[Discussion] Taking a break/quitting on games during game development

[Florio]

So I was wondering, how many of you all take breaks during your game development process, and what kind of breaks? Have you taken long hiatus's from your game, or have you ever quit just to come back and start working on it again?

The game I'm working on right now, I started in late 2008/early 2009. This is back when Pokemon Essentials was way less advanced than it is now. But somewhere around mid 2009 I stopped working on it, not by intention but I just lost motivation for it I guess.

Over the course of the next 4 years or so, I really didn't touch it much except once in a blue moon I considered taking the project back up, but never got back to it. However, about 4 months ago I decided to take the game back up and start getting serious about it. I have made a lot of progress on my game (made a lot more maps, updated graphics and scripts, improved the storyline, etc.). My region isn't fully completed yet, but I hope to have it at least close to done by Christmas.

It kind of made me wonder what other peoples breaks are like, has anyone else stopped working on their game for as long as I did and then decide to come back to it? Or have people just quit and given up on their games? I remember this forum used to be a lot more active back in the 2008-2009 era. It makes me think a lot of people have quit and given up on their games (which is sad, I remember so many great games that will now go unfinished).

The only finished games made with Pokemon Essentials that I know of are Pokemon Island, Pokemon Raptor EX, and Pokemon Zeta/Omicron(these games aren't fully completed but thought they would be worth mentioning). I feel that if more people started working together and resurrecting their old projects, we could finish more games. If we just took maps from some of the incomplete games and put them into one game, we could probably have a really cool game with a big region.

So what do you all think of taking breaks/quitting on games during game development, and what types of experiences have you had?

 

[JynxedOne]

I started making a game three/four years ago as a gift to my cousin. I worked non stop on it for around a year then took a long break, just couldn't be bothered to add anything to it, even though I really wanted to get it finished. I open it every now and again and try to at least work on some maps, but it never lasts long.

Around the time I stopped working on that one I found Essentials and started making a Pokemon game, something I always wanted to be able to do. Again, about a year into It I stopped, but recently started working on it a bunch (messing with it right now actually). Not sure why, i'm not to busy to work on them (having trouble finding a job gives lots of free time :/ ) It's reminding me how fun working on them is. Love to finish the other one, bu at this point I'd have no idea what I was going for before, if that makes any sense?

I think part of the problem of not starting a project back up is, for myself anyways, I never had a place I could really go and ask for insight on how to make my stuff better, no one to talk to about it. This site is great for getting help on scripting and such, but finding active communities has always seemed like an issue. And even though it's great to do for yourself, showing someone and getting their opinion always makes it better.

 

[Black Eternity]

I too have had this sort of thing happen.

I started a project about 2 years ago, I never really thought anything from it, I didnt really know what to do, how to script, the only thing I was good at was mapping and design, but those two aspects alone do not get you very far. I stopped working on it due to excessive hours of work and having no free time to "hobby-around".

I eventually started again, but this time a completely new project. Slightly more knowledge about the entire engine, and lots of new skills as well. I have been working steadily on just pure code for the better part of 2 weeks so far, not even focusing on design and mapping until I know what I am fully capable of.

But yes, it was quite a long break, and I think that it helped me regain my focus, and brew some new ideas for an epic game.

 

[tImE]

I'm currently on a 9 month hiatus, from my game, as of now.

I paused development because of loss of inspiration and real-life matters.
I'm hoping to start working on it again soon.

I think taking breaks, when making games as a hobby, is a pretty natural and necessary thing.
It's almost impossible to devote yourself fullheartedly to a project for such a long time without growing bored/tired of it.
Taking a break and focusing on other things now and then helps keeping the project fun for me.
It also helps you to see mistakes you've made, because when you get back, you can look at the project with "new eyes", so to speak.

 

[Florio]

I'm currently on a 9 month hiatus, from my game, as of now.

I paused development because of loss of inspiration and real-life matters.
I'm hoping to start working on it again soon.

