[HN Gopher] Finishing my first game while working full-time
___________________________________________________________________
Finishing my first game while working full-time
Author : ntide
Score : 378 points
Date : 2021-11-04 13:21 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (jasont.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (jasont.co)
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| Working full time, married with three kids. I know this well.
| I've had a business acquired, write blog posts, writing a book
| series, have taught courses and more....by far the most common
| question is "How do you do that?"
|
| For me, it really is as simple as....I just go to work hours
| early to work on those things, because I enjoy them. When I get
| home, I'm just a dad and a husband.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| I'll read and upvote your take on this rather than OPs, because
| your story is closer to the reality for most people. No offence
| to OP but when you've no kids, mortgage and household
| responsibilities, it's not that hard to do a side hustle.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Were the parent's activities "side hustles" or were they his
| main hustle for various intervals? It's a little unclear. In
| either case, those side-hustles seem pretty lucrative--it's
| harder IMO when your side-hustle is just for fun.
| pddpro wrote:
| > You need to focus, scope right, relentlessly break work down
| into bite-sized tasks, and create a rock-solid habit of getting
| things done.
|
| This is my only takeaway from the article. I think it's well-
| written but I also found it vague. Finding implicit joy is such
| an abstract thing that has no set formulae to it. I am glad that
| the author was able to complete his game.
| yeureka wrote:
| I have been working on a game as a side project for 10 years now.
| Why such a long time? It started when I was freelancing and
| carried on through full-time jobs, a marriage and now a small
| child. I am lucky if I can get one hour a day to work on it - but
| as others mentioned here, the best time to work on it is before
| your main job, otherwise I am too tired to code after a full day
| of software development, childcare, and home chores. I really
| wish I can finish it some day and show it here.
| q_andrew wrote:
| Something surprising I've noticed while developing my own side
| project game is that I end up being a better marketer than
| developer. I can only work on the game while I'm at home and 'in
| the zone', but I can post screenshots on social media at any time
| of the day. The consequence is that I have a larger-than-
| anticipated fanbase who are starting to get confused about why
| the promotional material flows freely while development time
| appears to slog.
| dicroce wrote:
| Here are my side project tips:
|
| 1) As the article states, work on your side project first in the
| morning before your work. You will be too tired after work. Yes,
| this means your not really giving 100% at work. Hopefully your
| good enough at your job that this is OK.
|
| 2) Create little task lists, with short little tasks... Then
| knock those tasks out one by one. If you find yourself
| procrastinating about some task do another little task first,
| then later make a quick spur of the moment decision to go do the
| procrastination task.
|
| 3) It's OK to dream about the best case scenario, but also have
| realistic side goals: "worst case scenario, I've built a cool
| engine for my next project."
|
| 4) DO create the right amount of tests (too little and your going
| to be creating buggy crap code, too many and you're bogged down
| updating your tests constantly)... get a feel for what your right
| amount is.
|
| 5) Don't type so much, think more... think through designs... use
| paper, be messy and redraw... all of this is faster than building
| the wrong thing.
|
| 6) I think its OK to be quirky. Make the thing YOU want to make.
| This is another way to monetize: your mental health is worth a
| lot and personally I find bringing shit that I want to exist into
| the world just the way I want them to be is a good trick for
| staying happy.
| neokya wrote:
| Creating small task lists seem to be the way to go.
|
| Does anyone know what app the author is using to create nested
| tasks for 'lightweight sprint'?
| secondstring wrote:
| Notion
|
| https://notion.so/
| Sammi wrote:
| "Create little task lists, with short little tasks"
|
| Yeah I tried that. The side coding projects I have are things
| I'm not good at yet and want to get better at, so they are this
| big pile of "I have no idea yet until I try", and that does not
| break down into neat short little tasks to knock off in an hour
| before work. They need deep concentration and focus in order
| for me to learn and figure out what the hell I should do.
| umvi wrote:
| I've done it with a full time job and two kids[0]. Here's my
| $0.02
|
| For me I had to constantly reign in the scope to be a minimum
| viable game. I would let my imagination run wild and come up with
| all these grand ideas for an overarching plot, etc. But the
| project gets really hard to finish after you've done the fun bits
| like getting the main gameplay mechanics implemented and there's
| a big stretch of grunt work ahead ("the last 20% takes 80% of the
| work"). It's easy to let it languish and never ship/release.
| That's when you need to re-evaluate what it takes to achieve a
| minimum viable game and ruthlessly reign in the scope.
|
| Tell yourself "I can implement all my other grand ideas if this
| minimum viable game proves successful" - and you can. And if it
| isn't very successful, then you can move onto the next
| project/idea.
|
| [0] https://www.bryanpg.com/games/embergram
| failrate wrote:
| My trick is to spend 15 minutes per day minimum working on the
| side project.
| awkward wrote:
| Keeping a task board, written documents about the planned goal,
| and all of the other project ephemera can be a great way to
| keep up this kind of 15 minute momentum.
| chadcmulligan wrote:
| this is the way I think - a writer writes, always. its many
| authors recipe for success.
| boplicity wrote:
| Not discussed in the article: You have to have the support of the
| people in your life this will impact. For example, the 7-9am
| timeslot for working, as listed in the article, will impact my
| family, as that is when I'm getting the kids up and off to
| school. OK, so I could move it to 5am to 7am, but that would mean
| I'd need to go to bed earlier, which eliminates important evening
| time with my wife. Similarly, I could do it from 8pm to 10pm, but
| that also affects my relationship with my wife, and my social
| life in general.
|
| This isn't to say that people with a family can't do these
| things, but that you need to acknowledge the impact it will have
| on other people, and plan with them to make it work. For example,
| I often make the time for my wife to work on her novels between
| 7pm and 9pm. I get the kids to bed and do some cleaning, while
| she writes, and we still get to connect before sleep.
| fitzn wrote:
| I totally agree with your perspective. It reminds of an essay
| pg wrote (http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html) about having
| kids, and I think the principles are similar to yours. You can
| be successful and "do it all", but you might have to modify
| "all" _a bit_ and you have to be very disciplined and honest
| about your trade-offs.
| sershe wrote:
| The meta is that if you add something to your life, and you
| don't currently have a lot of time when you are just bored,
| something will have to suffer.
|
| I was wondering why I was often stressed out even though my
| life was good and I mostly did the things I want to do. Years
| ago, I had 3 things in my life - work, rock climbing, and
| coding/reading/videogames ("geeking out"), and I was never
| stressed for time. Then I got married, so now spending time
| with my wife became another thing. For a few years, it just so
| happened by itself that I've been coding, reading or playing
| videogames very little - turns out I could only fit 3.2 things
| in my life, not 4, something had to give. That actually made me
| stressed out and I didn't understand why... When I did,
| becoming more organized and wasting less time upped it to maybe
| 3.5, so now I can read a book/code/geek out now and then. But,
| alas, not as much as I would want.
|
| That's one of the main reasons I'll never have kids - there's
| just no way I can handle 5 things, and I don't think I'd want
| any of the remaining ones to suffer for the payoffs (well,
| maybe work, but not just yet). That is also why you cannot add
| game making to your life without sacrifice...
|
| EDIT: fixed some grammar
| Sammi wrote:
| When you start valuing new things, then you automatically
| stop having time to value the things you valued before. So
| you stop valuing them. Because your values changed.
|
| So let your values change. You'll be the richer in the end.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I'm not going to tell you that you should have kids, but my
| experience is that I can still have time for "geeking out" if
| I do it with my kids. This is going to vary depending on
| their age, but currently they like to watch me play games, so
| I pick games based on what I think they will enjoy.
|
| Similarly, it's fun to read a book around the same time as my
| wife, and then we can have a sort of "book club" discussion.
|
| If I want to play something too scary for kids, I sacrifice
| sleep, so you win some you lose some lol.
| EarthLaunch wrote:
| Health is also a factor. Health issues can take up 1 of those
| 'thing' slots, another thing to spend time researching and
| working around. I've seen it happen unexpectedly to a friend,
| and it was a normal part of my life for a long time. Health
| can also include preventative things like exercise and diet,
| which require mental effort (research, willpower).
