One day maybe I'll actually finish making this game

[reakain]

I have a silly beat em up game I keep slowly building on. The problem is that I keep rebuilding it. Not, like, the characters themselves or the narrative plan or anything, so much as originally it was a little 2D game, but then I converted it to 3D thinking it would be easier to do all the beat em up stuff, and I started building a whole 3D game setup in Unity, with a bunch of levels and additional things.

Coming back to it (while avoiding finishing my dissertation, oops), I decided that actually 2D would probably be easier than 3D, because I'm not competent in the type of 3D modeling using for character and animation modelling, and I don't particularly want to build those skills. So I went back to 2D, and at the same time switch engines to Godot because it seemed simpler and more catered to 2D game design... Then I decided I wanted to update the 2D pixel assets I had previously been making. It's starting to feel a bit like Theseus' video game hahaha

Anyone else also struggling with just rebuilding games instead of finishing them?

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

That's a surprisingly common hurdle people go through, my friend. To me, it only means that you really care about the game you are making, which is about the best thing anyone could ask for.

If you are interested, YouTuber Yahtzee Croshaw (of "Zero Punctuation" fame) has gone over this sort of thing on his "Dev Diary" series.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

 

[Samatonic Samatonic]

I would consider myself guilty as well, I have too many side projects (games mostly) that I want to complete. But in the end I leave it collecting dust. I have my ideas stored, but never used. I've built a small game myself, though only 2 levels.

 

[moonbits]

Oh yeah, it's the nefarious game dev spell. I've rebuilt my FPS project because something about the project doesn't really work for me. Animations, controls, physics, who's responsible for what, what state machine pattern, how to handle scenes vs instancing, signal callbacks.

 

[reakain]

That's a surprisingly common hurdle people go through, my friend. To me, it only means that you really care about the game you are making, which is about the best thing anyone could ask for.

If you are interested, YouTuber Yahtzee Croshaw (of "Zero Punctuation" fame) has gone over this sort of thing on his "Dev Diary" series.

Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Ooooh, I'll definitely check it out! I always struggle with knowing when I should listen to the voice saying "rework this part" versus when that voice is trying to ruin me hahaha

And thank you!

Post automatically merged: Today at 12:52 AM

I would consider myself guilty as well, I have too many side projects (games mostly) that I want to complete. But in the end I leave it collecting dust. I have my ideas stored, but never used. I've built a small game myself, though only 2 levels.

Oooooh, yes, I am the same with too many side projects hahahaha

I got really big into making things with gameboy studio for a bit. I ended up sharing all the sprite assets I made, but never finished the game I had been working on (oops)

(Oh, hey, I can do multiple replies in one post! That's handyyyyy)

Oh yeah, it's the nefarious game dev spell. I've rebuilt my FPS project because something about the project doesn't really work for me. Animations, controls, physics, who's responsible for what, what state machine pattern, how to handle scenes vs instancing, signal callbacks.

I like that you call it a "spell". It definitely feels kind of like that! I try to reuse as much as I can, but it always feels like a trap. How much of the game did you end up actually rebuilding when that happened?

 

[BulletHammer]

Aw man, I always wanted to make my own game but I fear this exact thing might happen to me xD

I'm currently learning Blender and ZBrush and I'm pretty decent with 3D animation, so I think If I ever get around to it, It'll most likely be a 3D game.

That being said, I remember reading somewhere that during the development of Super Mario 64 the first thing developers worked on was movement, they made a bunch of test stages just to make sure it was fun to control Mario, then built the entire game around that. So I always thought If I were to develop a game I'd first nail gameplay, then work on the rest .--.

But then again, I never even made anything close to a game, so I've noooo idea

 

[CDeluxe]

I have a silly beat em up game I keep slowly building on. The problem is that I keep rebuilding it. Not, like, the characters themselves or the narrative plan or anything, so much as originally it was a little 2D game, but then I converted it to 3D thinking it would be easier to do all the beat em up stuff, and I started building a whole 3D game setup in Unity, with a bunch of levels and additional things.

Coming back to it (while avoiding finishing my dissertation, oops), I decided that actually 2D would probably be easier than 3D, because I'm not competent in the type of 3D modeling using for character and animation modelling, and I don't particularly want to build those skills. So I went back to 2D, and at the same time switch engines to Godot because it seemed simpler and more catered to 2D game design... Then I decided I wanted to update the 2D pixel assets I had previously been making. It's starting to feel a bit like Theseus' video game hahaha

Anyone else also struggling with just rebuilding games instead of finishing them?

I find i have the same trouble, wanting to add more and more to a game, change this, improve on that. Like you said, it really is the ship of Theseus.
There's always that feeling that 'if i just add this one feature, my game will be perfect' and so you always feel that need to do just one more thing
There is that old saying, "a painting is never finished, the artist just stops working on it"

I find it helps to set personal deadlines. Something like "ill have this amount of progress by the end of the month"
Work on having something functional, first.
And remember that, if you really wanna make games, this wont be the only game you make. Dont worry about making it 'my one perfect game'. Be thinking about what game will come after this.
If you have a good idea, consider it would work best for this game, or maybe is worth keeping written down to come back to when you make your next game.