I think taking breaks, when making games as a hobby, is a pretty natural and necessary thing.
It's almost impossible to devote yourself fullheartedly to a project for such a long time without growing bored/tired of it.
Taking a break and focusing on other things now and then helps keeping the project fun for me.
It also helps you to see mistakes you've made, because when you get back, you can look at the project with "new eyes", so to speak.

Yeah, I really agree with this. If I work too hard/for too long on my game, I just get sick of it and my mind needs a break from it. I have other creative hobbies such as producing music so usually I just switch to that. And yeah, when I come back from a break I often realize the mistakes I made and how to make them better.

Hope you get working again on that game soon.

 

[Black Eternity]

Ahhh another fellow musician lol.

 

[Dedenne1]

If u dont take a break ull get bored and wont have much drive to finish/work on the game quitting really isnt a good answer unless u r too busy or think it was a mistake if u Succesfully finish a game its just this great achievments and ur admired for it but it still needs bug fixes updates on moves types etc.

 

[FL]

I avoid taking breaks because I generally forget some things.

During my game development that took a year, the real "break" that I take is a 40 days break because I need to do some things at this time, others breaks aren't bigger than a week. After I finished my game, I try to get time for making updates. After an almost two year hiatus I took two month (plus several scripts that I made earlier) for making a new content update.

I feel that I the game lead is pass on when someone give up, we have more completed games now. And the full list of Essentials completed games (with 16 games) you can check at: http://pokemonessentials.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_fangames .

It also helps you to see mistakes you've made, because when you get back, you can look at the project with "new eyes", so to speak.

This happens alot with me, I remade a entire system that I create years ago to be more easier for editing. After I talked a lot with people that played my game and watched many gameplays I got several very interesting and useful ideas, some of them may fix several flaw.

 

[Florio]

I feel that choosing to take a break completely depends on what exactly you want to accomplish. If your goal is start and finish a game in a year or two, especially with a team, then you probably shouldn't take a break because chances are between members leaving and losing your drive, it will fail. If on the other hand you goal is truly to finish a pokemon game, then taking a break, or even a 100 breaks, shouldn't matter. Because you have the knowledge that eventually you will finish it.

And having a team is really an unspoken factor in these talks. If you're team is a rag tag group of people you hardly know, when they leave for x reasons, chances are you'll lose motivation too. Vice versa, as in the fangame I'm part of now, if you have a team of truly motivated people, others can come and go freely, getting motivated by the others progress when they come back.

Side-topic= On the note of the "finished games", personally I don't consider a single game to be completed with essentials yet. My personal idea of a finished game is at bare minimum, 8 new leaders/elite four/champion, new protagonist/rival, all new towns, and a story to tie it all together. I'd include new pokemon too, but things like bw2 prevent that from being a "requirement". Sounds like a lot, but honestly that's what the framework of essentials is made for. But again, that's getting off topic.

I can see what you mean by truly complete games, personally I would consider Pokemon Raptor EX the closest thing to a truly complete game using Pokemon Essentials. Pokemon Island is nice too, but it isn't your standard Pokemon game. Pokemon Zeta/Omicron are looking fairly promising too, and they are near completion.

 

[Lusus]

All of my projects are currently on hiatus because high school takes priority (and because my main project is getting some story revamp). I think taking breaks is a really good thing during a projects that you don't really have a set deadline for, last time i went on hiatus i fixed quite a lot of stuff that made me go "What was i thinking back then?".

 

[Florio]

Well yeah, I mean I'm not going to knock what anyone else considers finished. It's very possible that some people have a different vision of the kind of pokemon game they want to make.

I just feel that everyone probably starts out wanting to make what I explained, i.e. a full game akin to the main series titles. Then after realizing the sheer amount of work, they dial it back to a short story or add a gimmick to it(shadow pokemon, custom scripts, etc).

Which certainly is not a bad thing. Setting the bar lower is a great thing I think every project should do. Because if you can complete that task, you're always free to keep adding on to it later.

I agree with setting the bar low. Games that set the bar too high never get finished, an example would be Pokemon Malachite. That game was showing a lot of promise, but the creator seems to have just abandoned it without even releasing a demo, or passing the project onto someone else.