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| It can take all of them up for some people.
| klik99 wrote:
| Yeah, something has to give, I have the exact problem you have.
| Currently my weekday sleep suffers. There is no right way to do
| it, but you have to acknowledge the trade offs and make your
| decision knowing the impacts. So many people want to have their
| cake abs eat it, and usually get the worst outcome.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Relevant article that covers this:
| https://blog.asmartbear.com/two-big-things.html
| mattlondon wrote:
| Totally agree with this. I am woken by my kid at 6am, then it
| is 100% go-go-go with work or family until about 7pm when the
| kid goes to bed, then it is starting to cook and prepare dinner
| and do housework etc. There might be 2 hours or so between
| dinner and bed to spend time with my wife before we collapse
| into bed at 10pm or so - talk, watch a movie, play scrabble or
| whatever. I don't want to ignore her and just do my own thing -
| it is important to nurture these sort of relationships.
|
| If I _do_ get some spare time that is entirely mine, the
| absolute _last_ thing I want to do is more work - one needs to
| relax! Go for a run, watch a movie, do some coding for fun,
| play a game, or just waste time on youtube or whatever - I don
| 't want to be "hustling" a side project.
|
| I could stay up later after the wife has gone to bed, but that
| is going to harm me long-term by trading sleep for side-
| projects that in reality are not going to change my life as
| much as long-term sleep deprivation is going to change my life.
| That said I do occasionally from time-to-time stay up late to
| have a beer and mess around on the computer - I think that is
| healthy in the long run :)
| fileeditview wrote:
| Funny how much that sounds like my life :)
|
| It took me some time to work out that with 2 kids now I just
| don't have the time for side projects anymore. It is
| impossible. My oldest is also a person that needs very little
| sleep. He stopped regular daily naps when he was about 6
| months old. In the beginning of daycare (2 yo) he was the
| only kid in daycare that didn't sleep during the day. He also
| never goes to sleep before 9pm. In summer it often is 10pm or
| even later.
|
| When he finally sleeps both my wife and me are just wasted.
| Not ever could I find energy or motivation to "work" after
| that.
|
| However I still have hope for the future. When the kids grow
| older and do more for themselves there will be opportunities
| to write some fun code on the side :)
| boplicity wrote:
| Our youngest was the same way! Things _will_ get better! At
| least, in terms of sleep. She actually sleeps in now. Even
| better, on the weekends, when both kids wake up before us,
| they just _play together_ for an hour, instead of waking us
| up. It was truly a strange feeling, when that started
| happening.
| fileeditview wrote:
| Good to hear! That is reassuring.
|
| Most parents don't really understand what we are dealing
| with since their kids sleep much longer (2,3 hours more).
| This was even more extreme when he was little. When we
| told people that he wasn't sleeping at daytime they had
| this strange look as in "that is not possible".
|
| However he learned walking and talking pretty early so he
| used his extra time it seems ;)
|
| While it is a challenge I always remind myself how lucky
| I am to have two healthy kids. Sounds like a trope but it
| really is true.
| the_svd_doctor wrote:
| That's like a c/p of my life. Amazing.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Even after 'bedtime for the kids', it's still never ending.
| They need to get up for the bathroom, or for a drink of
| water, or want more stories, or want to turn on the light and
| play in the room... Neverending! My only alone time is when I
| !@#@#%! sleep.
| mayapugai wrote:
| Congratulations! It's always refreshing to see someone use
| simple, readily available tools to level-up.
|
| I don't know how many people will relate to this, but while I've
| known that scheduling time will help me get things done, I keep
| avoiding actually getting around to it. It's as though I am
| afraid to face my own impending success.
|
| You've motivated me to try and get things done though - thank you
| and congrats once again!.
| toivo wrote:
| havent shipped a side project, but i do keep track of my project
| so i can say with some certainty what things have helped me to
| accomplish the most. they are the following 1) the no zero days
| mantra - 15 minutes a day of progress is fine it helps to keep
| the momentum going and when you got that free sunday you just
| find yourself wroking more. 2) i do keep also a lot of trail of
| notes of ideas and concerns on how to further the project. if I
| have to keep a break and come back to it after some time it helps
| to remind my self where i was.
| tmountain wrote:
| Bite sized tasks are great. Finding the motivation to start the
| next task is also important. If you want to read a chapter of a
| book, start by reading the first sentence. This naturally leads
| towards getting into flow, and the next thing you know, you've
| read three chapters. The brain tends to engage readily once you
| get over the initial hurdle of beginning the task.
| parksy wrote:
| The way I did it was I was writing music and doing pixel art
| since the 90's and learning to write games on the side. One day I
| decided to take all the assets I'd built up over 30 years and
| condense them into the simplest game I could complete on the side
| and that's how I made Space Strafer. I think if I had to start
| from scratch with all the music, art, and concepts it would have
| been impossible, what with having kids and all.
| honksillet wrote:
| Don't forget the opportunity cost of taking on such a project.
| You could be hiking, exercising, working on relationships,
| family.
| evancoop wrote:
| Personal agency requires a sober assessment of priorities.
| Everything has an opportunity cost. Certainly, a full-time job
| and a non-trivial side project takes from self-care and family.
| Certainly, self-care and family (and sleep!) can preclude side-
| hustles.
|
| The important element is making the choice with clear eyes.
| kuu wrote:
| How do you spend more hours sitting at your desk after 8 hours of
| sitting at your desk?
|
| I really would like to do more things at my PC, but whenever I
| finish with my work I'm drained
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Scope! You must define the scope of the game from the beginning,
| and it'll often be the case that your goals far exceed the
| practical limits of what you can code.
|
| This is OK, as long as you know you're dreaming too big, but then
| you need MVGs, minimal pieces of the project that are playable
| games. If you need a giant world just to get started playing,
| you'll not get started playing.
| ca6d8815 wrote:
| Good tips... but in reality if you're working full-time
| (especially in a software related role), you may find yourself
| depleted before you get to the keyboard.
|
| It took us 5 years to finish our game (everyone started from 0
| knowledge on how to make games, so it was a rocky road), and for
| the last 1.5-2 years my life was absolute hell.
|
| I'd push hard at work for 9 hours a day, eat, then push hard on
| the side project for 8-9 hours a day, sleep, wake up, and just
| keep going. One day a week maybe I'd just sleep. Not having "pure
| energy" for the side project meant that everything suffered.
|
| We had to learn-by-trial virtually _everything_, I don't
| recommend ever doing a big project that way.
|
| If you want to finish a game, choose a small game. Start doing
| game jams. Practice _finishing_. You can do more and more later.
|
| Or, go for it, do it our way, all in to win (win is subjective,
| the pride is real, the monetary result didn't really do anything
| meaningful for so much investment). I wouldn't do it this way
| again, but I understand people who do.
|
| All that said, the joy of doing something for us by us is not
| something I've encountered in my 15 year career yet. So... if
| you've never built something (and truly finished!), but you want
| to try... go for it.
| [deleted]
| devwastaken wrote:
| For games we don't have to start from scratch either. If you
| want a little multiplayer game people can have fun in, vrchat
| is a good platform for it. Gets the game into the hands of
| people and you can even just join them. A lot of stuff already
| handled for you.
| ffitch wrote:
| Sounds like very intense five years! I understand you wouldn't
| do it the same way again, but still, was the result in any
| meaningful way comparable to the effort?
|
| Do you feel comfortable sharing game name?
| ca6d8815 wrote:
| Yes, the result was something I have never achieved. I've
| been a part of a lot of projects, successful and not, but
| always as a participant and not as a true stakeholder.
|
| Going from start to finish on something, and then getting the
| opportunity to hear from fans (and critics alike), it is
| still making me smile a year and a half after launch.
|
| When they say "money isn't everything" in this case its true,
| but I had I (and still have) a day job. If I had bet the
| monetary-farm on the project, I'd be singing a different
| tune.
|
| The game name is "The Shattering", there's a link below
| somewhere to it on Steam :)
| e19293001 wrote:
| > Practice _finishing_. You can do more and more later.
|
| This struck me. Thank you for the reminder.
| afterburner wrote:
| You worked 18 hours a day? Yes that is obviously hell.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Agreed. It's a LOT difficult to finish something, especially
| something to sell.
| capableweb wrote:
| > I'd push hard at work for 9 hours a day, eat, then push hard
| on the side project for 8-9 hours a day, sleep, wake up, and
| just keep going. One day a week maybe I'd just sleep.
