Project development stopped.

What are some issues preventing you from developing and finishing your project?


I'm curious.

My get up and go, has got up and gone.

But seriously (even though the above was serious), sourcing artwork is the big project killer, for me.

Same, except I rarely start projects that require art, mostly software, not games.

GFk, is it mainly 2d art you ca nt get the artists for or 3d. just curious.

Either, really. But most recently, 2D.

The problem is that they want paying! While I can accept that I have to wait until a game's finished to see the money start to flow, finding an artist to A) buy into the idea, B) work to see the project to completion and C) wait until the end to see any money, is a pretty big ask.

Nothing has stopped me so far, but I'll rephrase the question to "What is hampering me developing and finishing my product?"

Having to write my own game engine would be the first. If there had been a game engine even slightly suitable, I'd have got done much quicker. In the long run, it's probably better that there was no such engine, but that wasn't the question.

Finding artists would be my second. I've been very fortunate, and had a friend doing some pieces of art for the game, and at prices so low he should probably report a robbery to boot. He doesn't have the sort of time to devote to cover all the artwork though, and finding really good character artists who don't already have as much work as they can handle and more besides has been difficult.

Finding a good audio library has wasted quite a bit of time too. I kind of have one picked out now, but I'm still holding off making a final decision, hoping that something better will come along that won't run several thousand dollars per title.

My complete disability to produce 2D (or 3D) arts myself is the only reason why I am not programming games.

yeah GFK i se what you mean, if you are doing it yourself, any extra copst is a pain. its the same for me as I have lots of project ideas, but need coders to do them, but that will cost me. catch 22.

it not necessarily bad, but my biggest obstacle is that there is not more hours in the day. slicing the 24 hours up amongst my job, family, and private project work without any one affecting the other has become a very delicate ballet :)

My heart's just not in programming anymore, it's as simple as that. And I was never any good at it anyway. Writing fiction and the academic study of literature is my "thing" these days, and has been for some time.

There doesn't seem to be much need for decent writing in games. Gamers don't care much about decent stories, plots, dialogue or characterisation, which is fair enough. For this reason, the types of games that I would be interested in contributing to are by their very nature quite ambitious, experimental, and - crucially - fairly non-mainstream. I don't think that I could find anyone (specifically a programmer) who would want to work with me on stuff like this even if I had more time and motivation.

Also, to be quite honest, prior experience of the game industry has turned me off serious game development - it seems fairly soul destroying to me. Independed game development seems to inherit all the negative aspects of mainstream game development (you can't develop the types of games that you really want to make, insane working hours, it's a thankless job, etc,) but sours the experience further with the notable absence of a regular pay cheque.

So there you go, these are my excuses. Oh, and I'm a lazy arse.

Lack of time and attention are my two biggest problems.

I'll be a good way into programming a new idea when I think of a better one.

Life issues. Money.

Mostly an intertwined thing.

Art work (2D) is the biggy for me, but not only drawing the art itself, trying to find an appropriate style for a game and keeping it consistant thoughout the game is a right nightmare.

I would pay an artist to do work for me, but over the years, after contacting a fair few, I've give up... It seems every artist I approach is snowed under.

I've struggled in my current project with art work... Qube give me a hand which helped bundles and its close to being finished... Well, I had a mini break from it and explored different avenues which was good... But I want it out of the way now so I can move on to something else which I have in the pipeline, more notably:-

http://www.denathorn.co.uk/Files/gw0_0_0_3.zip
(L/R arrow keys and ESC to exit if you have a peek)

2D artwork is the killer for me. Trying to find an artist willing to work for free on a freeware game is next to impossible.

My wife...

The girlfriend, my dayjob and Team morale.

After 18 months, it only takes a week or so of not getting anywhere for the three of us to start feeling like crap. I've now designated 3 days a week to help on my side, and on those days, I do ONLY work. It helps!

We're all pretty excited as we get closer to completion too, and that ray of light also keeps you going.

There's no doubt about it though, Priorities change as you get older, I used to sit for 18 hours a day working on game engines in the hope I could attract an artist, That bit paid off in the end! But now, I have a job, a house, a Girlfriend, all of which require time.

