131–140 of 198 posts
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This book Finish by Jon Acuff is a great book on practicing finishing. He also has Start for the very opposite. https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Give-Yourself-Gift-Done/dp/052...
I've ironically only read about half of Finish
Game jams are a great motivator. I need hard deadlines. I recently did this [1] for a game jam, over one sleepless week. It's pretty unfinished but submitting something felt good. (Source: [2]) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX6AZNWuI5Q [2] https://github.com/mpersano/generic-rhythm-game/
I also found that hard deadlines work. The closer they are, the better they are. Yesterday I spent just one hour to review my computer architecture mid-term. I totally forgot about the date and thought I'm going to bomb it. Eventually I did a very quick efficient review and felt very good about it. The thing is, as you said, and as my Physics teacher said 20 years ago, that I really need to be pushed HARD to be effic…
The antidote is to have no deadlines, and take the time to enjoy doing things right.
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> I'd push hard at work for 9 hours a day, eat, then push hard on the side project for 8-9 hours a day, sleep, wake up, and just keep going. One day a week maybe I'd just sleep. No wonder you feel like hell, where is time for people, leisure, exercising and all the other activities that will help you move faster by feeling better? The true optimization for becoming a more efficient person is to do less of the thing y…
This has been my line of thought for a while. You spend a minimum of 8 hours working, and ideally you get 6-8 hours of sleep. Let’s say you have a couple more daily responsibilities that take 2-4 (could be commute, cleaning, some other maintenance). There’s almost no time to do anything, and some of the hours you have left may be at non-prime times of the day. > The true optimization for becoming a more efficient per…
This is OK, as long as you know you're dreaming too big, but then you need MVGs, minimal pieces of the project that are playable games. If you need a giant world just to get started playing, you'll not get started playing.
Good tips... but in reality if you're working full-time (especially in a software related role), you may find yourself depleted before you get to the keyboard. It took us 5 years to finish our game (everyone started from 0 knowledge on how to make games, so it was a rocky road), and for the last 1.5-2 years my life was absolute hell. I'd push hard at work for 9 hours a day, eat, then push hard on the side project for…
Yeah, this is my issue. After a long day of (sometimes pointless) software dev, strapping in for more is draining. So as a contrast, I design board games (not digital) as my hobby. It is very analog and tactile and so energizing partially from just being a nice change of pace. Your advice to start small is spot on though. I would even say one of the best first things to do is start by making a game mod. You don't hav…
Another risk with mods is the game owner can shut you down at any moment, if public. I'll probably never do another mod or reuse someone else's IP for anything beyond very small prototypes. There are just so many tools now that you shouldn't have to.
(Star Wars Quake 1997-2002)
Good tips... but in reality if you're working full-time (especially in a software related role), you may find yourself depleted before you get to the keyboard. It took us 5 years to finish our game (everyone started from 0 knowledge on how to make games, so it was a rocky road), and for the last 1.5-2 years my life was absolute hell. I'd push hard at work for 9 hours a day, eat, then push hard on the side project for…
And it's not just "ok, then find free art online" because you also have to be able to do art in code to, e.g. let players customize their character, etc.
I'm sure there are ways to reduce this, but making a game is a lot of work.
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What I learned from other people who have success in their side projects is to choose a workplace that allows you to do a sub 40 hour work week. Of course you would have to live a tad more simply than your standard upper-middle class software guy.
I specifically started doing photography so I could do game development in the off-season. It turns out it’s hard to completely drop projects in the spring/summer and pick them up in the winter. I’d love to keep pecking at them over the photography season but I have a hell of a hard time getting anything done when I can only dedicate an hour or so an evening to it.
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If you’re salaried, there’s no such thing as company time, so that’s not a meaningful distinction.
If you are doing it in a company office, using company property, during hours the company expects you to be working, do not expect to use "well, I'm salaried, so it doesn't matter" as a legal defense and win.
Game jams are a great motivator. I need hard deadlines. I recently did this [1] for a game jam, over one sleepless week. It's pretty unfinished but submitting something felt good. (Source: [2]) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX6AZNWuI5Q [2] https://github.com/mpersano/generic-rhythm-game/
Maybe instead of a "jam" format to motivate indies, do a "game race" instead? Points for timeliness. Bias toward micro-games. Organized around theme or asset for creativity constraint ;)
One thing I need to learn is to create pixel Sprites quickly. Maybe there is even a way to programmatically generate some template Sprites.