|
| No wonder you feel like hell, where is time for people,
| leisure, exercising and all the other activities that will help
| you move faster by feeling better? The true optimization for
| becoming a more efficient person is to do less of the thing
| you're doing most of, and do more of the other stuff you do
| less of.
| the_only_law wrote:
| This has been my line of thought for a while. You spend a
| minimum of 8 hours working, and ideally you get 6-8 hours of
| sleep. Let's say you have a couple more daily
| responsibilities that take 2-4 (could be commute, cleaning,
| some other maintenance).
|
| There's almost no time to do anything, and some of the hours
| you have left may be at non-prime times of the day.
|
| > The true optimization for becoming a more efficient person
| is to do less of the thing you're doing most of, and do more
| of the other stuff you do less of.
|
| The problem is this means sleep or work. I've opted for the
| former, and suffer for it. Sacrificing working, at least any
| notable amount, just means trading time-loss for money-loss
| which may or may not work depending on person.
| friedman23 wrote:
| In my experience, sacrificing sleep is extremely counter
| productive. You could probably cut out 1 to 2 hours of
| work, get 8 hours of sleep a night and be just as effective
| at your job as you would have been getting 6 hours of sleep
| a night.
| threatripper wrote:
| 10 hours work 2 hours commute 8 hours sleep 2 hours food
| and maintenance leaves 2 hours to do all the rest.
| throwaway2331 wrote:
| One simple trick to exit the labor class; investment
| banking MDs hate him; "how can one man achieve so much?":
|
| Work less, but keep clocking the same amount of hours.
|
| A lot easier to do with WFH, but still achievable if you're
| in an office cubicle.
|
| Impossible to do if you work a trade/labor-intensive job.
| bobobob420 wrote:
| Or open office where everyone can see your triple monitor
| screen and it's a company work station so you literally
| can't do anything else, can't even open a personal
| laptop. Any cellular data reception is very bad.
| cardosof wrote:
| Just wanted to mention that this is getting harder and
| harder - companies will just let you use their approved
| hardwared, full of monitoring software to keep you in
| line. And it will get much worse, as in Mana by Marshall
| Brain
| feoren wrote:
| That is literally illegal, at least at my job.
| Zababa wrote:
| I've heard this called before the "4 hour life", you have 4
| hours every day for yourself:
| https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-
| glossary-4740bca641...
| philh wrote:
| This doesn't acknowledge weekends, which if you have the
| same 8 hours sleep and 4 hours "not for yourself", add
| more than 50% to the time you supposedly have "for
| yourself". (4x5 + 12x2 vs 4x7.)
|
| Which doesn't necessarily change the point, but I'm not
| sure what if anything the point is supposed to be, and it
| seems an important omission.
| andrewzah wrote:
| Weekends aren't necessarily free time.
|
| Saturdays and Sundays are chore days, or family days, or
| simply resting, or ...
|
| About 4h remaining for yourself is still fairly
| realistic.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Don't usually have much extra time on the weekends.
| Weekends are for making up for a week of the house
| getting dirty, relatives and friends wanting to meet,
| extra long walks for the dogs that only got short walks
| during the week, errands that got put off, some catchup
| sleep, actually relaxing a bit since there wasn't much
| during the week, etc.
|
| I might have 2-3 hours each day (of energy and
| motivation) to work on projects but not 8. Of course I
| never have 4 hours during the week either, I'm lucky to
| get 1 in usually.
| penjelly wrote:
| youre not alone. Unless i actively maintain my apartment
| itll deteriorate over the week (i even meal prep weekends
| to alleviate some) i do agree with others though. More
| time spent disengaging from the work your doing may
| actually net you a positive in the productivity dept
| Zababa wrote:
| I assume that for most people the "not for yourself" time
| is bigger on the weekends, it is for me and the people
| around me.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Indeed. In my case, ever since I became a parent, I
| consider weekends a total write-off.
| ericmcer wrote:
| I wouldn't mind if it was my 4 best hours a day, but it's
| the 4 hours after work and dinner when my energy levels
| allow for a half effort workout and a bit of reading or
| TV.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| One of the best things I did for myself was moving all of
| that free time to the morning. Now I wake up at 5, have
| coffee, exercise, play or work on whatever hobby has my
| attention at the moment, then work all day. I have loads
| of focus and attention and energy for my fun things.
|
| Evening is pretty much make dinner, eat, relax for a bit
| and be in bed reading by 8.
| prawn wrote:
| This can be a good strategy until you have young kids.
| After then, they often hear you get up and then seek you
| out to get help making breakfast or want to sit on your
| lap.
|
| But otherwise, it prioritises your side project while
| you're fresh in the morning and puts relaxing
| (movie/TV/etc) for when you're fading at the end of the
| day.
| cecilpl2 wrote:
| That's a good point - I don't have kids and don't have
| any good advice on how to work around them. :)
| stevofolife wrote:
| Generally true. The next step of optimization would be
| automating parts of your job so you can reduce 8 hours of
| work to like 6 hours of work. Now you have more time for
| yourself.
| Zababa wrote:
| Well, unless your job requires you to be present for 8
| hours, in which case it's harder to use those 2 new
| hours.
| penjelly wrote:
| except in practice this never works. you cant automate
| all tasks, even as a programmer a lot of time is spent
| architecting or debugging, even requirements gathering in
| some cases. Those details aside, if you automated hours
| of your job away youd then be asked to do more work (or
| if you own the place youd probably want to improve your
| product more anyway) instead of just sitting around
| working on your own projects during business hours, which
| some businesses would fire you for or at least theyd
| claim your work as their intellectual property.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| Even if you don't go as far as working on side projects
| at work, automating even 30min-1hr worth of manual tasks
| can leave you less exhausted when you get home.
| taneq wrote:
| So you can do 2 more hours of work, you mean?
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| > _No wonder you feel like hell, where is time for people,
| leisure, exercising and all the other activities that will
| help you move faster by feeling better?_
|
| You can't do all of that and have a job and also make
| significant progress on a side project. There isn't enough
| time in the day.
|
| https://blog.asmartbear.com/two-big-things.html
| awkward wrote:
| Keeping the side project work different from day to day work is
| huge, too.
|
| - Frameworks are great when you need to keep a team to a
| standard, and keep standardized answers available. There's no
| way I'm going to debug someone else's dependency errors on my
| own time though.
|
| - Dev tools and automation are nice to have, but if I spend a
| whole night fixing tooling that's time I could have spent on
| the project. Some loose unit testing and tools that work
| without configuration is all that's I'm willing to use.
|
| - A while ago I would have said that paid tooling is worth it
| if it saves you time. Open source and freemium products have
| gotten good enough now that that's no longer the case for a
| small enough dev team.
| core-utility wrote:
| This book Finish by Jon Acuff is a great book on practicing
| finishing. He also has Start for the very opposite.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Give-Yourself-Gift-Done/dp/052...
| _benj wrote:
| Just picked up the book and seems to be taking about me in
| specific!
|
| Thanks for sharing it :)
| mehphp wrote:
| I've ironically only read about half of Finish
| bink wrote:
| As long as it was the second half you should be good.
| nwsm wrote:
| This sounds like something I'd do
| xNeil wrote:
| Funniest comment I've read in a while :)
| sabjut wrote:
| What I learned from other people who have success in their side
| projects is to choose a workplace that allows you to do a sub
| 40 hour work week. Of course you would have to live a tad more
| simply than your standard upper-middle class software guy.
| watwut wrote:
| > Of course you would have to live a tad more simply than
| your standard upper-middle class software guy.
|
| Actually, many software jobs are like that. All it requires
| is for you to not be ambitious to create. You can have very
| good salary in many companies while slacking a lot. Sometimes
| you might have to be in office for a lot of hours, meaning
| doing leisure, socialization and side project in the office.
| vikingerik wrote:
| It's worth mentioning the common advice here though: do not
| use company time or equipment to work on a side project,
| since that may give them a legal claim to ownership of the
| work if they ever find out.
|
| The specifics will vary greatly depending on your
| employment agreements and legal jurisdiction, so make your
| own decisions regarding your own situation (doing it on
| company time might be the lesser risk compared to not doing
| it at all), but do be wary.
| learc83 wrote:
| If you're salaried, there's no such thing as company
| time, so that's not a meaningful distinction.
