Sorry, this is probably a bit of a personal rant and its probably directly related to whether its a profession or a hobby. I get a fair bit of stick for not finishing games, but for me its not always about finishing the game…
What about you?
Kev
[quote]Sorry, this is probably a bit of a personal rant and its probably directly related to whether its a profession or a hobby. I get a fair bit of stick for not finishing games, but for me its not always about finishing the game…
What about you?
Kev
[/quote]
For the record, I reckon you deny the world some great games my friend ;D. If I thought your philosophy might change, I’d certainly recommend you to move into pro games dev. But I do know a couple of people who were in a similar position and chose to remain in their much-better paid (albeit miserable and depressing) investment-banking IT jobs for the rest of their career, and are sitting on big wads of cash right now, and they certainly don’t look unhappy from where I’m sitting!
I never make any money, and it’s rather more stress than fun quite a lot of the time, and I usually don’t finish, hardly anyone likes the end result, but I always learn something*!
Cas 
- That I should have been a writer, not a programmer
I consider myself similar to Kev. I rarely finish, but I always learn something. I usually have fun of course also
Hey that sounds just like me! Well, apart from the huge wads of cash. 
Kev
I’ve never finished anything :), but it’s always fun, and learning something new is kinda the point of it, learning is fun to me (as long as it is something interesting)
Endolf
[quote]I never make any money, and it’s rather more stress than fun quite a lot of the time, and I usually don’t finish, hardly anyone likes the end result, but I always learn something*!
Cas
- That I should have been a writer, not a programmer
[/quote]
Heh, maybe you should be both
I get a fair bit of stick for not finishing games
The techdemo syndrome ;D
It’s so common. You think about something, you try it, it’s fun… so fresh and new, then you are done and the parts wich were omitted are usually those, wich you’ve done a million times before.
But then again… what’s wrong with doing those 5% extra stuff? Remove some crap, a bit cleanup… and then it might be in the state were someone else (beginners or non-programmers) can pick it up. Or it might be even complete after that.
There is a big difference between “I made that wall” and “I build that house!” 
Well, I have tons of “techdemos” myself. Just picked up two of em some days ago and I’ll just finish em. I really want to create something (almost heh) perfect - something complete - something wich is all mine, my way of game mechanics, my style
Oh… and Martian Madness. Maybe you could have made an jump’n’run maker out of it for non programmers (w/o any actual content)? (Just an idea)
[quote]>I get a fair bit of stick for not finishing games
The techdemo syndrome ;D
It’s so common. You think about something, you try it, it’s fun… so fresh and new, then you are done and the parts wich were omitted are usually those, wich you’ve done a million times before.
But then again… what’s wrong with doing those 5% extra stuff?
[/quote]
Well, there’s a nice rule of thumb which says “95% : 5%” and actually means it takes 95% of the development time to finish the game, not 5%.
While your mentioned interesting tech parts are indeed diffcult (and I suck a lot at them), they make up the very smallest part of a complete game.
Putting all the small parts (*) toghether and having it run in a balanced way, that’s the art.
(*) For example the graphics engine of a game is a very small part of it; this doesn’t mean the engine was a trivial task but we’ve to see in its context.
For me its more like I produce 5%, the game engine etc, then get bored. The other 95% of producing content/media/marketing get left. From a pure technical point of view thats the interesting bit done.
Since I don’t do ego driven things by philosophy the benefit of finishing a game (of hobbiest standards) is only to the potential players. While, I’m sure its very selfish, I need to optimise what time I do get against the amount of enjoyment/learning I get out of tasks. If I was to finish everything I’d spend my life producing games for other people. Again, this sounds fairly selfish but I hope some of the bits and pieces are sorta useful to other folks.
I expect this would change when I find a game I both desperate to write and desperate to play. Don’t get me wrong, every time I start a game I intend to finish, but attention spans are what attention spans… um, are.
I guess it would change also should I be earning a living from it. I don’t see this happening in the future what with the UK games development market being on such an up
Maybe will be the one,
Kev
I find I am among a group that is probably fairly large. Like kev, I have about umpteen games that I have started, written a part of that was somewhat satisfying, then lose interest. Sometimes its lack of time and in more cases than I care to admit, not enough knowledge/skill to code a certain important part, then it gets tabled.
I really, truly want to make a graphical mud(not so massively multiplayer fantasy adventure with dragons and gnomes and dwarves, etc…but everytime I start a game, it somehow becomes space/starship oriented. Must be some of that childhood, want to be an astronaut or something!!
Yea, I know that rule.
