The untold technique for completing your game

[@darrenstensland5301]

Another great batch of advice. In the same way that [no progress -> no motivation -> no progress] can be a vicious cycle, [progress -> motivation -> progress] can be a cycle.

[@JamesACoote]

Sometimes, typically after some time away from working on it, I rediscover what made me originally fall in love with a game concept, and my enthusiasm is renewed. However, getting a second wind usually doesn't sustain till the end of the project. So broadly I agree that losing momentum is a good sign for taking long hard look at the game, and if you continue, how you can get back to that state where everything is flowing nicely.

[@Itay_Ron]

I'm currently making a small-scoped game (Clean It Up), and for 80% of the development time (which continues), I had no momentum simply because the graphics and mechanics were finished very quickly. Now, it's just a grind of adding content, polishing everything, and tweaking all the little "stuff" around the actual game (menus, options, quality-of-life improvements). I think most games are mostly finished in the first 30%-50% of the development period simply because polishing (which is a very very general term that accounts for tons of stuff) takes tons of time and players expect the polish to be near perfect, it's not a bonus or a nice thing to have for them but just a minimum criterion.

[@alessandr_0]

"Stilstaan is achteruitgang", I guess this is another reason to make a few games to start with, to cultivate this sense. Voorwaarts!

[@1_Man_Media]

Personally I believe in a no zero sum system. As in I have no zero days. I can have days where I go hard or only do a tiny bit of work, but I never have a day where I do 0. Early on it is easy as it is super fun making mechanics and core stuff work while trying it out. That side is always fun, but then it takes discipline to take it across the finish line doing the not fun side that has to be done to finalize the game. Such as tutorials, help sections, marketing, and other aspects that just are not that fun but have to be done as part of the whole.

[@nicholasallen9035]

In part this is why I like doing solo work, at least outside a career/paid job. I think others lack of enthusiasm through the project just kills my momentum, and on personal projects I’d never get anywhere that way.

[@RobLang]

Are you saying: You must keep momentum. You keep momentum by: fixing scope, regularly doing features that give you a sense of progress, being accountable to others. Is that it?

[@bitemegames]

That's basically it. It can sometimes be worth it to shift priorities from the "default" since that can mean more visual progress == happy monkey brains. -M

[@RobLang]

@bitemegames quite often the final 10% of a project is just big fixing. Adding sounds and VFX may introduce more bugs. How do you balance the risk bugs with keeping monkey brain happy? For solo devs who aren't artists, how do you feed the money brain without paying more for art?

[@mandisaw]

@@RobLang Bug tracking lists help a lot with that motivation angle, besides being useful for organization. It's one of the rationales for using Kanban-style task boards as well. I have a long-term game project, and some software PM training, so I keep a Gantt-chart of progress on top-level systems and dependencies. (The dates are all blown because LIFE, but it's still handy to keep track :)

[@timithius7885]

@@bitemegames happy monkey brains!🤣I'm stealing that!

[@wdavis81x]

I keep momentum by documenting my progress and sharing that journey. Even if it's a bad day and nothing works. Most days it's a good day and I knock out a feature or some UI thing. Sometimes I refactor to improve things as I learn. I agree on that original scope stray! When I started out I laid out what I wanted, and I would often say 'oh but this would be cool' and I would compare to my original plan and see if it fit the original vision or not. If it was too much I would discard the idea and keep working, and if it fit I would add it for later. 2024 was such a good year for my progress.

[@EnricoUniverse]

What game is shown at 1:11?

[@zolee0829]

Im also interested

[@falricthesleeping9717]

I mean, the last part of the video kinda fell down a bit, this is a good video, agree with alot of the points, but resurrecting a demo that was sitting in my repo was probably the best thing I've done this year, very solid momentum, if I go back just 2 weeks ago, Now it feels much more like a game than a tech demo

[@MrMoczan]

The legendary secret to releasing a game is to actually work on your game.

[@ultimaxkom8728]

Take him out, boys. This guy knows too much.

[@secretchefcollective444]

Mind. Blown.

[@VyvyanTheGreat]

YES. These are lessons that took me years (and many failed projects) to learn

[@EricDaily]

I think this is true, and I love the Dutch saying.

[@mattg1345]

Could you do a video on getting the best from using version control ?

[@Ready_Fire_Aim]

what about the bounce back? i get burned out doing a week on a component etc. then be like man. im not making progress. go kayaking or fishing or to the beach. motivation strikes. im so excited i cant wait to get back to the PC. sit down and be like. where is that motivation gone.... then not taking care of the "direction" to use that moviation. if i dont direct myself ill just waste time staring at screen again.

[@LucRio448]

"You guys love writing your interfaces" - me, watching this video half an hour after I spent 3 hours writing an Editorscript for Unity just so now I have a DevTools-Menu in the menubar that has exactly 1 item to use so far: An Editor to Spawn a new Script in my Scripts folder, with dropdown-lists in the editor window for both the namespaces and the base classes so you can choose those things in the editor and the created script has the "using" statements for all the namespaces, the classname of your choosing and the inheritence-thing to make it inherit from all your chosen baseclasses already written in code, so I don't have to do that by hand. And I'm less than convinced that this EVER will reach the point where it overall has safed me any time in total :D And I'm not even remotely good at writing scripts for my unity projects at all xDDD

[@dark_elf_wizard]

wow, dit is waar ik meestal vast loop als ik een spel probeer te maken. ik heb veel plannen maar doe er weinig mee.

[@mandisaw]

Try keeping a notebook of your ideas. Set aside a little time each week to pull an idea from the book, work on it a little bit. See which one excites you and has you still thinking about it afterward (or in advance). Work on that one each week for a month or two. It's a bit like exercise - you don't start off at the heavy equipment. Good luck!

[@mandisaw]

@dark_elf_wizard Then maybe you need to work on your resilience and tenacity first. Go back to basics - try reading through a lengthy book that seems interesting, commit to learning a recipe for a food you like, if you're athletic, try setting some goals that push you a little further. If your issues are medical or psychological, maybe reach out to a doctor or therapist and see if they can help you achieve your goals. Learning how to find your way through challenge is a foundation for so much in life, way beyond game-dev. It's a skill that ideally is developed as a kid and practiced through adulthood. But today is as good a time to start as any :)

[@dark_elf_wizard]

@@mandisaw i love coding and cooking. i dont know why it is scary for me to start. but when i'm going i dont stop until i dont know what to do. but when i dont know what to do, i give up to easy.

[@dark_elf_wizard]

the finish is not the hard part, the hard part is the planning in big scale when i want to do something that will take multiple weeks...

[@mandisaw]

@dark_elf_wizard So don't do something so big & scary 😅 Practice with tasks that will take only 2 or 3 sessions to complete, like an existing minigame kit, or a recipe or craft that has prep one day, completion the next. You want something where the overall planning has already been mostly done - you are just practicing starting and coming back to a single task. Sounds like a game jam group might be helpful - you can participate while allowing others to do the breakdown of which tasks to do when. And it's short enough that you'll easily see progress and can keep motivated.