| mediaman wrote:
| If you are doing it in a company office, using company
| property, during hours the company expects you to be
| working, do not expect to use "well, I'm salaried, so it
| doesn't matter" as a legal defense and win.
| abnercoimbre wrote:
| What if you did most of your project outside the company,
| but only very small parts of it on company property? Can
| they still claim complete ownership?
| learc83 wrote:
| Company property is a completely different issue. Whether
| you do it during business hours or not is irrelevant.
|
| If you're salaried, you're always on company time, so
| whether the company owns it or not is up to the laws of
| the state and the agreements you signed when hired.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I specifically started doing photography so I could do game
| development in the off-season.
|
| It turns out it's hard to completely drop projects in the
| spring/summer and pick them up in the winter. I'd love to
| keep pecking at them over the photography season but I have a
| hell of a hard time getting anything done when I can only
| dedicate an hour or so an evening to it.
| corpdronejuly wrote:
| I feel like the value for you there is to incrementally add
| a little bit and keep your project fresh in your mind.
| penjelly wrote:
| this is what i believe. even 10 minutes daily for me can
| work wonders. it puts me in that headspace even if i
| don't get any hobby work done.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Yeah, this is my issue. After a long day of (sometimes
| pointless) software dev, strapping in for more is draining. So
| as a contrast, I design board games (not digital) as my hobby.
| It is very analog and tactile and so energizing partially from
| just being a nice change of pace.
|
| Your advice to start small is spot on though. I would even say
| one of the best first things to do is start by making a game
| mod. You don't have to invent so much, you just get to enhance.
| You get to something playable much quicker and learn about all
| your false assumptions.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I've had good luck with using my best time/energy for hobby
| projects and what's left over goes to work. Of course, this
| assumes that your hobby project is more important to you than
| whatever might be achieved by putting your best energy/time
| toward your job, but I also think a lot of people over-index
| on "whatever might be achieved by putting their best
| energy/time toward their job".
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Fair warning, game mods can take over your life too. Though
| I'd agree they can be easier and often can build on the
| community of the game your modding.
|
| Another risk with mods is the game owner can shut you down at
| any moment, if public. I'll probably never do another mod or
| reuse someone else's IP for anything beyond very small
| prototypes. There are just so many tools now that you
| shouldn't have to.
|
| (Star Wars Quake 1997-2002)
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| I work 1 hour a day on my personal projects. It's slow going
| but I make steady progress. I read about someone doing it 10
| plus years ago and I've stuck with it. Of course I miss
| someday, but I try and get at least my 1 hour a day.
| marceldegraaf wrote:
| Out of curiosity: which game are/were you working on, if you
| can share that? Thanks!
| ca6d8815 wrote:
| This is the game we made, The Shattering:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/596000/The_Shattering/
| xwdv wrote:
| You guys realize there's software engineering jobs where you
| might only do 4 hours of real work a day?
|
| And now with remote work being a norm, sometimes it feels like
| you barely work at all, and yet still accomplish the same
| amount of work as before.
|
| Get paid for the value you bring, not the time you spend.
| BongoMcCat wrote:
| Just out of curiosity, when you spent 9 hours at work, was that
| in a software field?
|
| If so, why would you choose to do the same thing 18 hours a day
| for 5 years?
| ca6d8815 wrote:
| > Just out of curiosity, when you spent 9 hours at work, was
| that in a software field?
|
| Yes, however the day job and night project were _completely_
| different disciplines. Someone wrote that gamedev isn't
| really software engineering... I'd agree with that (not
| putting it down, but its not like anything I've done).
|
| > If so, why would you choose to do the same thing 18 hours a
| day for 5 years?
|
| Those long days came in the last 1.5-2 years. Why? I don't
| think we would have finished otherwise, or at least not
| anytime soon.
|
| We found that momentum for us was critical. If we took it
| easy, then it slow days would turn into slow weeks and it
| would turn into slow months. We wanted to finish at some
| point. Even when we had a slow week or day, or when we'd go
| do something that wasn't the game, there would be a shadow of
| guilt that we are not finishing. I think that is personal,
| everyone does this differently.
|
| And the second why? The reward loop of doing something with a
| realtime 3D game is simply joyous. I would sometimes have _so
| much fun_ making the game that on the good days I dreamt of
| quitting the day job and starting up a studio full time.
|
| When the dust settled though, it took me almost a year to
| think about using the computer at home for anything other
| than playing a game or reading news / experimenting with
| homelab stuff. The burnout was harsh.
|
| I don't regret it... but I'll never do it like that again.
| pizza234 wrote:
| > Someone wrote that gamedev isn't really software
| engineering
|
| Could you elaborate on that? I find this perspective very
| interesting.
|
| I had a brief experience with gamedev, and I've actually
| found that even the smallest bit of game engineering is
| significantly more challenging than (I suppose) "x%" of web
| development.
|
| However, on the other hand, the engine is only a part of
| game development (and can also be underengineered, and I
| think it generally is), so maybe this is actually the
| reason why you/other people don't consider game dev
| software engineering?
| ajuc wrote:
| Normal software engineering is 95% glueing libraries
| together.
|
| Gamedev is mostly about iteratively changing some
| equations to make the thing behave like you want it to
| behave.
|
| Disclaimer: I never worked commercially in gamedev, but I
| wrote a lot of games as a hobby. Most of them unfinished
| of course.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| On top of what the others said, you basically answered it
| with "However, on the other hand, the engine is only a
| part of game development". Game dev is one of the most
| technically complex subfields of software dev, but it
| still pales in comparison to the total package of
| disciplines (and skill levels in those disciplines) to
| make a game.
|
| Compare a basic CRUD webapp to a game. Most webapps won't
| need stellar art, it just needs to look okay and have
| some logos or default assets. Games often need to run
| their own assets for uniqueness, have way more freeform
| art, you name it. That includes pixel art, the often
| lowest barrier to entry. Animation? Webapps generally
| don't need animation beyond some default practice
| tweening, most games require animation to make things
| feel smooth and actually give the feeling things are
| happening, on a vastly higher level than simple tweening
| of color and position of some flat objects. Audio? Where
| the average person hates the embedded autoplay
| video/audio, games generally require at least sound
| effects, preferably a sound track too. Storytelling?
| Unless you count the average buzzword-filled marketing
| video as storytelling, webapps don't need that.
| Marketing, collaboration, etc. are all factors that come
| to play as well depending on corporate size, so depending
| on your goals, you will run against those too.
|
| There is much more too. Psychology can play a huge part
| if you don't just blatantly copy existing things, and it
| is far more difficult to map a vague "I like this / I
| don't like that" than a business requirement. If you
| don't require animation, in all likelihood you're either
| creating a game in a genre where other demands are higher
| (visual novels with higher storytelling and individual
| art asset demands), or you'll be outcompeted if you don't
| have something to stand out, in which case one could
| argue the load is shifted to other disciplines anyway.
|
| Maybe most of all, you generally don't need to develop
| content in most webapps: you are enabling users to create
| content themselves, whereas in gamedev, you are more
| often providing them with content. Of course this comes
| with exceptions (What about Sims? What about
| Rollercoaster Tycoon? What about mods?), but most games
| deliver at least some content developed by the makers of
| the game themselves. Or you spend days agonizing over
| algorithms to generate content in a way that makes it
| fun, making tons of art assets players can fiddle with,
| etc.
| ca6d8815 wrote:
| > Could you elaborate on that?
|
| I can try, but I may not do the idea justice.
|
| When I was working on the game, the only thing that
| mattered was the _game_. Was it fun? Intriguing (we are a
| story based walking simulator)? Original? In line with
| our story structure (we wrote the story side by side of
| making the game because sometimes the best words on paper
| just couldn't be translated by us to a player
| experience)?
|
| You make changes non-stop to iterate and tweak and
| perfect. You learn quickly that someone's gut feeling can
| kill an entire chapter of the game, or change the ending
| completely.
|
| At some point, my code was just a tool in making the
| game. I didn't see myself carrying this codebase further
| to other projects (we built the game on Unity so already
| writing an engine was "solved"), so it just turned into
| working prototype after working prototype.
|
| Your code doesn't have to solve for all the corner cases
| you may miss in QA, because in our game the state was
| almost guaranteed at different parts of the play through.
