Advice on designs for personal projects.
You could try unit tests. It works very well for some people. Break your project down into parts that you can have fun working on. Then when you finish one part you will feel good and then work on the other parts and hopefully when you are done they will fit together. This approach can be troublesome when some of the small parts are very large, but it's usually more enjoyable than tacking everything at once.
I would identify one core gameplay action, then write a 1-2 page treatment. For instance, in Super Mario Bros, the core gameplay action would be "jump", in Grand Theft Auto, it would be "drive", in R-Type, it would be "shoot". By using that one core action, what can the player do? Write it down.
Then, come up with a prototype, as quickly and easily as possible. I wouldn't spend more than 40-80 hours on this. Once you have something up on the screen, you'll need to decide whether or not it's fun. If it's fun, or you can tell that with a few tweaks that it has the potential to be fun, then continue. If it's not, then ditch it. I would use then same process for everything you would like in your game.
Then, come up with a prototype, as quickly and easily as possible. I wouldn't spend more than 40-80 hours on this. Once you have something up on the screen, you'll need to decide whether or not it's fun. If it's fun, or you can tell that with a few tweaks that it has the potential to be fun, then continue. If it's not, then ditch it. I would use then same process for everything you would like in your game.
If you want something to spark an idea off, take a look at the 300 project - which has a bunch (currently 80) of different game mechanics that you might find interesting to develop a prototype for or use as a basis for your own project design.
Some of them are quite complex, but it'd be good practice to be able to break them down into component parts that you can then put together as you implement them. That's sort of similar to Brians method of working on a single facet of the design and checking out it's fun factor.
Some of them are quite complex, but it'd be good practice to be able to break them down into component parts that you can then put together as you implement them. That's sort of similar to Brians method of working on a single facet of the design and checking out it's fun factor.
The issues with design you mentioned sound quite familiar to me. I assume you keep on thinking of the exciting new features to add, tweaks to currently finished systems, and so on. Right until the point when you realize that some of your new ideas are in conflict with your old ones, that they are too difficult to implement, and ultimately that you've scrambled your original game idea so much, you no longer have any motivation to actually work on it.
I think that you need to be honest with yourself first, and decide what exactly are you aiming for (in general terms). Is game development just a hobby for you, or do you really intend to get off the ground and aim for something concrete? It's either one or the other, don't linger somewhere in between, in the end you'll just end up feeling bad about the whole deal.
Calling something a "project" implies seriousness. It implies self-motivation, self-discipline, milestones and deadlines, with a heavy emphasis on deadlines. If you cannot maintain this level of working discipline and responsibility, odds are your project will not get finished.
On the other hand, there are hobbyists (like myself ;) who prefer to be careless and relaxed about what they do and not bother thinking about anything else but improving what they're doing in any way they see fit. I don't have "projects" anymore myself. I have things I fiddle with. Part of the free time I would normally spend playing games, I spend programming one - simply because I enjoy doing that. I can't even begin to count the times I've changed and recoded the fundamental parts of it.
I think that you need to be honest with yourself first, and decide what exactly are you aiming for (in general terms). Is game development just a hobby for you, or do you really intend to get off the ground and aim for something concrete? It's either one or the other, don't linger somewhere in between, in the end you'll just end up feeling bad about the whole deal.
Calling something a "project" implies seriousness. It implies self-motivation, self-discipline, milestones and deadlines, with a heavy emphasis on deadlines. If you cannot maintain this level of working discipline and responsibility, odds are your project will not get finished.
On the other hand, there are hobbyists (like myself ;) who prefer to be careless and relaxed about what they do and not bother thinking about anything else but improving what they're doing in any way they see fit. I don't have "projects" anymore myself. I have things I fiddle with. Part of the free time I would normally spend playing games, I spend programming one - simply because I enjoy doing that. I can't even begin to count the times I've changed and recoded the fundamental parts of it.
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