Another thing which you might want to try is to get involved in a game making competition. A deadline (and the hope of a little fame and prizes) goes a long way to keeping me on track. It also gets me passed the "I'm working on my engine" state that never leads to anything practical.

Quote:Original post by hh10k
It also gets me passed the "I'm working on my engine" state that never leads to anything practical.

I can't stress this enough. "Making an engine" is a sure way to never get anywhere. I've spent the last few years trying to make design decisions that would allow my "engine" to work with any type of game, from simple 2D strategy games to fancy 3D flight sims. In my current project, I'm coding everything as simply as possibly, then refactoring complex code into separate subsystems as needed. My game was playable within a few days, and just keeps getting better and better.

It is a lot easier to get motivated to refactor a small amount of code, or add a neat new feature, rather than trying to build huge modules en masse without having an actual game to test it with.

- Mike

Lay out what is needed to do next. Take the project one piece at a time. Mabye treat the different pieces as "mini projects". Also, don't only look forward for at all the work that is needed to be done. Look back at the progress already made.

They are right, break the whole project into hundreds of mini goals. Each time you achieve one, you can take pride.

Also, take hundreds of screenshots of your project as it progresses, from the first poly, to the final build. When you're down, browse them and see how far you've come.

I've taken loads with fraps, but wish I had more now!

I also email a few interested friends and family with monthly updates. The pressure fo having something to write in my update keeps me working!

Good luck! :)