| You need to remain extremely flexible with your design
| and code because its possible the game shifts drastically
| under your hands, more so than I've ever experienced at
| an already-chaotic "big" company.
|
| So it just stops mattering that much. At least for us. We
| didn't have a team for code (just me), or a separate art
| team, or a separate story team, or even a single game
| designer throughout the project. Everyone wore almost
| every hat, and you lose the grace of planning and
| process.
|
| It's more a feeling than something I could quantify
| exactly. An interesting reflection is that I became more
| rigorous and detail oriented at the day job after the
| wild west of my game code.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > Could you elaborate on that? I find this perspective
| very interesting.
|
| In addition to what others have said, game development
| places a massive priority on optimization and
| performance.
|
| You have to write code that updates game state and
| renders a scene in under 16 ms. CONSISTENTLY under 16 ms.
| Otherwise, you get stutters and choppiness as it fails to
| maintain 60 fps. If you want to please your top-end PC
| gamers with their 144 hz monitors, you need to render
| each frame in under 6.9 ms.
|
| With a web app, you can make up for underperforming code
| by scaling horizontally. That's simply not an option for
| game development.
| leroman wrote:
| Getting that 1 hour of work done every morning is what keeps the
| ball rolling.. momentum is critical..
| f00zz wrote:
| Game jams are a great motivator. I need hard deadlines.
|
| I recently did this [1] for a game jam, over one sleepless week.
| It's pretty unfinished but submitting something felt good.
| (Source: [2])
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX6AZNWuI5Q
|
| [2] https://github.com/mpersano/generic-rhythm-game/
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I also found that hard deadlines work. The closer they are, the
| better they are.
|
| Yesterday I spent just one hour to review my computer
| architecture mid-term. I totally forgot about the date and
| thought I'm going to bomb it. Eventually I did a very quick
| efficient review and felt very good about it.
|
| The thing is, as you said, and as my Physics teacher said 20
| years ago, that I really need to be pushed HARD to be
| efficient. That's why I hate assignments with long deadlines.
| EarthLaunch wrote:
| I've found this leads to burnout if the deadline is too far
| out or if the deadline keeps getting pushed forward.
|
| The antidote is to have no deadlines, and take the time to
| enjoy doing things right.
| ArtWomb wrote:
| Maybe instead of a "jam" format to motivate indies, do a "game
| race" instead? Points for timeliness. Bias toward micro-games.
| Organized around theme or asset for creativity constraint ;)
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Agreed. I'm thinking about attending one of those jams. I
| like tight or even unreasonable deadlines. Ordinary jobs
| don't give people this kind of deadlines (or if it is the
| compensation might be shitty).
|
| One thing I need to learn is to create pixel Sprites quickly.
| Maybe there is even a way to programmatically generate some
| template Sprites.
| thn-gap wrote:
| I feel this also represents my situation quite well. Here's
| personal experience:
|
| What worked the best for me to deal with a full-time job and a
| side project of gamedev (or programming in general) was to move
| the side project development time in the morning before my full
| time job, and just put a bit less effort into work overall
| (remote work helped here as well). Moreover, while I tried to
| have a consistent routine for my personal dev time, I tried not
| to force it when I was really not feeling like it, to avoid
| burnout.
|
| I sometimes did additional gamedev in some evening (or moved the
| morning one), but otherwise, tried to do non-computer stuff in
| the afternoons/evenings.
|
| Another key insight, is that this also helped me getting an
| earlier sleeping schedule. Previously I would procrastinate until
| late, even if tired, because whenever I went to sleep, I would
| then wake up and have go to work immediately. Instead, now I
| rather go to sleep early, because I know I'll have more energy to
| do the things I like in the morning, rather than full-time work.
| crhutchins wrote:
| It depends on your productivity after work as there will be a lot
| of factors that will come into play. It would help if you tried
| to maintain a work-life balance in which further delays your
| project. It's better to enjoy what we have right now and enjoy it
| at the same time.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I tried to complete a simple 2D RPG that is a Ultima spinoff a
| few years ago. Nothing is technically impossible as it's just a
| simple 2D game but eventually I lost interest and broke away.
|
| Now that I look back, there are two obstacles:
|
| - I'm not really interested in such a game. I probably fancied
| about the genre as it's classic but I never finished any of the
| Ultima games.
|
| - In the middle I tried to implement a full scale map editor. I
| managed to build a simple yet working one, but dropped the
| project once I realized that it needs a lot of work to write my
| own GUI (back then I'm using C++ and SDL2).
|
| I also find out that once I know how to implement something on
| paper (e.g. if I can draw the process of an algorithm on paper),
| I usually lost the interest to implement it in code. It takes a
| huge amount of effort for me to complete assignments for the Data
| Structure class I'm taking, to the point that I'm thinking about
| dropping the class.
| Longwelwind wrote:
| > - In the middle I tried to implement a full scale map editor.
| I managed to build a simple yet working one, but dropped the
| project once I realized that it needs a lot of work to write my
| own GUI (back then I'm using C++ and SDL2).
|
| Sharing my slightly unrelated experience, but Tiled2D is a nice
| piece of software to achieve this.
|
| I've used it for one of my personal project, where I wanted to
| make a digital adaptation of a board game, and I needed to
| "digitalize" the game board[1]. I don't use the tiles or the
| tile grid at all, but just the "polygon" feature that allows me
| to draw the borders of the different regions. It's not at all
| why the software has been written, as the polygon is supposed
| to be a small feature to define areas in a tiled game, but it
| gets the job done.
|
| [1] https://github.com/Longwelwind/swords-and-
| ravens/blob/master...
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Thanks, I knew about Tiled at the time. The project was kinda
| of a learning project so I didn't bother to use an external
| tool. Now that I look back, that's probably how I approach
| all projects (not work-related): I just want to learn how it
| works superficially, and once I do I'd lose motivation and
| drop the project eventually.
|
| Very nasty mindset I have to admit...
| intrepidhero wrote:
| It's not a bad mindset at all. "Finishing" can be a goal
| and so can "learn a new thing in an enjoyable way".
| Sometimes I write code just because I get the urge to
| create a nifty data structure. Who cares if no one will
| ever use it or look at it again? I enjoyed making it.
| taormina wrote:
| I mean, what finishing means is personally defined by you.
| If you define finishing as learning what you set out to
| learn, then you finished.
| caymanjim wrote:
| > I also find out that once I know how to implement something
| on paper (e.g. if I can draw the process of an algorithm on
| paper), I usually lost the interest to implement it in code.
|
| This is a perpetual problem for me. I start out interested in a
| lot of things, but once it's clear how to proceed, I get no
| pleasure out of the rote work required to implement the
| solution. Whether it's writing code, building something
| physical, playing a game, putting together a puzzle, or any
| other activity that involves some degree of thought or problem
| solving, as soon as there's nothing left to think about, I lose
| all interest. If there's a chance of an alternate outcome, I
| remain engaged to the last second (so I can finish PVP games,
| win or lose, but almost never finish a game of Civilization).
| It plagues me at work, too, but at least with work, I've got
| external motivating factors (insofar as I won't get paid if I
| never finish things).
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Yeah exactly. I have been going on like this for almost 40
| years and recently I decided to take a different approach:
|
| - Stop working on projects that I know for sure I can't
| finish, basically that means I'll work on zero CS projects.
|
| - Start hobbies that are either 1) Not of same type of CS
| projects, or 2) Something that takes a long time to
| understand.
|
| I have been collecting fossils and learning Geology for a few
| months and so far it goes well: - Collecting fossils is easy
| to start
|
| - It's very difficult to find good places to collect and even
| more difficult to collect very well preserved fossils
|
| - I don't get to collect fossils every day, not even every
| week if the whether is bad, so zero chance of burning out
|
| - Geology is not something that one can "figure out". In
| general science is not something I can "figure out" and then
| apply. It's not engineering.
|
| However I still want to work on CS projects because I need an
| in-door hobby for the winter, maybe some day I can figure out
| a way :)
|
| Good luck on your side too!
| caymanjim wrote:
| Interesting that you chose geology, as I often think that
| I'd have been happier as a geologist. I imagine there's a
| risk of getting bored with that as well, if it's your day
| job and you're doing the same sort of rote work all the
| time. In my fantasy, the primary appeal is that it's almost
| the opposite of sitting at a desk, except I suspect most
| professional geologists spend most of their time sitting at
| a desk looking at data on a computer. Seems like a fun
| hobby though!