Personally, I am setting the bar on a medium-low level. I don't except impossible things such as amazing custom graphics (since I don't sprite myself), and I don't expect a lot of custom scripts. What I do expect is what I can do myself, and that is make nice and well-detailed maps, making interesting trainers, and battles. And a good storyline to keep the player interested. Maybe when my game is near complete, I can add some custom graphics and such, since they could always be easily replaced later.

 

[ptshady]

I'm currently on a 9 month hiatus, from my game, as of now.

I paused development because of loss of inspiration and real-life matters.
I'm hoping to start working on it again soon.

I think taking breaks, when making games as a hobby, is a pretty natural and necessary thing.
It's almost impossible to devote yourself fullheartedly to a project for such a long time without growing bored/tired of it.
Taking a break and focusing on other things now and then helps keeping the project fun for me.
It also helps you to see mistakes you've made, because when you get back, you can look at the project with "new eyes", so to speak.

I hope u start to work on it soon, it was amazing, i love the beta, one of the best.

 

[Super Dedenne]

Ah, too bad I didn't see this thread earlier. Oh, well. I'll still provide some input.

This is a long post so...

Too Long; Didn't Read:

I've been working on the same project for 4 years.
Friends help keep you motivated and kick you off your hiatus/breaks.
Finding people you like to rant to about your geeky little game helps tremendously.
Talking about the game around people who can create music and graphics is a bonus.
I recommend it, team or not.

--------

Breaks seem to be very common among developers doing solo. I've had my fair share of them, but there's always that weird "I want to work on my game" mood that creeps up behind me when I play just about any RPG.

So i picked up one of the earliest versions of Essentials in 2010. I didn't bother with the forums here until 2011 and even then I didn't sign up for them until this year. Casually, I lurked and never posted a single question. I honestly liked being stumped. That was five years ago. (Wow, four years of Essentials. Huh.)

I'd come here every once in a while. Read Maruno's and FL's posts and carry on. I observed newb questions and then considered them. As the years went by, sure I had some breaks, but not because I got disinterested. Prior to Essentials, I didn't even know how to code in any language let alone make a game. Time went, and I struggled with all sorts of errors I caused myself. Heck, I didn't even map that much (or at all). I just wanted to make my own custom scripts and watched them run.

On hiatus in 2013, I wrote a sensor and detection script for some in-field Wild Pokemon... with only two or three maps of my own. I let the character have audible footsteps when he walked on terrian tags. I also ported an XP script for Infinite Fogs with Essentials support. Didn't even touch the game for a while. I just loaded up a "clean" Essentials that wasn't my personal game and play around with it when I was bored. I do have some public snippets lying around, though.

Don't have any team to call mine either. Just some really passionate friends who want to see it complete. One of my buds happened to like remixing and creating tunes using the Pokemon Black and White 2 soundfont. Another likes to sprite as much as I do. I guess you can call that a team, but I'm pretty much all on my own.

So now I have custom music, scripts, tilesets, Fakemon, and graphics... It's 2014... but still no game. Yeah, consistent breaking can kill a game's progress, but I think it's super healthy to get away, take a break, discuss with friends about your storyline, let them nitpick it to pieces and come back later with a refreshed mind (and a carefully recorded VersionChanges.txt in case Maruno releases a new version of Essentials you have to upgrade to... multiple, multiple times.)

I'm off hiatus now and it's become an obsession (and more recently, an inspiration to go into coding as a profession. Thanks!) I lurk here pretty much everyday.
I'm actually relieved that some folks take hiatuses more often than I do, haha!

 

[DarkDoom3000]

I started super pokemon eevee edition in late 2009, revealed early 2010.

I progressed on it very quickly between 2010-mid2012, after which progress really slowed down due to uni & social life taking up more of my time.

I also I really wanted to revamp the balance of the game and just repolish the game. it which would require large backend changes and re-vamping the game from the start. which would result in progress degredation- but it would mean the game would play a LOT better.

