Over the years of hacking away at tech demos, half completed games and retread projects, I have come to learn something about myself. I discovered that my motivation is born out of hyper artistic visualization (I just made that up to sound cool). Now of course without a vision, how are most of us even attempting to pull of the projects we set out to tackle? Without some sort of visual impact on the conscious part of the brain that influences creativity, we would just end up pulling something out of our fifth contact point.
So, when things get tough and you find your self fading or you have been starring at compiler errors for days, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees with your own project. The remedy? .....OPEN PHOTOSHOP!
(or something similar)Now I get it, most programmers are not artistic (programmers art) I know this....but come on now. don't sit there and tell me you cannot mock up a menu screen, start up screen, some power ups, game levels etc. Even if its just preliminary, seeing a realized version of your own thoughts or ideas in living pixels during a lull in development could be that spark you need.
I find that I when I start "putting the vision together artistically" and have those images called from code..it's like hey "I have one-quarter of a game here" lol..trust me it works. Sometimes we need more than just debug message boxes or log files to validate progress where motivation is concerned. And if you are like me (who would not want to be) you will fall in love with the stuff you do in Photoshop to the point you gotta see it fully developed.
Anyway...that is just a rant...not sure if its applicable to anyone but if you are struggling with motivation...start painting pixels..can't hurt!
[size="4"](P60) Update - I just started to develop some screens for the game and will work on the first level today as well. My biggest hold up is the main character and minions. I seriously have a mind block here (DAMN'T). I have to remember that I'm not developing Sonic or Earthworm Jim obviously....yeesh.