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I browsed through some books and websites and figured
| that most of the work of a "general" geologist is still
| indoors. Some sub-variants such as palaeontologists are
| exceptions, but still I figured most of time is still
| spent in labs, not in fields.
|
| So yeah I agree it's a good hobby.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| I did this for my first Steam game, which let me go full-time
| back in 2015 as an indie game developer and where I still am
| today. [1]
|
| I'd get up early and get a few hours in before my more ordinary
| programming work as a Python backend developer at a fintech
| startup. And then on Saturdays I'd get something more like a
| normal days work done on the project.
|
| It worked, and I'm glad I did it, but it definitely was a
| temporary situation, I don't think it's something you can do
| long-term without facing burnout or neglecting other important
| areas of life like family, friends, exercise, reading books, etc.
| So that last paragraph of the original post - making it
| sustainable - I'm glad to see it in there.
|
| [1] The Cat Machine -
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/386900/The_Cat_Machine/
| pbourke wrote:
| > my more ordinary programming work as a Python backend
| developer
|
| Did you use Python for your game as well? This looks really
| cool - congratulations on making the leap to full time.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| No, though I wrote the level/puzzle editor in Python, which
| would generate json that was read by the game, which was
| written with the Unity engine and lots of C#.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Your game looks absolutely ridiculous and I love that.
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| It is very silly.
| trezemanero wrote:
| bruh, i didn't finished the text, how could i finish my project?
| klik99 wrote:
| "Make it sustainable" was the part it took me a long time to
| realize - in my 20s I'd pull all nighters to finish things. When
| I got older, started a family, and worked on projects that take
| months or years, I'd still approach it like a sprint - I'm
| talking multiple times going a month of less than 2 hrs of sleep
| most nights, full nights sleep once a week, 5 years of working
| Saturday and Sunday.
|
| Now I spend time with friends and family, treat weekends as
| sacred, and though I still don't get as much sleep as I should, I
| get way more done than blindly putting in the hours.
|
| People warned me of it and I didn't listen, as I'm sure whoever
| needs to hear this won't listen either, but 100%, treat it like a
| marathon and take care of your life holistically.
| mikesabbagh wrote:
| > All that said, the joy of doing something for us by us is not
| something I've encountered in my 15 year career yet
|
| I like the "us" in your comment. I worked on many personal
| projects, the best was when someone else is working with me. By
| the time you finish your feature, the other person would have
| finished his, and you see everything being built fast and with
| less pain.
|
| Actually as you know, startups are recommended to have at least 2
| founders. So I would suggest that if you are working on a project
| alone, find help
| racl101 wrote:
| Feel like I need a plan to make the plan to do the side project.
| keewee7 wrote:
| How did Chrome know that this article belonged to my gamedev
| bookmarks folder when I bookmarked the page?
| chromanoid wrote:
| The page you bookmarked before that also was in this folder?
| rocky1138 wrote:
| Jason, if you're reading this: I loved your post but I can't find
| an RSS or Atom feed for your blog.
| andyish wrote:
| Good tips and different things work for different people.
|
| I find that I need to find something that I think would take a
| week to build. Then accept the fact it's going to take 8 weeks to
| finish given i'm doing about one hour a day rather than 8.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Making_a_Mod
|
| The "Making a Mod" Valve wiki page is actually fairly useful for
| devs totally bereft of mentorship. In general, it seems like
| there is very little opportunity for devs to find mentorship in
| making games. Rather, you either figure it out or you wash out.
| programmarchy wrote:
| Thanks for the write up and congratulations on publishing the
| game. Looks great and can't wait to give it a try.
|
| One of the keys to your success seemed to be that consistent,
| early morning routine. I've often find myself trying to hack on
| side projects in the evening, after much of my energy is already
| zapped. Even if I do have a highly productive session coding into
| the wee hours of the night, the next day will be ruined by lack
| of sleep, and as someone with a family it's too detrimental.
|
| But when I am working in the mornings, once I'm awake and at my
| keyboard, I'm much more productive. Sometimes, it's hard to stop!
| But, leaving yourself a cliffhanger is also a great way to build
| excitement to jump back in the next day.
| jjcm wrote:
| The most important message here is "take care of yourself" near
| the bottom. I want to share a story about how I did a moonlight
| effort the wrong way.
|
| I treated it like a second job. When my day job was finished, I
| started my second job working on a game with a team of coworkers
| and friends. We were working crazy hours, but we were crushing
| it. Before long we got the attention of Amazon who wanted to
| acquire our game as part of their Fire phone launch. Our game
| focused heavily on motion controls which was perfect for the
| direction they were taking the phone (they were really pushing
| the envelope with motion + cameras + other sensor fusion things).
| We worked even harder. Before long we had a meeting with Jeff
| Blackburn. He showed it off to Bezos and got signoff to acquire
| us. We worked even harder. Contracts were signed and due
| diligence started.
|
| Then our lead dev died.
|
| Amazon backed out as we had no way of completing the game on
| time. We had poured everything into this game with the intention
| that the payoff would be worth it. We never prioritized enjoyment
| of what we were doing or our own health. Our mistake was we
| hadn't left room for failure.
|
| Whatever you do, ensure you have gas left in the tank for when
| things go wrong. Things will _always_ go wrong in ways you 'll
| never be able to plan for. If you stretch yourself to the limit,
| when a bump in the road hits you you'll break and
| everything/everyone around you will suffer.
|
| I now have a far, far healthier approach to moonlighting. I try
| and work a little bit every day on something. It doesn't need to
| be 5 hours of work - 20 minutes is enough. I've been working on
| something for the last 3 years or so and while it doesn't have
| the velocity that that game did, it makes me happy while I work
| on it. If it fails, it's OK because I find joy in doing it.
| Success isn't a requirement.
| piker wrote:
| > Then our lead dev died.
|
| That's terrible. Was the death a direct or indirect result of
| working on the project?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| There must have been a clause in the contract that they can
| pull out for that reason. That sucks bad.
| a_c wrote:
| Kudos to launching. This is hard. To me the hardest part is
| context switching. Meetings, scheduling, resource planning in day
| job, child care after work, household core, reading, occasion
| workout, etc. The amount of energy, both intellectually and
| emotionally, left after all these is... miniscule
|
| I'm trying with social contract - commit to somebody that you are
| showing some progress to them, and have them to help picking
| what's their desirable next step/topic. Hopefully I can get
| something started
| jdbartee wrote:
| A lot of my side projects end up being:
|
| "I want to learn how to do X, but I have no idea what that's
| going to take."
|
| And I end up just coding a logical step and if I don't know what
| to do go research it, realize I did something wrong 3 steps ago
| and then either revert or abandon depending on my current
| motivation.
|
| I've tried before to create a "game plan" before but most of the
| time there's so much that I don't know that I don't know that
| it's either impossible to make that plan or once I do, that plan
| ends up being wrong anyways.
|
| As such it always feels like I'm doing side projects wrong. But
| since they're more learning endeavors more than actually trying
| to launch a product maybe that's fine?
| dgb23 wrote:
| I think it's absolutely fine. You do something you enjoy and
| you learn new things.
|
| I think if you actually _want_ to finish something you finish
| it.
| Taylor_ wrote:
| In the past when I was at University during the summer breaks I
| somehow managed to create and publish two indie Xbox 360 games.
| However I have been working full time now for 8 years and I have
| never been able to come close to creating something similar to
| what I did back then. I will either get simply burned out by
| staying up late working on it (I don't recommend) or come to the
| conclusion that the it wont be a success and give up on it.
|
| I have been working on something new though and what has been
| really working well for me is that I will try to spend at least
| 15-20 minutes a day working on my new game, this usually always
| results in more time being spent on it. When I finish working on
| it for the day at a reasonable time I will create a list of very
| minor and easy tasks and list them, then the next day when I work
| on the project I will pick that minor thing implement it and see
| something I'm happy with and then maybe complete another one.
| Usually If I feel like I will tackle something bigger, if not
| then I will enjoy the rest of my day.
|
| The game has been coming together nicely so far me and it feels
| far more sustainable. I'm also doing this more now as a hobby
| rather than trying to make it a financial success (as there are
| much easier ways to make money).
| JimWestergren wrote:
| Yeah, I started my game[0] in the summer of 2018. Wife and 3
| kids. It is tough. Giving up would be the normal thing to do, but
| I guess I am not normal.
|
| [0] https://thespacewar.com/
| Natsu wrote:
| The hardest thing for me is art. Music too, but in theory you can
| go without that.
|
| And it's not just "ok, then find free art online" because you
| also have to be able to do art in code to, e.g. let players
| customize their character, etc.
|
| I'm sure there are ways to reduce this, but making a game is a
| lot of work.
| twodave wrote:
| I don't work on personal projects on my own time, but I do work a
| part time hourly job alongside my software engineering job. I've
| found for me this is an essential part of my mental health. My
| arrangement offers up a little more variety than I'd otherwise
| have and allows me to work with another group of people in a
| totally different domain.
|
| Also, I've found the best opportunities come through word-of-
| mouth connections, and having 2 sets of colleagues essentially
| doubles the chances of that happening.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| For many years, I worked at the Park Slope Food Cooperative
| (https://www.foodcoop.com/) several hours a month, which was a
| great orthogonal use of my mind. I started as a box-breaker,
| got promoted to an olive processor and finally became squad
| leader for Olives & Cheeses. The whole experience was like
| using a completely different part of my brain.
|
| They tried to get me to join their technology group, which i
| rejected :-)
| doitLP wrote:
| Interesting. What is the field of the part time job?
| tsozz wrote:
| I dont care about finishing side projects.
|
| They exist to keep my mind occupied or give it a break from other
| stuff. Thats it.
| one_off_comment wrote:
| That's the right mentality. Thank you!
| atum47 wrote:
| Yeah baby. I'm on my way also. I've been working full time and
| some days after work (when I have some energy left) and weekends
| I'm little by little taking a game out of paper.
|
| To be honest I don't think of it as work, cause I do have fun
| implementing game mechanics, but I know it's hard work.
|
| Congrats
| dncornholio wrote:
| My inability to finish personal projects has nothing to with
| project management or planning etc.
|
| I can't finish a side project because for me it is never
| 'finished'. I lack the ability to say that this is fine enough
| for my own projects. I always keep wanting to make things better
| and never can say it's finished.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| I'm in this boat. I think it would be impossible to do with a
| proper family with kids, so I've got maybe 5 years to pull it
| off. I've spent several years working on game efforts in parallel
| and decided to dump them all. It's not the worst thing in the
| world to give up on a concept. It's a good hobby even if it
| doesn't pan out.
|
| It's decidedly not a side hustle.
| one_off_comment wrote:
| Treat it as a hobby, not a means to a payday. It's your free
| time. If you're not having fun, why do it?
| oneearedrabbit wrote:
| Ah, good memories. My tipping point was when I watched Krystian's
| video "We Are All Game Beginners" [0]. It helped me embrace and
| acknowledge difficulties that one has to overcome to begin and
| finish a game, no matter how big or small it is. It took me about
| three months through a turbulence phase to finish my first game
| [1]. Also, taking this chance, any Pico-8 enthusiasts?
|
| Before I wrote the first line of code, I had an honest
| conversation with myself about why I am starting a project and
| put it on paper as my true motivation and goal. Over the course,
| I had to remind myself multiple times to be sincere and
| forgiving. Working on a side means that even the simplest task
| could stretch over several days, and it is okay.
|
| I particularly enjoyed sharing my work in progress on social
| media and with my friends. During the darkest moments, I found
| that a great "hack" is to record a milestone that I am proud of
| to boost my motivation and push a game a little further. If I may
| quote Rocky, it goes like:" One step at a time. One punch at a
| time. One round at a time."
|
| Another "hack" is to cut it out if something takes longer and
| drains your energy without any significant progress. Make
| something even just one person to enjoy. It is already a good
| milestone.
|
| Ultimately, I took this journey as a self-exploration to get to
| know my true self better, slay a few dragons on the way in a
| reasonably safe environment.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9wztsnmEIw
|
| [1]: https://oneearedrabbit.itch.io/the-pixel-maze
| marcodiego wrote:
| How to finish your first game?
|
| Do it in one weekend!
|
| How to do it in one weekend?
|
| Use simple game mechanics: a spaceshooter!
|
| Aren't you a good artist?
|
| No problem! Use processing and art from https://opengameart.org/
| .
|
| I've done it once just to have fun with my girlfriend. We built a
| very simple and fun space shooter in one weekend. I didn't keep
| the license or links of the resources, so I didn't publish it.
| toyg wrote:
| _> I 've done it once just to have fun with my girlfriend._
|
| This is humblebrag3: "I have a girlfriend" x "my girlfriend is
| as nerdy as me" x "we coded a game in a weekend".
| ensiferum wrote:
| I was spending anything from 12 to 16h per day (including
| weekends) for about 10 months working on my game engine after i
| quit my day job. Now that I'm working again i still try to throw
| at least 2-3h at it after work. Mostly i enjoy bit but sometimes
| there are moments when it begins to feel like a grind too. But
| unfortunately there's no choice but to grind through those boring
| tedious parts just go get it done. The key i find is to find the
| balance between doing the "fun stuff" abd the boilerplate "just
| has to be done" parts.
|
| It's on GitHub here http://github.com/ensisoft/gamestudio
| levmiseri wrote:
| I have done something similar - building a game while working
| full-time. But my approach was the complete opposite of this
| article.
|
| No real process, no plan, no scrum method, not even a trello
| board to track progress and todos. Personally, I enjoyed the
| "fun" of it being very spontaneous, yet still passionate. I
| didn't write to-dos and tasks to be done, because there is always
| something to be done. And intuitively you feel what's important
| and what's not. I also didn't want it to "feel" like work.
|
| For context - the game took me about 6 months to create:
| https://yare.io
| kotrunga wrote:
| Your game looks like a lot of fun, and the concept is really
| cool. Would you mind telling us more about your process and the
| technical aspects?
| levmiseri wrote:
| There is one last major piece to be done for the game (now
| I'm no longer working alone on it) after which I want to
| write something a bit more detailed about the journey.
|
| But on the high-level -- my full-time job is interaction
| design. Throughout my career I used JavaScript a lot for
| building interactive design prototypes and it's the only
| language I know, so when I had the idea for Yare.io (heavily
| inspired by MIT's Battle Code), vanilla JavaScript (and Node
| for server) was the only thing I could use (didn't know any
| libraries or frameworks)
|
| The project was really just a "problem" to be solved. Use
| JavaScript to move basic geometric shapes on a canvas in a 1
| versus 1 battle. It needed to have a UI, rendering of a game
| state, authentication, event queue, basic ruleset, ... None
| of this really required any tracker or rigorous process. I
| know what needs to be done, because I'm literally sitting in
| front it, seeing what needs to be done. It didn't need a
| "plan", because it didn't matter when each piece of the
| puzzle was made. Just, whatever I was in the mood for that
| day.
|
| I think the principle of simplicity (as cliche as it sounds)
| - trying to keep everything (especially the foundations) as
| basic as possible - was really the main thing that allowed me
| to finish the game.
|
| I don't think I could enjoy it as much as I did with some
| scrum method, brainstorming bullshit, or anything reminding
| me of work.
| kotrunga wrote:
| Thanks for sharing!
| Sammi wrote:
| OP is basically saying: "Here's what I did in order to do what
| I did".
|
| This reminds me of: Correlation does not mean causation.
|
| And: Survivorship bias.
| kfarr wrote:
| Nice trailer video!
| nonbirithm wrote:
| I've recently realized that I haven't felt comfortable with doing
| anything for its own sake.
|
| This revealed itself as I was working on a game engine
| reimplementation. For two years I was personally satisfied with
| myself by being able to return to a hobby and actively enjoy my
| time programming, and I thought I had managed to find something I
| was comfortable with doing just for myself.
|
| It turned out that I was deceiving myself by saying that I was in
| it for the personal enjoyment. This was false. I was ultimately
| working towards a goal that I didn't properly define, which was
| releasing the engine. This is the goal that everyone talks about
| when discussing game development, and it is a goal that carries
| value only because it involves other people - people that learn
| about and play your game.