And I can't take 3AM bedtimes as well as I used to, makes me sick pretty darn quickly!

A lot of what has already been said I think applies to most projects:

1) "Coder Art" and "Coder Music" (substandard creative assets because they are all created by one person) are not considered acceptable these days and very few of us have the money to pay the going rate for these assets.

2) The amount of time required vs the other (much more important to me) things I need to do with that time.

3) Most of the things I wanted to see have now been done by professional studios 1000 times better than I could have done them.

4) The fact that I'm not very good at programming in the first place.

5) The standard of free and very cheap games that are available is very high, this is also fueled by abandonware.

6) The gap between the amount of work, resources and money required to make a mainstream game and the amount of resources available to a bedroom coder has grown hugely.

7) I think for larger scale projects Blitz is no longer the right tool. Blitz 3D is too old and outdated, BlitzMax doesn't have the ease of use of Blitz 3D. I've gone towards Java myself these days which seems like a better choice than BlitzMax.

etc.

I still use Blitz for what I bought it for, writing quick utility programs that do simple functions I need them to do. I've always felt the main strength with Blitz is that you can knock off something pretty quickly to do something useful or impressive. Some of the things people have done "for fun" or as little samples of code, or just to help others, have really blown me away.

Gradually though even this functionality is being eroded as applications that need this kind of functionality gain it or other web based applications take over.

For example, one of my first Blitz programs ever was used to manage and update workstations with anti-virus updates because the software we had deployed to a large number of seats didn't have this functionality and the company wouldn't pay for it to be updated. These days it's unthinkable that any anti-virus solution wouldn't have that functionality built-in so that program is obsolete.

Like most things in life it's not what you have at the end of it, but the journey that is the most valuable thing; and for that I'm happy with Blitz and grateful to those involved with it.

Darkheart

The GF, kid, dayjob, learning a new engine before i can do anything with it..
That kind of thing.

we all just seem to be aiming too high for one man projects. Maybe this website needs to list members available for free part-time work on projects to get some teams going. Working in a team allows you to plan bigger more impressive games and you have constant reminders from the rest of the team to keep you going.

niggling problems that crop up, change one bit of code and it breaks ten more. Seems like an endless battle.

Modelling used to be an issue for me (those that knew me from the early days will know where im coming from here) but im getting much better now.

The main problem I see is artwork, music and sound effects as the killers of any project.

I am currently whacking ahead with Elite Multiplayer (been doing that since Blitz3d was released) and learning OpenGL with DevC++

I agree with you Andy.

I mainly write games that I like so I have something to play and I make them available to others. Since I love the retro-style, well the graphics are a bit easier to work with, but some art (SNES era) is still hard.

Wanting graphics that don't look like they've just fallen out of a dog's bottom, isn't 'aiming too high'.

Unless your game is all about poo? Mr Hanky game?

I have the same kind of problems as Dave here, I can write game engines pretty easily. But I get bored of creating media that just doesn't look good and then give up on the rest of it because the game looks crap. Likewise once the engine is done you then need to create levels, which require media... blah blah blah...

Hello.

I've just really fallen out of the programming frame of mind, ironically since I passed my MSc. I'm slowly getting into c# but that's mainly for work purposes.

I think, as has been said above, that perhaps as small teams we're aiming too high; however, consumers expectations are so much higher now that it's difficult not to set our sights at that level.

I'm not speaking from a great deal of experience but I don't see the 'unable to source graphics' as a genuine reason to not complete a game. Placeholders - especially in 2d - can be used and then the 'prototype' can be passed to an artist to work with. I also appreciate that's not going to be the case in all situations.

Goodbye.

Of course its genuine reason. I never had trouble completing games before, when the artists were already paid for.

As for placeholders; just.... no. I mean its all very well writing an entire game with placeholder graphics, then trying to find an artist at the end. But what happens if you take a year to write the game then can't find an artist to do the job? That's a lot of time you wasted, and personally I think life is just a little too short to be throwing it away.

I agree with GFK, people seem to think artists are as readily available as dog poop.

Another thing is your more inclined to work on a game that looks good as your coding it than one that looks like a Tetris FPS game with blocks everywhere for different items.

