Development sucks. How to avoid this depression?

I think I'm finally starting to realize why people like to start new projects rather than finishing the current one. Just can't help the feeling like everything I'm doing is such slow progress. I don't have the same level of excitement it did when I first started. I know I have to finish its just what do you do about this feeling?

Or am I the only one that feels isolated and bored

 

I'm not necessarily 'bored' (other than when I spend way too long trying to fix a bug and nothing I try seems to work properly), though I certainly feel like I'm not making the progress I should be making. It's going really slowly. I attributed it to being a beginner and needing more experience, and figured I'd get better as time goes on and as I learn new things. But maybe it's just a perspective thing, or I have to structure my code in a way that makes it easier to debug so I spend less time debugging (which currently takes up way too much of my time). That's probably the case.

I'm still quite excited about it, though, because I know that if I can make my vision for my game happen as I planned it out, it's going to be awesome.

 

The start of a project is always the most exciting bit, because small amounts of work get easily noticeable results.

I find that having a well planned project helps immensely. Even if I put in hours of work that makes zero noticeable change in the game, I can see the progress by ticking off stuff in my project plan and seeing the subsequent tasks that it enables, and it registers in my brain that yes, that effort did actually get my game one step closer to "finished".

 

Try playing a game in a similar to the one you're making.

Or try caffeine, alcohol, and/or nicotine while you work (if you can, that is).

 

So basically avoid making your game by playing other games and do drugs lol

 

I've gotten burned out I think, and I'm not entirely sure why.

When I get to work, it's still just as fun and all that. I didn't hit a brick wall of difficulty like I usually do when I take a brief break (which is usually just a day or two). Instead, I find it difficult to START working. Once I start, it becomes easy to continue (for just that one day/session). Getting that desire to start though is just...idk. I keep on thinking "I should start game dev. But then again...that is a lot of work and I'd rather NOT work." Even though I still think "But it's fun to do it." and if I do start- it is fun. So wtf me?!

I was having conversations online, and posted here about my first game- which I really miss working on. I thought "Maybe if I can't find motivation right now for my current game, I should at least dabble in my old one and make SOME kind of progress." However, that didn't do anything either. I was just like "meh."

I haven't really played games for the last 5 years- except a few weeks/months total in those 5 years. (Instead, I've been working and learning to make games, then making them. Instead of playing them.) I've had game dev "vacations" before, but they usually last for 2 weeks- maybe a month max. Right now it's been over a month since I've had any crunch time.

I find myself currently just wanted to play games. Yet I don't do that, because I feel like I should be working for my games. So I just end up sitting here all day talking about making games, checking my email 4000 times in a row, and just existing. Yet "just existing" doing nothing is kindof relaxing? Idk.

So you're definitely not the only one who feels isolated and bored. Although I've had burnout before, which usually only lasts as long as my gaming vacation, and what im experiencing now is a bit different. I still feel excited to work on the game- I even open up Unity pumped up. Then I just sit there, blank, all that excitement subsides again, minimize it, go online, then close unity out. Rinse & Repeat process until I realize I should just do something else.

Then again, idk. I've lost a bit of enthusiasm for a lot of stuff- Game Dev, Cooking, Work (my 'real' job). Even sometimes Playing Games which is what I want to do all the time now. So I feel excited still, want to do game dev- but have no enthusiasm and just can't do any serious amounts of work. Talk about confusing!

 

Minus the drugs, and instead do exercise.

I've heard a lot of people say that keeping yourself physically healthy actually promotes work efficiency.
I've also heard a good tip that dressing up in work clothes, instead of bumming around in your pajamas, is a great way to increase efficiency. That is, if you work on game dev at home.

Plus exercise is a good (natural) high which helps improve your mood, gives you more energy, and makes you more tired at the end of the day (so better sleeping too!) Although I'm not sure about healthy living increasing work efficiency for game dev, it is certainly proven to make you feel a lot better all around. I'm sure it increases work efficiency, but I'm skeptical as to the level of people's claims. Some individuals report it helps them add hours of motivation each day. Others it doesn't help cure their lack of motivation.