|
| So in the future I will have to be more perceptive of the goals
| I'm hesitant to admit exist. From the beginning, I was only ever
| going to work on such a project with the eventual goal of making
| a release, as in making my project have an effect on people other
| than myself. That meant I was only working on my project for
| other people, and not for myself. The enjoyment I found in
| working on it was nothing more than a prerequisite to getting to
| work. It makes you feel virtuous to think otherwise, but it's
| nothing more than an elaborate lie.
|
| I don't understand how one could possibly develop games just for
| their own sake if shipping the finished game to other people is
| the point of game development.
|
| I guess I would say that if you aren't willing to permanently
| delete everything that you've worked on the moment you've
| finished a project, then you're not actually "doing it for
| yourself". That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you have to be
| honest or perceptive enough to be able to admit the truth.
| dicroce wrote:
| Well, you shouldn't deceive yourself about your goals. I don't
| think a goal that involves other people is inherently bad.
| Nothing wrong with wanting to impact the world IMHO.
|
| Unless you create a game that has infinite replayability and
| you find playing it fun you're right that game development is
| ultimately FOR someone else. But there is nothing wrong with
| that.
|
| Ultimately you have to find a project whose goal is worth the
| effort. Honestly part of why I got out of game development was
| because I wanted some more reasonable projects.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| I only really agree with #3. Planning things out actually hurt my
| productivity as I'd get side tracked or disappointed when things
| took longer than expected...then I'd look at the backlog and get
| equally frustrated. I really just went with the flow and it all
| came together.
|
| You _have_ to have passion for it though. It 's the common trap I
| find a lot of people in that fall out of side projects quickly.
| They're doing it for the wrong reasons and inevitably get tired
| of it/uninvested and burn out. It's more about the journey than
| it is reaching the end.
| luizbarroso343 wrote:
| Abaixar
| Zababa wrote:
| Small nitpick but I really don't like how scrum uses the name
| "sprint". You don't go far by making lots of sprints back to
| back. You go far by walking with a clear goal in my. "Sprint"
| carries no notion of direction.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| For me, after I got one project properly done, it actually became
| harder to abandon a project partway through than to not finish
| it.
|
| To my detriment even, I've been working on a game for the past 3
| years which I'm fairly sure just "doesn't work" in a way I find
| difficult to explain. But as much as I try, I can't stop working
| on it.
|
| The other thing that plagues me is decision fatigue. I'm working
| through a decision right now which is tangentially related to my
| personal projects but is absolutely weighing me down mentally.
|
| Edit: Reading another reply, maybe I haven't conquered my
| problem, and that now my projects just never finish, rather than
| me abandonding them. Maybe thats the case, but right now its
| absolutely not finished by any means, so thats a problem for
| later
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| I'll add to his advice not to quit your day job. Gamedev is
| unreasonably difficult. It's not software engineering (whatever
| that might mean). It's a different beast entirely.
|
| I've advised several folks who said they want to quit their jobs
| to make games to do a compo, a game jam, something small and
| constrained. Ludum Dare has historically been good. Try but
| expect not to finish. You'll learn about your own weaknesses and
| limitations.
|
| Even if you don't finish the first few times, you'll hopefully
| understand what it takes, or at least think you do.
|
| A good next step is to timebox one or two months, in your free
| time, to make a game, publish it, _and earn $1_. That's it. Make
| a buck.
|
| If you can pull that off, and make a buck, you've made it. You're
| a professional game developer.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| I'll also add, it's not the planning that helps, but having
| goals. If you set out to "make a game" you will never finish.
| You need a goal in mind. A line that you can cross.
| OJFord wrote:
| I should first disclose that I'm terrible at 'finishing' things
| (I don't make games, so generally not such finishable 'done and
| shipped' things, but by 'finishing' I mean a sort of 'version
| 1.0' I suppose, something I'm happy with, think others might want
| to use and now it's just maintenance and improvements) so maybe
| don't listen to me at all..!
|
| But I think there's something key here that's left implicit - do
| your own project _first_ in the day. Obviously everyone 's
| different, but I reckon for the most part that means 'don't
| necessarily start everything at 7am' (or do so even earlier),
| rather than 'work first and moonlight on the side project'.
|
| I have way too many days where I'm less productive on the paid
| work than I could be because I've got something else on my mind;
| then come the end of the day when I could finally put some
| thoughts into action, I'm just too drained and fed up of sitting
| at a computer to do anything about it.
| toyg wrote:
| I reckon "my project first" is a great habit, but it requires
| something else: the willpower to start. It's very easy to spend
| those extra couple of hours in the morning just sipping a
| coffee, reading HN, catching up with social media. Work is work
| and it starts because other people will ping you, you'll have
| to be online on a certain computer, etc etc; but if you are
| your own boss, it's very easy to let employee #1 (yourself)
| slack off.
|
| Also, this works only if you are a remote worker. Most
| commuting will nuke those two hours away (yeah you can work on
| the bus/train, but probably not well - spotty connections,
| uncomfortable, no extra monitor, no mouse, etc; and if you have
| motion sickness like me, it's a non-starter), and in the
| evening you'll be even more shattered.
| Zababa wrote:
| > It's very easy to spend those extra couple of hours in the
| morning just sipping a coffee, reading HN, catching up with
| social media. Work is work and it starts because other people
| will ping you, you'll have to be online on a certain
| computer, etc etc; but if you are your own boss, it's very
| easy to let employee #1 (yourself) slack off.
|
| It's the same when you get back home after work though.
|
| > Also, this works only if you are a remote worker. Most
| commuting will nuke those two hours away (yeah you can work
| on the bus/train, but probably not well - spotty connections,
| uncomfortable, no extra monitor, no mouse, etc; and if you
| have motion sickness like me, it's a non-starter), and in the
| evening you'll be even more shattered.
|
| I personally have 5 "free" hours after work, which includes
| time to do shopping, eat, exercise, cleaning, all that sort
| of stuff. It's not a lot but it's not 0. That's with 1h30 of
| commute each day.
| toyg wrote:
| _> It 's the same when you get back home after work
| though._
|
| I would argue it's even easier in the evening, for sure.
| The point of doing it in the morning is that your brain is
| fresher; I'm just saying that might still not be enough to
| start.
|
| _> I personally have 5 "free" hours after work_
|
| Yeah, but it's _after_ work, when you 're inevitably more
| tired. One could push it by going to bed earlier and waking
| up at 5am, but it risks becoming unsociable.
|
| Also, I expect you (and OP, and a lot of folks in this
| thread) are 20-somethings with no attachments and no
| family. Those things tend to suck every bit of spare time
| you have, for years on end.
| Zababa wrote:
| > I would argue it's even easier in the evening, for
| sure. The point of doing it in the morning is that your
| brain is fresher; I'm just saying that might still not be
| enough to start.
|
| That's a fair point. I find it easier in the mornings but
| that may be because the rare times I do wake up early, I
| have an unusually high energy/willpower.
|
| > I would argue it's even easier in the evening, for
| sure. The point of doing it in the morning is that your
| brain is fresher; I'm just saying that might still not be
| enough to start.
|
| I'm not sure about the unsociable thing, I personally go
| out once a week usually.
|
| > Also, I expect you (and OP, and a lot of folks in this
| thread) are 20-somethings with no attachments and no
| family. Those things tend to suck every bit of spare time
| you have, for years on end.
|
| I don't really like the way you put it. I have my
| parents, brothers, grandparents, friends, coworkers, all
| of those things take time. Sure, probably less than
| having children, but they still take time. I know people
| my age that have almost no spare time for themselves, and
| some older people that seem to have all the time in the
| world.
| hbn wrote:
| > The point of doing it in the morning is that your brain
| is fresher
|
| I think that depends on the type of person you are. I do
| my best to get a good 8 hours, but it usually takes me a
| good hour or 2 (and a coffee) before I'm really into the
| swing of things in the morning.
|
| It's even tougher in the winter months when sun isn't
| really out until around 9am and the sun is already
| setting at 5pm. It feels like you work through the entire
| day, and mornings are like getting up at 2am.
| OJFord wrote:
| Or it works better if you work in an office - you're at home
| working on your own project and can't be pinged until you go
| in to the office. Not everyone has an hour long commute, and
| even if so it's a sunk cost, still better to do your own
| project first IMO. (It just means being even earlier up, or
| being able to start work compatibly late in the morning.)
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