But I didn’t ment reaching a totally perfect/polished state. Instead I just ment a playable state and/or a slightly refactored state (=the way it is right now minus the stuff wich is bs).
Of course, this is why the first requirement of anyone wanting to work in the industry is “finish a game, any game. Even if the gameplay sucks” since that will put you a lightyear (approximately, I haven/t measured it :P) ahead of everyone else.
Even better if you can complete two games.
Now there’s a shame, cause I’d just about convinced myself that trying to find a games job might be worth the time…
Spose I should see about finishing something, would have to be when I’m working on Mini Adventure tho, the game that has no end
Kev
In case you love games I suggest not to go into the full-scale games industry. Try to do it as hobby and/or part-time (next to another job, to earn the funding).
In any case, finish the started game: there’s nothing more fulfilling than a completed work (you’ll still learn very much).
(Like others stated, this is also a good reference, just in case you should dare to enter the full-scale games industry one day…)
The (very small) apps and (very small) game(s) I write in my spare time make me a million times more happy and fulfilled compared to the business work - well, you’re your own boss (*), choose your favourite language (Java!) and your favourite theme, timetable, etc. Also, whenever you encounter a (technical) problem you have got as much time to dig into as you need. Well, lovely.
My ultimate goal will be to have a part-time job for the funding (ideally not a computer related one so your health will say thank you) and to use the “more spare time” to write games. Independent games.
OK, now time again to go Easter. Have a nice fest!
(*) Suppose you’re married (with children), well, then there are several bosses… We all know this from … Al Bundy?
Oh and Kevin… selfish? Absolutly not.
It’s your spare time - it’s up to you what you do with it
I just think it’s a bit… hm… sad to leave a piece of technology in a state were it isn’t any usefull. You don’t like producing tons of content? Well, that’s fine.
Maybe someone else likes doing that and/or levels, writing dialoges etc. It’s for sure something I would have loved when I was younger. My bro and me often talked about doing levels for mario etc, but there weren’t any possibilities to do so.
Then there was Doom and DoomEd, but it was way to complicated. However, we managed building some (ultra ugly) levels. They weren’t fun or anything, but we were damn proud nontheless
[Even if you leveleditor sucks there will be people trying everything to get it working]
Getting something into a playable state can yield really nice feedback. Putting yourself into a positive-feedback-loop is one of the best things wich can happen. TinyRivers for example was whipped rather fast together. Getting it into somewhat playable wasn’t that hard either (since it’s a puzzle game heh). There were about 100-200 people who played it and I got lot’s of nice feedback. There were also guys wich played it for hours and got insane highscores (like 0:27’xxx :o).
Really. It’s great. You shouldn’t miss that (always)
Most everything I write gets to “playable” buts it a big jump to “complete”
Kev
[quote]Most everything I write gets to “playable” buts it a big jump to “complete”
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It doesn’t necessarly need to be a complete full blown game.
That mini adventure thingy you are doing for example. It would be in a usefull state, if non programmers could plug content into it.
You know… the most simple way with predefined directories. Maybe somthing like “scripts” (for the xml files), “graphics” (for y’know) and maybe “sounds” and “midi”. If any xml file is referred the game looks in the scripts dir, for graphics the graphics dir, wav/au/aiff/sou -> sounds and so on.
Add a little example and editor thingies (wich you will have by that time anyways) et voila - something usefull. It’s not a complete game, but it’s something wich could be turned into a complete game by almost everyone else
In that case, I have no problems Everything that gets public is always free source (note: not open source) and I always write editors first. For instance, martian madness source/editor/content is available publically. I just don’t happen to publicise it…
The next problem after you’ve released your block of code + editor + test content is that you then proceed to get requests for features and support even tho you’ve taken the step to go out and do something more interesting instead (remember “Why don’t you?”). I suspect its my problem but I hate saying no to support/help requests.
EDIT: Hey, I remember TinyRivers, it was neat! You fancy putting a description together and submitting it to the Java Games Foundry page? (http://grexengine.com/sections/externalgames/)
Kev
I suspect its my problem but I hate saying no to support/help requests.
Just put this kind of stuff into your readme (it’s from freelunchdesign’s Operation Spacehog level editor)
Haha. Ok maybe you would say it a bit nicer, but it does the trick
Hey, I remember TinyRivers, it was neat!
Thanks
You fancy putting a description together and submitting it
to the Java Games Foundry page?
Yea, I definitely will do that. However, I want to fix that flow glitch first and other minor things.
(500 posts! whoohooo!)