 

My problem is similar to what you guys are describing except I don't have any problems with bugs cuz I'm a genius...

I like what you said about remembering its going to be awesome when done I have to remember that it is eventually going to be done.

I like the idea of creating some sort of visual checklist so you can actually see your progress I think that I think that's going to be super important going forward.

But in all seriousness I really don't have any problems with bugs.... /evil grin

 

I don't have any problems with bugs either. I mean, even if they occur, it's usually super obvious as to why. Unless I'm working with someone else's code. I learned quickly to program everything myself whenever it was feasible to.

I can only think that towards the end of the project is when they will pop up. I know they'd be more difficult the more complex things get- but I'm still waiting for all those bugs you hear so much about. (Maybe they occur for me, but they don't bother me at all to the point where I don't even acknowledge they exist- but they still exist?) Idk.

The checklist thing really, really, really helps. I can attest to that. When you feel overwhelmed, a checklist kicks that feeling's ass. Anytime I feel overwhelmed or lose direction, I just make a list- and it feels amazing crossing those things off. A few lines through the first few tasks, and you get a ton of motivation, blink your eyes, and suddenly the entire list is crossed off. Then you feel like you made a major breakthrough. It's a great motivator.

I think I'll try that too. I will make a small list, and each day tell myself "Just finish ONE task. At least 20 minutes if nothing more. At least one task if nothing more."

 

The plan isn't just about seeing progress. It's about deciding what your progress should be.

Start from the end. What is your detailed vision for the game when it is done? What features does it have? How many levels, what art, etc? Where is it released and what requirements are implied by that? How are you going to market it? That's your end point, that all your tasks need to ultimately achieve.

Then work backwards. Pick one of those points and as "what do I require to achieve this?" If a point is "10 levels", what do you need to make 10 and play 10 levels? What assets do you need for each level? What features are relevant to each level? And for each of those, expand them out into their constituent tasks. Repeat until you get to tasks that don't have prerequisites, or where the task is small enough that it needs no more planning.

Then, start chipping away at those smaller tasks, working your way towards the bigger ones. Eventually the big ones will be small, because they're just integrating the smaller ones you've previously done.

Personally, if I haven't planned ahead at least a bit, I get both slowed down by constantly having to think about what to do next (no joke, this often takes longer than doing the thing) and demoralized by not feeling like I'm making good progress (partly because its hard to measure the progress, and partly because it is in fact going slower because of all that wasted decision time).

 

I don't know how you guys don't have any problems with bugs. I end up with bugs like: collider doesn't generate on a certain chunk and I fall through the world suddenly for whatever reason, and my code is complex. Tens of thousands of lines, and it's hard to pinpoint where exactly the problem is happening.

I guess it's all in writing the code in ways that really supports debugging. Working on it, still lots to learn.

I do like the planning part of it. I wrote a big checklist of features to add for my game. It helps, although I still have issues with just which order to do things in. What should I do 'next' now that I've done this part? Usually procrastinate with the more boring things.

Yes, this.

Another thing that demotivates me, I should add, is Unity limitations. I look at the ugly mipmap coloration in the distance in my game and I'm thinking... all Unity has to do is expose one line of code for me to use to fix this. And I'm stuck with ridiculous workarounds that kill performance. I don't want to do that, so I keep hoping Unity will do something about this before I come to the point where I'm ready to prepare for shipping.

But I have to keep looking at that and realizing I can't fix it without absurd workarounds, and that is honestly somewhat demotivating to me.

 

If you can't fix it, ignore it. One thing I've learned is that the things you notice are rarely the same as the things your players notice, so it's probably not even that big a deal even though you personally can't un-see it.

Oh, and "ignore it" should be a conscious decision. That way it's easier to commit to. If you're tracking tasks with software then make a task about making that decision, mark the task as being done and write your decision and its justification in the comment field. If you're using a to-do list then document it somewhere, or put it on the list and then cross it off. Whatever works for you to explicitly and consciously acknowledge that "this is a thing, but I've looked into it and made the decision to do nothing". Then, move on. There's plenty of stuff you do have control over to spend your time and energy and though power on.

