wanted to add is that it's always tedious, as long as you keep trying to improve outside your comfort zone.

 

You can't keep changing framing, lighting, DOF and apple layout forever. You can prove me wrong by doing it for 50 years or so while continuously improving results.

You usually want to express some idea. Once you've sufficiently expressed it, that's it.

 

Long before reaching this theoretical perfection you speak of, I would reach the limit of my skills.

But it's irrelevant to the discussion whether eventually it becomes easy to improve.

You hear it all the time, professional athletes, artists, doctors, etc. people at the top of their game... always pushing themselves to the limit, they didn't reach a point it's suddenly easy.

And the point of all this... don't let frustration frustrate you. Instead learn to cope with it, because it's a necessary evil to reach that new milestone.

 

Sigh.

Last attempt.

It is not about you. Or your skills. Or perfection.

You cannot create something you can't imagine. "Perfect painting of bowl of apples" falls into that category. When you start working on something, you have an idea. What this thing should look like. What kind of feelings it should create. What it should tell. And once you've reached that desired effect... it will be hard to "improve" it further, because there's nothing to do.

"Pushing yourself" is a different story, because in that case your skills does not allow you to reach desired effect. If you keep working, your skills will improve, and you will eventually reach the point where you can do what you wanted. However, that point is not THAT hard to reach. That point is not perfection, it is situation where your vision matches your abilities. And that's it.