^^ What he said.

Hello.

Well then perhaps the game isn't worth providing graphics for? How many times has it been said on this forum that gameplay is the important factor, not the graphics? Surely as the programmer (or developer, if you prefer) you can see past the graphics. If the game is good enough then surely you could find a single artist that you could sell the game concept too?

Again, I'm not speaking from a huge deal of experience here but I think that 'lack of media' is not the strongest reason for not completing a game.

Goodbye.

Personal experience is finding an artist willing to work for free is near impossible and it is not cost effective to spend hundreds on an artist for a freeware game.

At least with 3D, there are a multitude of model packs out there to buy. With 2D, there is literally only a handfull of sprite packs being sold.

there are so many good games around right now that have very simple graphics that any non-artist could do.

Look at titles such as : N+ on Xbox 360, or Geometry wars, darwinia, defcon.

It's sometimes just a matter of building your project around what skills you have.

I'm wanting to write a double-dragon clone, but I know I don't have the skills to draw it all and make it look good, so I'm thinking of different ways to make the graphics, maybe use a southpark style look or something using primitive shapes. There's always ways of getting round resourcing problems as long as you're willing to change the game design to accomodate them.

I can remember (when I had some spare time approaching)offering my art time in an old thread to a major moaner in this particular thread and not even getting a reply!!

Your location would probably put off a lot of people. I'm very wary of letting my software anywhere near Romania/Ukraine/Russia given that piracy is as widespread and commonly accepted there as breathing is.

So, whoever it was that didn't reply to your offer, was maybe ignoring it out of politeness.

The problem with placeholders I've found is that unless the artist then takes the placeholder and mimics the exact stride length, animation frames, proportions etc you then need to bugger about with your code again. Likewise placeholders may not have the animations you require.

Placeholders have their place (no pun intended) but as main characters in the game or trying to inspire the programmer to actually want to make the game they're utterly limited.

Well I would have thought anyone who may have locked antlers with me around here in the past might know by now I'm an English man simply escaped PC Britain!...and good riddance some might say..but even so, it's actually much more polite to reply.

Anyhow - water under the bridge and all that. I'm way too busy with my own stuff to help anybody out just now.

Saying it a bunch of times doesn't make it true. Graphics are king - if you want your game to sell, that is.

top selling game on XBLA arcase was N+, which has simple graphics, and look at Tetris.
The list goes on, champ manager, Dr. Kawashikis Brain Training on DS, Loads of WII games.

hey N+ has very stylized graphics and a great input handling :)

Sometimes what you want to make doesn't include low end graphics.

Maybe that's when you just need to accept defeat and either try to get a team together or just move onto something simpler. I would've thought that indie coders would appriciete that they can't write high end graphics games without a lot of help. That's just how it is. You could always hire cheap artistic labour from korea or india or somewhere just as cheap. There's some websites around to do that sort of thing.

I have plenty of obstacles that *could* get in the way of my project each day, but guess what? I simply don't let them. If you let them stop you then you don't want to succeed enough, it's as simple as that. Martial artists and sports people (and millionaires) know this, but many people fail to apply it to various aspects of their own lives.

I've just had a "mastermind" meeting with some good friends where we all look at positive ways to leverage our businesses, and coming to this thread I realise that some of you may need some help in changing mindset. So I've made a blog post about it which I hope that some of you may find useful. Please try to approach it with an open mind instead of "this doesn't apply to me" :-)

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/how-can-i-overcome-game-development-obstacles/

Enjoy! (Took me ages when I should have been making my game instead - oh the irony)

We have a team of 3 working together on Flow. One problem of working in a team on an unfinished engine is that everyone is constantly reliant on each other for things to move on. It only takes one person to be down and out for the whole team to lag behind and morale to start to drop.

Sometimes it seems like 3 people attached together with bungie cord trying to pull each other together. If one lags behind everyone else gradualy slows down and within 3 days things can grind to a halt and take as long again to reorganize and get back upto speed.

Communication is most important, plus scheduling and prioritising tasks in a way that everyone has something to do.

One of our team is more or less homebound for medical reasons, and everyone is reliant on her continued progress, so it can be tough on many fronts.