 

hardkour should have taken me 2 weeks. It ended up taking me about 3 months. I blame mechanim, or my diminishing enthusiasm to work on a game after running into something difficult I dont enjoy (re: mechanim). I got all by basic gameplay working in about 2-3 days, then spent (dragged my feet) 2.5 months getting the little man to animate. Its pretty normal to lose interest in stuff. Best plan if its a constant problem is release smaller easier to finish stuff.

Ignoring it is good advice as well. Part of the problem with my animation, was I was getting hung-up on how good/fluid it looked. In relality, most of the time you aint even looking at the little man jumping around, youre looking at the arrow blocks as they approach.

 

Your problems are way different than my problems, then. I designed my game currently entirely based on what Unity does well, so there's that going for me.

 

I don't use any physics besides some basic collision (animate a sprite door to open, if a character walks near it.) That's about as complex as it gets. Ultra simple stuff using big box collidors.

I've heard tons of people have a lot of problems with the physics. Especially the 2D physics. Although physics often has a lot of bugs in any engine, it seems extra bad in Unity. I even read gamasutra authors complaining about the physics bugs, not just us commoners.

So I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that is why I don't have bugs. Anytime I hear about Unity bugs, it has to do with the physics system, often messing up with the timestep (like that common issue in all engines where the frame moves the character just enough to bypass the collision and fly off into eternity because of a mistake calculating the character's translation).

I'm super tired right now so I can't remember what that is called. Anyway, that and many other physics bugs I've heard a lot about.

 

Huge amounts of complex code implies either a massive project, or a technical design that's not very effective. What kind of education have you had in software development and programming? If you're doing non-trivial software development and don't have at least some familiarity with software design and software architecture (neither of which are "programming") then you're doing yourself a disservice.

Your next sentence is spot on - it's about learning to make software in ways that make bugs a) as obvious as possible (so you can identify them easily and they don't go unnoticed when they happen) and b) manageable (so that when you find them you can track them down, investigate and solve them as quickly as possible).

 

I decided to use my own raycast checking for world collisions because I'm so paranoid about getting stuck in walls or falling onto the void. But, for the actors I wanted them to bump into each other so I threw some rigidbodies on them, so then realizing that other characters could push them through walls I also put a rectangular rigidbody on them that matches the raycast positioning...

I don't think the physics engine can mess up at the speeds my objects are moving.

 

I wouldn't say I'm terribly oblivious to it, though I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'some familiarity' with software design. I've been trying to follow some principles, such as the single responsibility principle, making code reusable by putting common functionality in functions, trying to give classes specific roles, good naming conventions, thinking hard about encapsulation, properties, not using statics/singletons in ways I shouldn't, not thinking too much about premature optimization, avoiding duplicate code, etc.

Some areas though that I am still struggling with are: testability (namely things like Unit Testing, I haven't been able to grasp it too well yet), coupling - getting better with the tight coupling issues, although still trying to figure out some ways to go about that, and sometimes I feel like I overthink some problems. I feel I could probably make the code simpler than I am, but I'm not always thinking about it through the right perspective.

Some of this I do believe will come with experience.

 

Yea, that's another thing. My guys move very slowly compared to other games.

 

If I don't keep going, we don't eat. That pretty much sums it up for me.

 

Heh. Yeah, I could probably start a plumbing company, TBH. Money isn't my motivation. I want to make things people will enjoy, rather than do work for people who would rather me not be there at all.

 

I'm fine. Really. I burned out in the 90s sometime and I don't think I ever came back. I just do this, it's what I do.

 

Wish I could help, but I don't know what all that stuff means, either. I can tell you that software design and good programming are probably different skills. Software design is, I think, about putting all the pieces together, how to efficiently get it done with multiple programmers on the same team, and how to make it in a way that it's maintainable.

Programming is just getting it done... which is what I do. And, that's hole I'm crawling out of.

 

So the key is to burn out once and for all, and to come back as a zombie.

 

I have gotten daily burnout, in the sense of: I'm working hour after hour and at some point I am not thinking so clearly anymore and not really motivated to keep working, and have issues focusing at that point.

