Motivation - Problems & Solution
Hey guys,
Sorry for being long winded, but I think you guys might like this too.
Problem - Burning Out:
I guess I'm a indie game developer hobbyist. Like many others, I burnout, maybe stop coding or maybe think of a new project which will light my passions again. In the end I am leaving a wake of many many partially coded games and tons more prototyped features/bugs.
I've always enjoyed starting over ... for a few reasons.
- I've learned so much I could do it better.
- I could code this faster, so let me time myself
- It's easier/faster to restart than to recode my bad code.
2nd Problem - Fresh Code:
When you work with others, usually you never start writing code from scratch and
making the main design documents of how it all functions together. Real experience is going into somebody else's project and trying to understand their vision and their ideas for functionality. (And documentation IF they have any.)
In The Past:
I've done week long code crunches. This is where I pick a game type I want (Sail & Trade, Space Exploring, Sword and Shield adventure, or other) and have a hard deadline of a week from now. This will include my normal 40 hour work week. The game will be a simple text/terminal PC game to be shown off not matter what the end condition is.
My best was a ship-trade game from scratch in 31 hours and it took 4 hours of gameplay to beat. Ending with a fleet of 5 gallons and a million coin. My testers who played it said it was actually quite addictive for a text game.
Solution:
This Code Crunch Game is digging up an old text space game I was working on many years ago which already has 90+ hours into it, design docs, and a functioning framework. I'm going to go find all my old stuff. In addition, I've got the next 4 days off with no distractions: no bills, laundry, cleaning, shopping, repairs, friends, family, etc!
Plan:
The plan is that tonight after work (yes I'm at work right now on lunch break)
1.) Night before:
- Find
- Review
- Attempt to compile the old code
- Plan the outline for the next four days in hourly chunks.
2.) Recode to get new engine into the game
- This was the game where I made my first true engine
3.A) Add color text
3.B) Add a Dwarf-Fortress style graphics
4.) Add missioning system from other game (copy & munge)
5.) Have a clear ending.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts.
Sorry for being long winded, but I think you guys might like this too.
Problem - Burning Out:
I guess I'm a indie game developer hobbyist. Like many others, I burnout, maybe stop coding or maybe think of a new project which will light my passions again. In the end I am leaving a wake of many many partially coded games and tons more prototyped features/bugs.
I've always enjoyed starting over ... for a few reasons.
- I've learned so much I could do it better.
- I could code this faster, so let me time myself
- It's easier/faster to restart than to recode my bad code.
2nd Problem - Fresh Code:
When you work with others, usually you never start writing code from scratch and
making the main design documents of how it all functions together. Real experience is going into somebody else's project and trying to understand their vision and their ideas for functionality. (And documentation IF they have any.)
In The Past:
I've done week long code crunches. This is where I pick a game type I want (Sail & Trade, Space Exploring, Sword and Shield adventure, or other) and have a hard deadline of a week from now. This will include my normal 40 hour work week. The game will be a simple text/terminal PC game to be shown off not matter what the end condition is.
My best was a ship-trade game from scratch in 31 hours and it took 4 hours of gameplay to beat. Ending with a fleet of 5 gallons and a million coin. My testers who played it said it was actually quite addictive for a text game.
Solution:
This Code Crunch Game is digging up an old text space game I was working on many years ago which already has 90+ hours into it, design docs, and a functioning framework. I'm going to go find all my old stuff. In addition, I've got the next 4 days off with no distractions: no bills, laundry, cleaning, shopping, repairs, friends, family, etc!
Plan:
The plan is that tonight after work (yes I'm at work right now on lunch break)
1.) Night before:
- Find
- Review
- Attempt to compile the old code
- Plan the outline for the next four days in hourly chunks.
2.) Recode to get new engine into the game
- This was the game where I made my first true engine
3.A) Add color text
3.B) Add a Dwarf-Fortress style graphics
4.) Add missioning system from other game (copy & munge)
5.) Have a clear ending.
I'm eager to hear your thoughts.
Well actually,
The week came and went, and on Friday night I started two new accounts, read through 60 pages of legalize to know my limits, and got sick. Don't read legalize, it'll make you sick.
I was able to put in 40 hours over the 6 days (4 sick days) (21hours before I got sick).
I forgot how fun my little text space game was.
- Wrote a tool to work with the DOS Terminal for easy use
- reworked the game to handle the color code and display
- Made a nice graphic splash screen
- added buy of ships
- Created and edited many new ships
- Inventory listing of items in your ship.
- Adjusted prices to make the trade feel better to do.
Didn't get the questing and the ending of the game completed, but it's rather fun to just grind out profit and buy bigger ships.
In the end:
- I found my old enjoyment of coding
- I admire what I had written long ago and relearned things I've forgotten
- Learned how to proto type parts of the game without wasting time recompiling the whole game to test new code.
- Really enjoyed being done coding for the day and just play my game
-- I found motivation to put in an hour or two more to fix a few things after I was done for the day.
I would highly recommend others doing this.
The week came and went, and on Friday night I started two new accounts, read through 60 pages of legalize to know my limits, and got sick. Don't read legalize, it'll make you sick.
I was able to put in 40 hours over the 6 days (4 sick days) (21hours before I got sick).
I forgot how fun my little text space game was.
- Wrote a tool to work with the DOS Terminal for easy use
- reworked the game to handle the color code and display
- Made a nice graphic splash screen
- added buy of ships
- Created and edited many new ships
- Inventory listing of items in your ship.
- Adjusted prices to make the trade feel better to do.
Didn't get the questing and the ending of the game completed, but it's rather fun to just grind out profit and buy bigger ships.
In the end:
- I found my old enjoyment of coding
- I admire what I had written long ago and relearned things I've forgotten
- Learned how to proto type parts of the game without wasting time recompiling the whole game to test new code.
- Really enjoyed being done coding for the day and just play my game
-- I found motivation to put in an hour or two more to fix a few things after I was done for the day.
I would highly recommend others doing this.
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