@Elsealabs: indie games made mostly by hobbyists, not professional games. WIP games are encouraged, even if you don’t mean to finish them. As long as it shows progress and can inspire others (to actually finish theirs). After a few projects you’ll manage to finish a game, publish it, maybe even make a few bucks. Going through the entire process and making ‘only’ $10 by direct sales, is invaluable.
Remember that this thread is about game engines. Making multiple small WIP games is the path to successfully making bigger projects, but it’s often different for game engines/libraries.
While I approve of getting libraries, engines and various tools absolutely no one would ever use out of WIP board and make way for JGO’s main purpose; the games, I feel this might be a good middle ground. Maybe it could just be another small subforum? Breaking the “WIP games, tools & toy projects” forum into two, a “WIP Games & toy projects” and a “WIP tools” subforum under it.
That will keep them out of the games list, but also gives them a proper home. Being in archives puts the visitors under the impression the project is no longer maintained, and sadly, no matter how much the OP’er tries to ensure it is maintained still most people won’t visit the forum in the first place to find out. For example, I’ve never visited archives. I don’t even know whats there. 
I will say one thing I’ve noticed about JGO is that everyone is helpful , always trying to help but they are also harsh. But not in a bad way , if you get something incredibly wrong and refuse to accept it then you are going to be treated harshly it’s more helpful than being repeatedly told what to do because you don’t learn then.
While I agree on the point that there is a need to encourage people on making games rather than engines, there is no point in moving all these engines and libraries into “Archived Projects”. The name “Archived” in general sense, gives the meaning that they are in development once upon a time, not now, but that is not the case, we are actually working on them.
If you really want to move them from WIP, please make a separate child board, and name them “WIP Engines & Libraries” or something so, I really can’t agree on the name “Archived”.
While I think thats a good idea, I don’t think anyone was actively looking for “agreement”
Cheers,
Kev
Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, especially when the “anyone” is a forum manager.
To those suggesting to use a board named ‘WIP Tools’, ‘WIP Engines’ or ‘Community Tools’, I’d like to stress that the effect of removing the aforementioned incentive would be greatly diminished. The board name has to have a negative connotation, just like with the Chitchat Monster board - people should have the feeling to steer clear of whatever slumbers in its depths.
‘Archived Projects’ is indeed a misnomer, and will be renamed to something better once inspiration strikes.
This. Plus we have the issue of populating boards. That is why added new board is not the solution to organizational, where a simple rule works better until we have the need for a separate board.
Just look at the android board, it’s kinda a grey area on the forum.
Better that the forum manager takes responsibility for keeping the forum - managed - than we have no decisions because a consensus will not be found.
Cheers,
Kev
I vote for Personal/Archived Projects
Mike
The JGO Graveyard might be a nice name
I just want to share my thoughts:
In my opinion the main goal of the WIP-Section is to show some progress and get help by other (more experienced) users.
Many developers here, who started creating an engine, did that to gain experience and knowledge about the low-level things.
Especially those developers take advantage of the more experienced users here, who can point them to the right direction.
If those learning-projects are now moved to a “less important” section, they may lose some atention and therefore they won’t get as many help as before,
which would be bad for them and bad for JGO…
The opinion expressed here is that the WIP-Section is for WIP Games - as in java Gaming.
Having the engines in there takes up a lot of the time of the “experienced users” thus drawing them away from the games that the site is meant to be about. More so given that engine development always require more help and input than games.
The games that are in the WIP section losing attention of the experienced users due to people building a me-too game engine is bad for the game’s developers and bad for JGO. Worse still the more noise on the WIP board the less likely people are to read each and every post.
Cheers,
Kev
You might as well move all of the crappy 2D Minecraft clones to Archived Projects as well. :point:
The sad reality about JGO is that nearly everybody here cares more about programming than actual game design. This usually leads to random trends that develop and people are going to follow them no matter what.
My idea? Encourage better game design, and perhaps set a topic creation limit in the WIP board that would stop people from creating X amount of projects in Y amount of days. That will hopefully stop so many trends from going around and potentially get people to stay focused on their projects too. I don’t want to name any names here, but I’ve seen plenty of people on here that will simply start projects over and over again until they have nearly 10 discontinued games in the WIP section.
- Jev
Fair point actually Maybe someone should go through and mark the “crappy” ones. At least with game engines it’s clear cut.
Kev
What’s “crappy” or not is pretty subjective. Most side-scrollers being made by indie developers aren’t that much more creative than a Minecraft clone is. In fact, it’s very rare that something “creative” comes along. I admit that even my game isn’t that creative.
If we’re tossing out projects based on lack of creativity, then the WIP section would probably be empty.
That’s why the Featured Games board exists.
- Jev
Of course, but if you start removing “crappy” games from WIP, what is its point?
Edit: talked to Jev on IRC to get a clearer idea of what he meant.
This is already the case and has been for over a year or two. It’s the Cube World Projects board :point: