Breaking Point

[hallsofvallhalla]

For the last few years I have been working on games and getting little yield. Designing, coding, drawing, over and over again. It was fun and a learning experience but I think there is a breaking point within all of us that we need to see one of our games up and being played before we can go back to heavy game development.

I think I have hit that place. I need that boost to continue. I need to see a game of mine being played and I need to move from game design to bug fixing and community growth. Expansion design over world building. New classes over starting classes.

This comes at a bad time because I am on the brink of a fantastical PHP/Ajax design but I just do not have it in me to spend the next several months bringing it to fruition. I will most likely find a already built engine that needs repairs or upgrades and just alter it to my own design as I have been trying to do.

Would be willing to work with someone on this. I am searching in the dark depths of the internet for a 2d browser based open source project that has been buried by the dust of the 3d MMORPG craze. Allot of projects out there that fell by the way side as bigger and better games came through.

[Zyviel]

I think maybe you are putting too much pressure on yourself. You have already accomplished a lot with the games you have made and by the creation of this site with its tutorials and community.

I kind of compare what we are doing with an inventor working out of his garage. He comes up with inventions and they may be pretty nifty but maybe none have taken hold and have been a big success. But he enjoys creating these inventions so he keeps improving what he has or maybe he switches to a brand new invention.

I like playing games and I enjoy the Tolkien fantasy themes. Since the games coming out of late are beautiful but not very fun to me, I have decided to try and see if I can make something I would like to play.

Game making can be slow, hard work. But I am on a quest to make a fun game because its kind of become my hobby. IMO, hobbies are not just about accomplishing something but also about providing entertainment to yourself .

[Callan S.]

I feel sympathy on this. I might be wrong, but I think your shooting for the fantastical and that's what's getting in the way. Because each time you begin to master it, it become mundane code rather than the fantastical. The rainbow moves every time you get close. Is there something other than a fantastical engine breakthrough that you could shoot for?

I might be entirely wrong, please don't take offense, just saying out of concern, which may mean I'm way off.

[hallsofvallhalla]

thanks for the replies. Both were helpful. Even a inventor needs to see his inventions work. The problem with me is that I do not want fantastical, I want it to be exactly how I have it planned and we all know that is nearly impossible. Some limitation always gets in the way.

I have been working at completing my game for 4 years. I have released some things but not what I want. Guess it is just weighing on me. I will get through, I just think it will help me to have a game out there, not even a fantastical one. I will get there one day

[Jackolantern]

I honestly feel like I am in the same place, really. In the last few days I started writing up yet another design for a PHP MMO, this being my third one after scrapping two other designs mid-production. They either didn't seem fun enough, or blew up into huge designs that would take one person a year+ to create (tons of dynamic, player-created and run content, etc.). Now I like my new design so far, but again, it is expanding into a big project. I guess I am just worried that a simplistic PHP game won't be fun. Well that and I have a high standard for my projects that unfortunately is pushing them past what I should try to accomplish right now, with many more obligations coming up in the future.

So now I am torn on what to do. Do I just push on with my current PHP game design, even if it may take me over a year to get it half-way done considering my schedule, or do I move on to something else? I have been considering learning Flash for some time now, and have tried a couple of half-hearted attempts at learning it, but the design stuff always turns me off. The pros of it though are that I could actually create some smaller, one or two-week projects, such as a simple puzzle game with minimal art assets that could at least give me that "boost" that you are talking about Halls to stay focused on a larger project such as my PHP game. I could even just do one or two-day projects such as making simple page effects, or maybe even some graphical elements that could later be used in my web game.

I know it is not exactly the same situation, but I am getting that same "cross-roads" feeling that you have, and I am not sure what to do.

[OldRod]

I have been working at completing my game for 4 years.

Pfft! Amateur!

I have spent the weekend cleaning and organizing my computer room. I found some old CDs of code that I saved from a game I started 12 years ago... and never finished of course

[hallsofvallhalla]

haha nice, definitely got me there, as far as MMORPGs go yeah it has only been 4 years, pen and paper and board games go waaay back.

[OldRod]

I spent the summer of 1979 creating a D&D campaign so I'd be ready when the college term started up and my regular group got back together. Sitting in my recliner with graph paper, a calculator (I had a monster mark system I used) and legal pad... spent weeks designing that campaign. And it was fun

[hallsofvallhalla]

you are my hero. The old RP'rs know how to play.

was 87' or so before I started playing pen and paper.

[OldRod]

I miss playing... we had a group of 4 that played twice a week for over three years. Then college ended and we split up. I've never seen them since, and I moved to a small rural town where nobody plays

I wonder... is there an online group that plays? Like D&D by mail/post?