I find that taking breaks is quite a useful thing. I tend to follow something that's like the Pomodoro technique. The Pomodoro technique states that you should really focus and power through 25 minutes of work, take a 5 minute break, and repeat 4 times. After you've done this, you take a longer break - 15 to 20 minutes. And then cycle continues.

I don't do it so rigidly, but I follow a rather similar idea. Taking breaks (as I've mentioned in another thread) can really help you solve tough problems (through the brain's diffuse mode), and it, in some way, refreshes your mind.

I'm not against taking some break time and playing some games, as long as I won't spend hours doing it. A good 10-15 minutes should suffice here and there to allow my mind to have a break, work in diffuse mode, and prevent burnout.

 

@Misterselmo I get what you are describing quite often, it used to be a lot worse than it is at the moment. To start with whenever I felt burned, I would do overly detailed design documents for upcoming features, effectively writing pseudo code but in full sentences which I find both productive and fun (yes, I am odd).

I have evolved my anti burn procedure over time, and I use a variety of methods. The best one from my experience, is talking out work that needs doing with your client( or boss, friend, stranger in a chatroom) and then imagining future work, and the real cool parts of the project, that interest you. Personally this gets me more buzzed than strong tea or cigs.

Other than that, I think after pushing yourself to continue despite not enjoying it turns you into a bit of a masochist, when you truly enjoy the process including its "dull" periods.

 

Do you use UML to draw diagrams of your code at all? Do you give that a go before you start to write the code? I'm not a fan of rigid, up-front design, but I am a fan of consolidating ideas before committing them to code. Drying to draw out your code visually before writing it can help you solve a lot of issues intuitively. Or, it can just help you better understand how the code will work before you write it, so you have fewer (or preferably no) "Oh, I need to do it this way instead!" moments.

Anyway, as @Misterselmo says, programming is writing the code. Software design is deciding what code to write. While you can do both at once, there are plenty of advantages to splitting those two activities apart. (When you're good at doing that, you can even split different levels of design apart.)

On the topic of "daily burnout", are you getting enough sleep? If you find yourself requiring stimulants to feel alert, the answer is probably "no", and that has a huge impact on productivity when problem solving.

 

So because I make money with game development, you assume I'm not doing what I enjoy and that I work for someone else? Things that a lot of us want to do in life (have a family, go places, buy cool stuff) takes money. The whole "I don't need money, I make games because I enjoooooy it! F*ck the police! ART ART" attitude is adorable.

 

Read the book "Making Ideas Happen". Creative people love starting projects. Not just Unity projects, but creative projects in general. That initial rush of excitement makes it easy to start a project. However, it is important to develop the skills needed to actually finish projects, since completing projects is the only thing that matters. Simply starting projects is barely more useful than an idea guy coming up with yet another idea. The book "Making Ideas Happen" has some useful ideas for improving the completion rate.

The biggest things I have learned over the years that have helped me:
1) Write down every idea, but do not start working on every idea.
2) Be willing to kill off most ideas before even starting them.
3) On ideas that I choose to pursue, break it down into lot of small actionable steps.

A lot of creative people fail because they spread themselves too thin with too many different projects. A lot of people stay really busy starting each new idea, but struggle to take ideas to completion. If you start working on a new project for each new idea you have, you won't have time to finish any of your projects. If you simply write down all of your ideas but only work on your best few ideas, you will have enough time to finish something.

 

In spite of all the really cool things Unity can do for you, things which would've taken a LOT of time to have to program yourself years ago (even a most basic 3d engine would've taken months of development at least), there is still a lot of pain in development. The fact is, computers speak computer language. They do what you tell them, but you have to tell them in a way they can understand. That means you have to translate your ideas into a language, a form, that the computer can store and deal with. That process takes a lot of effort. Unity's higher level tools, and asset store plugins, can help a lot. But things are still not at the highest level of your ideas. You can't just type in what kind of game you want and have it be generated. You have to go through a lot of manual processes in order to make stuff happen. A LOT. And it ends up taking 3 times longer than you expected, or more, because the computer language is still quite low-level compared with your ambitions. There is a lot of work involved. And it is work, not play. Having to deal with bugs, write scripts, click a million buttons, set settings, paint artwork, make the music, all that stuff... it has SOME creative parts to it, but it is not all fun. Not by a long shot. If you really want to get serious about making a game and finishing it then you have to accept there is going to be a lot of work involved, not fun. Its a job. Thats how games get made. Its far less often made by hobbyists or people that just want the same kind of fun you get from playing them. This is why there's this stereotype of the newbie that wants to make an MMO because he has fun playing MMO's. There is a HUGE amount of grunt required. If you don't like doing the grunt, you probably shouldn't be making games.

