4K Failures

Contests 4K Game Competition - 2009
#1

One of my biggest problems as far as game development goes is losing motivation on my current idea the second a new one pops into my head (which happens constantly). Hence I thought I would share with you a few of my abandoned projects for this years 4K and hopefully get some tips on staying motivated when inundated with exciting new ideas. If I had just kept working on the the only entry I actually uploaded it could have been so much better (was well under 4K). None of these are past the demo phase and I haven’t bothered jar’ing them.

First up CowRescue, the idea was to fly a helicopter and save a bunch of cows from rising flood waters. Built an ultra-cutdown svg converter that encoded reasonably complex svg files into Strings of only a few hundred bytes (uncompressed) long.

http://angryoctopus.co.nz/java4k/cow_rescue.png

Next was K4usality, a time based puzzle game. You can enter a portal to go back in time 10 seconds. The idea was to have puzzles where you would step on a switch for a bit, go back in time and through a door that was opened while your past self was standing on the switch. I was also going to incorporate a stealth aspect where you had to avoid being seen by your past self (lest you violate causality). This would mean you had to turn around and face a wall at certain points to enable your future self to sneak behind you.

http://angryoctopus.co.nz/java4k/k4usality.png

Finally another helicopter game. Was going to be a basic side scroller involving shooting tanks etc. Was pretty happy with the look, just got bored of it.

http://angryoctopus.co.nz/java4k/black_sh4rk.png

#2

you just gotta do something that is interesting to you. If you have trouble holding on, then it wasnt the kind of game you wanted to develop at the time.

#3

Each game looks nice. Its a shame you didn’t finish them.
If your not going to finish them you could just release the source code.

#4

I just write the new ideas down somewhere and keep working on the current project. Unless I really think the new idea is sooo good, it is worth putting the current project on hold. I like the concept of CowRescue! :slight_smile:

#5

about rescuecow, me too it is looking good

#6

Well there are two ways to look at this:

  1. 4K failures
    or
  2. 4K ideas that are 9 months early

You’re already ahead of the game for the next contest. Kind of a glass half empty/half full thing

#7

Exactly what woogley said :slight_smile:

You can finish these games for the 4k’10 contest! :slight_smile: Not the first time this has been done, in fact, I believe many do this, sit on some half-finished games until a better day.

#8

Cheers guys. I think I just need to get a big notebook to chuck ideas in and try not to let them distract me from my current project. The fact is you can’t expect to be fully motivated over the course of a project and need to just commit yourself if you really want to get something finished.

#9

Ye, just ice em and finish them on the next round.

Third screeny looks awesome btw. :slight_smile:

#10

Source code if anyone is interested (not pretty):

http://angryoctopus.co.nz/java4k/CowRescue.java
http://angryoctopus.co.nz/java4k/K4usality.java
http://angryoctopus.co.nz/java4k/BlackSh4rK.java

#11

This could be added to every users signature. ;D

I have more of a problem with this than any other issue. I takes everything I have to stay committed to the job at hand and put the new ideas on the backburner. I have tons of idea files all over my hard drive. The wifey thinks its funny to comment on how many times I change an idea. I’m like a 6 year old kid.