I am Not Good at Finishing Games

Hello,

I'm not good at finishing games.

  I've been a hobbyist game developer since around 2004.  I started out with Game Maker 4.1, moved on to Game Maker Studio eventually, and I branched out into using MonoGame, C++, and Python a bit eventually.  I'm a pretty okay programmer, and I've dabbled in a few languages.  I was really into modding Mount & Blade: Warband, and that community was really great.

Somehow though, even after like 15 years of sinking tons of time into game development, I don't have a lot of concrete stuff to show for it.

  I have no idea how many game projects I've started, and then how many I've even got to a point where they are playable and then even somewhat enjoyable.  But there are precious, precious few that could be considered anything near done.

Some of it has just been life.  I  joined the military for a time, then had a family.  Things that I wanted weren't as important to me for a while.  I totally accept these things, and I wouldn't change them if I could.

Some of it was bad luck.  I lost some hard drives years ago to theft and lightning damage, before "The Cloud" was there to rescue me.

The rest of it though, has been crap planning, lack of discipline and foresight, self-doubt, and abandoning ideas before they were ready to abandon me.  These things are just objectively terrible, and we can do something about them.

I'm embarking on a journey to get some shit done.  I know there's others out there with similar stories, and we're going to find ways to get the games out of the sketchbooks and into the hands of gamers.

Future posts are going to be a mix of Game Design theory, productivity boosters, discussing tools and programs, and exhumations of failed projects.  Once I kick myself into gear and fire up a project, I'll be doing developer diaries along the way.  I'll be providing links to developers and materials that I think are inspirational, and trying to find any material that might be helpful to people trying to become developers.

  I'm going to put together some blog posts for each of my more active projects, then I'll dig into the vaults and dredge up some of the more nebulous projects.

I seriously would love any and all comments, concerns, critiques, and criticisms anyone would like to share.  My development process over the last few years has been completely in a vacuum, and I really could use anyone's insight.

  Hopefully, seeing the length and breadth of time I have spent not finishing games will inspire me to get something together.

Let's make some games.