Having said that, I have found personally, after plenty of devlopment meltdowns, that now that I've accepted that development entails WORK, and I know to expect that, I can decide whether I want to do the WORK needed to make games. And I can treat it as work. And knowing its going to involve work, I can maybe discipline myself to do work.... ie I Know I've got to sit down and do another hour of 'work' after I get done with my dayjob work. If I'm in the mindset of 'oh I'll just play around with Unity for a bit and have fun' then I absolutely am not going to end up with any kind of finished product, I'm going to bounce all over the place looking for fun, and as soon as I get bored (ie when I encounter the WORK), I will distract off to some other greener pasture. But if I can accept it is work, and treat it like a job, where I may not necessarily be having a lot of fun, then I can tolerate it, and maybe actually come up with some long-term progress. I think if you're hitting depression, then either you're trying to do the same thing over and over again trying to find some kind of fun/joy and not finding it (which is insane), or you need to get away from developing and enjoy other aspects of life in which you can actually experience some success. There is a certain amount of fiction and romance surrounding 'being an amazing successful game developer' which is a fairytale. It's driven by marketing. Everyone can develop games. This is what Unity and all other engines are all about, right? It's a fairytale.

 

Where did that come from? He was talking about him doing plumbing, not you and whatever you're doing. As in, you hire a plumber begrudgingly because of a problem you wish you didn't have, where he wants to make stuff that people want because it gives them enjoyment or whatever.

Also, he didn't say he doesn't need money. He said it's not what motivates him. I'm in exactly the same boat - you're right that I need money to do the things I want to do, but that doesn't mean that money in and of itself motivates me. It doesn't. If I find myself doing something just for the money I typically also find myself pretty unmotivated. If I can find something that I enjoy doing that also gets me paid, that's a win - I'm happy and I'm meeting my financial needs.

 

It seemed to me as if he was saying that the motivation to make money by developing games means the same thing as him becoming a plumber, something he doesn't want to do, and that money doesn't motivate him at all. If I read into it wrong, I stand corrected.

Of course money is not the thing that motivates. Money is paper and digits in a bank computer. It means nothing in and of itself. It's what we want to DO with the money that is the motivation. My original post said "If I don't keep going, we don't eat." - not, "If I don't keep going, I won't have pockets full of money." I've done projects in the past purely for money, and it sucked and I won't ever do it again. It's a bad idea. So if I read into his post wrong, you read into mine wrong.

Some people have this idea that if you make games, or art, or music, or whatever, and you get paid, that you've somehow "sold out". You're not doing it for the art, man... All the while they head off to their crappy jobs and hate life, wishing they could "live the dream" and make games (or whatever) full-time. My original answer was an answer to this thread's question.

 

Yeah, I personally can't stand "Poor Artist Syndrome" and the various misconceptions, attitudes and behaviours that promote it. If you want to do something "full time" then you need to find a way for it to support itself. That means it has to make money. That isn't a bad thing.

To the contrary, being able to do something so well that people value it enough to pay for it should be seen as a mark of prestige.

 

Well, that's not specifically what I was responding to, but on that note... "doing something to eat" is still different to "doing something because you enjoy it". Whether it's measured in dollars or slices of bread, doing something primarily to fulfill basic survival needs is still motivated by some form of payment, rather than being motivated innately by wanting to do the thing you're doing. Of course, reaching that point is a luxury...