Progress was slow for 2012, I didn't take a break, I just worked on it on and off, some weeks I would spend a few nights working on it, others I wouldn't even touch it for a whole week, sometimes months.

I graduated uni in the middle of 2013, unemployed and nothing to do, that feeling Dedenne is talking about hit me bigtime.
I decided to pick up SPEE again, and boy was it nice. I got a new version out late 2013

I realised that working on SPEE when I didn't feel like working on it was hugely counterproductive. I would spend lots of hours not getting much done.

After I released version 0.72, I didn't really feel like working on eevee, but I felt like working on something. so I tried making another game. Nax of the Universe, a character action game sorta like a 2D DMC.

It totally reinvogirated me, I relaised that I don't just like making SPEE -I just like making games in general. Whenever I get bored of SPEE, I switch to nax, or try pototying a new project. I'll end up getting bored of that project and want to move back to SPEE. It sorta slows down progress, but feels much more satisfying, because you're working on what you want, when you want.

since 2014 i've had a fulltime job as a software developer, juggling a job, a social life and a game development hobby is no easy feat, but i think im doing alright.

 

[Florio]

I started super pokemon eevee edition in late 2009, revealed early 2010.

I progressed on it very quickly between 2010-mid2012, after which progress really slowed down due to uni & social life taking up more of my time.

I also I really wanted to revamp the balance of the game and just repolish the game. it which would require large backend changes and re-vamping the game from the start. which would result in progress degredation- but it would mean the game would play a LOT better.

Progress was slow for 2012, I didn't take a break, I just worked on it on and off, some weeks I would spend a few nights working on it, others I wouldn't even touch it for a whole week, sometimes months.

I graduated uni in the middle of 2013, unemployed and nothing to do, that feeling Dedenne is talking about hit me bigtime.
I decided to pick up SPEE again, and boy was it nice. I got a new version out late 2013

I realised that working on SPEE when I didn't feel like working on it was hugely counterproductive. I would spend lots of hours not getting much done.

After I released version 0.72, I didn't really feel like working on eevee, but I felt like working on something. so I tried making another game. Nax of the Universe, a character action game sorta like a 2D DMC.

It totally reinvogirated me, I relaised that I don't just like making SPEE -I just like making games in general. Whenever I get bored of SPEE, I switch to nax, or try pototying a new project. I'll end up getting bored of that project and want to move back to SPEE. It sorta slows down progress, but feels much more satisfying, because you're working on what you want, when you want.

since 2014 i've had a fulltime job as a software developer, juggling a job, a social life and a game development hobby is no easy feat, but i think im doing alright.

Real talk bro, I agree sometimes if I try to force myself to develop when I'm not feeling it that it ends up being counterproductive. Sometimes its best to just takes these games slowly anyways, that way it turns out the best it can be. And yeah I make my Pokemon game and make beats in FL Studio do I got two thinks I work on also, I just like making things/being creative in general.

 

[TBM_Christopher]

I think the most important split between why you should or shouldn't take a break is your end goal. My end goal for GAM classes is always "get the shippable version in the professor's hands by the grading deadline" which translates in the industry as "finish by the deadline", whereas hobbyist projects don't have anything riding on them other than their audience's attention spans(and heck, look at Pokemon Prism to know that it's not consistent). For AWAKE, the team has taken breaks lasting as long as 3 months in the past, but each time we break, we know that we can't take another break of that length without consequences, since we're hoping to release commercially. So as a team, we currently limit ourselves to 3 weeks maximum for a break, but never all of us at once.

Long story short: If you feel you need a break and you're on a deadline, you can't afford it, probably. If you don't have a deadline, still exercise caution if you want people to remain onboard for your project.

 

[PinkCatDragon]

Me i never take breaks from programing. solveing puzzles and makeing soultions makes me happy

 

[mej71]

Though occasional breaks can be helpful for some, I have trouble retaining focus on things if away from them for too long. Probably why my attempts at games don't get very far.

I would also agree with Java's Missingno