I often miss the days when we had a ready made engine and just had to make do with what tools we were given :).

Well, I've asked here before for a quote from an artist, I've asked over at SyntaxBomb, and emailed various artists from Indiegamer AND gamedev and yet... Nothing!

Maybe I'm approaching them wrong, I dont know... But I've tried and will pay for someone to knock out some images for me, but if people dont want the work, what can I do... And that is an obstacle that I just cannot seem to get over or under.

what sort of images do you want?
on topic. the thing that stops me is lack of software to get animated 3d models to and from maya and lack of ability and time to create my ideas.

I am with Dabhand, of if I do find an artist, the prices are very unreasonable for a freeware game.

As GFK says "Get up and go". And a job thats made me go gray 10 years before my time.

Tho two or three times a year. I do find "some go" to do abit more.

Do you list the kind of stuff you want done. I for one love scrabble type games if they are any good. My wife and I often compete across the room with games like scrabble blast and scrabble cubes :). Pretty much the only shareware games I play.

Character animation, static/animated tilemap images (32px*32px) of various themes, bitmap fonts... the usual really, and if something crops up which I think would be cool in a game, then it would be nice if the artist in question to accommadate it within a reasonable time scale (Obviously, at a cost)

But alas, its easier getting a reliable plumber than an artist! ;)

Dabz

@Evak... Check out my projects page at my website (below) :)

Subcontractors.

Totally agree about placeholders. Maybe i'm just a weak minded person, but playing through your creation, using a cone as the main character and a level made out of cubes really makes you want to give up.

SO, i've started making my own media. Substandard stuff though, but its better than placeholders and inspires you! Obviously if your trying to make money, it's really not the way to go, as it will increase the length of your project exponetially.

@ Ross, yeah, I know exactly where your coming from. I've always liked dabbling in B3D, okay, m,aybe the gameplay sux, but I managed to create my own little slice of fort block and drive my own 8? wheeled rig over it! joy. http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=74488#832122

So there's plenty of 3d but no 2d resources available? Just get the 3d, then do that thing where the 2d slides are made from 'screenshots' of the 3d image at different frames. I've seen a program that can do this before, and it's certainly not the only one. Before computers could handle pure 3d games comfortably, 2dised 3d spirtes were quite common.

what stops me from working on my projects:

levels - I've got no imagination when it comes to these, and I lose interest fast when all I'm doing is staring at a blank page with pencil in hand and no ideas come flowing.

gameplay - most (not all) of the various games/gamelets I've worked on have had very poor gameplay. While I see nothing wrong with simple gameplay in and of itself, however there needs to be enough 'options' for the player in a game to make it engaging. Coming up wth this is hard.

HUD Graphics - the various 2d icons/buttons/text images I cannot do myself. Things like avatars & environments aren't too much of a problem if I stick with certain genres - for characters and environments websites like daz3d come in handy for rendering animated humans and detailed fancy environments.

Also - I no longer spend much time on my PC, have been finding real life is worth more to me than sitting at a desk in front of a pc for hours on end.

i thought i posted in this thread before:

work/life ballance is tilted the wrong way
weve got more work on now so im doing 12 hour days with MANDATORY over time (not that i mind the extra dosh i just dont like getting home around half 6/7 and just wanting to sleep or being late for my night class when it was on)

place holder GFX isnt an issue for one game (my deflektor hommage) and tbh i havnt got an idea of what would be next as i have to start from scratch with b3d which im not finding the time to do at the moment

although years ago i thought of timelining video games doing my own pong > breakout > space invaders > etc
but doing that id just be yet another in a billion of each of those games

Me is what stops me working on projects.

Time - meaning life, wife & two kids (1 & 4 years old). And the fact that I'm already Art Lead @ professional game studio... after doing the dream job 8 hours a day there is often little juice left to push forward my own projects because that would mean burning some serious midnight oil. I rather sleep! :)

Blitz3D is also so outdated techwise that it doesn't make you tinker with it for that reason... and also limits what kind of (game) projects you can do with it, if you want to be commercially successful too. Casual-blow-the-diamond-whatever games are just not interesting for me.