But you weren't talking about either extreme, were you? You mentioned needing money to do things you want to do, like going places and buying cool stuff. That seems to me like something in the middle of the spectrum described above.

 

But... I really, really enjoy eating.

 

I used to feel making a game was too difficult, until I changed my development routine. Instead of coding first, I created the level geometry and actors first. Then, I coded them to work. Since I had a scene to work from, it made coding the necessary parts easier.

I have a bad knack for making AAA-esque games. That's something I need to work on. lol

Also, I noticed that the UI system was bogging me down. With the 4.6 UI improvements, I find GUIs way easier.

 

You guys are smart. It is work. I'm good at work, I have pulled over 24 hour shifts before. It's not fun, so if it's not fun I'm not bummed when it isn't fun anymore. It's all in the mental discipline/attitude.

 

You have lost sight of what it was supposed to be. Try to remember what you originally envisioned. If your original vision was just a few flimsy ideas, then... You may need to rework your core concepts. Otherwise remembering can actually help you get back on track. I do switch between projects a lot myself, but I often re-open old ones. I also like to leave projects when I feel good about them, so I feel like a kid on Christmas with all these different presents (game ideas) I can open. When I feel bored about a project and it feels like the life has been sucked out of it, it's time for meditation.

 

There is no burnout. It is an illusion. A label given to name something that is not immediately obvious. Maybe it is simply being tired needing sleep. Maybe it is monotony needing a break a change do something else. Maybe it is doubt that what one originally hoped would result from the project will actually happen. Maybe it is realization the scope of work that originally seemed like a small bump is more like a large mountain. Maybe it is spending too much time developing lone wolf and you want a team.

Figure out what the burnout is telling you.

 

No, there is definitely actual burnout. That doesn't mean it isn't telling you something, but it's a thing.

 

I don't know, I feel like I got burnout in my last job which I had for 10 years. I felt tired in my spirit. I stopped programming for 5 years and only recently started again.
But I'm ready to get back into it. It's a bit like picking up a bike again.
Although this Christmas period is definitely slowing down my progress. Even my cat is more lazy than usual.

 

I have felt burnout many times. I also called it burnout. I did feel burnt out. However, there was always a root cause a reason. I just mean that burnt out feeling is a symptom of something else. If we just leave it as "ah it's just burnout" then we kind of make ourselves powerless over it. So I'd rather look for the root cause. Discover what the real source of that feeling is. Then I can take action to resolve it. Even if that action is to take a break and do nothing.

 

I definitely agree with identification and action. I just think that calling it "an illusion" is kind of like telling a depressed person to "just cheer up". Denying that it's a thing is the first step in not dealing with it appropriately.

I agree that it's telling you something. It's telling you that it's time for something to change.

 

I think what he meant to say with that was that burnout isn't just a anomaly that causes you to stop working on something, rather it's an effect of other causal factors that we just label it as "burnout" as this thing that just appeared out of nowhere, when that's just an illusion, there is more behind it. It's late, maybe my comment doesn't make any sense.

 

Yeah totally. Here's what you do: you write a line of code, then you take a big old drag of that cigarette you're holding.

Another line, another drag etc.

Your reward system will be reprogrammed in no time! Dopamine.

 

I just figured out something in my combat engine that was eluding me, the enemies should rotate around the player and move inward and outward, I was having them do linear movements and it wasn't working for me.

So in this case, I think I was sub consciously avoiding a problem I wasn't sure how to solve.

Brawler engines are more complicated than they seem at face value, I wish I were making a simpler game. Almost out of the woods, though.

Also, I think having nobody to talk to about the technical details is part of my burnout.

 

This is pretty much me right now. I need to work out the architecture of a part of my library, and I'm avoiding it like crazy. Written all of 10 lines of code in 3 days. Tomorrow I'll get focused for sure...

 

Enough said.

 

This is true, except when greed enters the equation. Many billionaires play games with people's lives, because they see money as something that motivates. Those digits matter a lot to them. It means everything even though it's meaningless.

I think your summation of money is what rational people SHOULD think. Unfortunately, many many MANY people worship money as a god. Above others, above society, above family, above morality, sometimes even above themselves. It can get quite sickening or disturbing.

In fact, greed and this idea that profit is everything, is guaranteed to be what holds innovation in gaming back. Innovation in everything really. Many amazing aspects of Science only get created when there is profit. Rarely does our society put forth effort to fund scientific research for the sake of invention- not profit. Especially these days when greedy politicians want to defund some amazing things and could care less if wonderful groups like NASA were dismantled so they could get another gold coin in their pile of billions.

So it makes sense to me why others may see your post and view it as they did. NOT that they are right in doing so. I have no idea why anyone would irrationally assume you work for others and hate your job. That came out of nowhere. BUT it is easy to confuse people who stress the concept that they HAVE to game dev or else they starve- and people who want to game dev for greed. There are a lot in the latter. A LOT. Especially for mobile apps- at least a few years ago there were anyway. Some people didn't even know what games were and try to strike it rich because they think they can thanks to stuff like Flappy Bird or Angry Birds. Tons of scams from both AAA companies and indie unknowns. Tons of them, at least on Android.

 

Smart man. I think I'm going to try to play a lot of games until I get bored of them and want to go back to game dev.

My #1 biggest inspiration to game dev, BY FAR, is my...how you say.....arrogance?

When I play games, I see their design. I see tons of flaws. I nit-pick and puff up my peacock feathers at the game, bawking at how I could do it better. So much so in fact, all of my games are inspired by me seeing or playing other games and thinking, "Wow, I could very easily make a better version than this." or "I could make this same game, but without the horrible flaws the developer refuses to acknowledge."

I know it sounds arrogant, but I started my current project to prove to myself and to others I am not full of b.s. Because really, I am curious if I am or not. Are my thoughts true or would my games be worse and MORE flawed? I wanna know. So far, it kicks butt! At least IMO

My current game was inspired by several games, but it all started by playing FTL. I loved the game, but acknowledged its flaws and limitations. Then I thought, "Why don't they make FTL 2 with a bigger scope? Land on the planets." I saked the FTL community, "Would you be interested in a game like this?" and they flooded my thread "OMG OMG OMG YES!!!!"
I then tried to draw my own pixel character- and almost quit. First time at pixel art, and I had to have an art style to pull this off alone. 1 hour later...Eureka! Everyone around me (friends/family) said it looked good. Huge motivator. My current game is entirely founded on the art style of the characters and aliens I made.

Idk when, but I also played Starflight and remembered back to my childhood, "This game is AWESOME! And it still is. Wow, usually you go back to a game and it's aged. This seems to not have aged at all." (Sega version. Obviously the atari version DEFINITELY aged.)

Then I took apart Starflight's features and components, and realized I could easily make that game. So there it was. I will remake a starflight / space sim / FTL game! I added my own design features based on a card game and design discussion with my brother- then got to work.

Eventually I hit a crossroads- should I remake Starflight (a very SAFE choice which would be a guaranteed sell) and add my own features...OR should I capitalize on my features that sound so awesome, and prototype those? (A much more risky, but innovative choice). I did the latter, prototyped, and quickly the game became my own. Now it is my own innovation, with some added starflight features. The reverse of the safe option!

I think all I need to do, is play some games. Get upset they aren't better. Become arrogant again, "I can make that game, but better!" Get disappointed in the newest AAA title, "Aw, why didn't they focus more on THAT awesome feature?" Browse some kickstarters, "WTF?! STAR TREK ISNT ABOUT COMBAT OMGGGGGGG!!!111"

I think part of what set me back, was playing and LOVING "Dead State". It is strikingly similar to an innovative concept I had discussed with my brother at the exact same time as discussing my current project. I played Dead State, not realizing this, and boy did I love it. Not a single flaw IMO (besides the bugs / early access unfinished-ness - but those don't count). This, perhaps, DEMOTIVATED me. That and all the amazing indie games I'm seeing coming out.

I started to think, "With so many great indie developers releasing amazing games now, I can finally enjoy games. I don't even think that many need fixing either!Honestly I couldn't do it better myself."

This entire thread is really motivating me to get back to game dev. Thanks everyone!!