Thanks for all the suggestions and links, I have a dream game, just like everyone, but it is huge and I have made documentation on it but I have not started it. I am working on little projects because of the mentioned reasons. I'm gonna try the things in your post Eck. And the reason I'm excercising so much is because I am trying to get into the military as a reservist so that has an incentive. Programing has no monitary gain for me unfortunately (maybe one day but just a hobby at the moment and I kinda want to keep it as a hobby) I just love doing it and I'm going to try to schedule my life so I get time to do so. Thanks everyone, your posts are very informative and have helped a lot!

Being an indie has a lot more to do with dealing with your frustrations (the relationship between 'my boss wants me to do this and I hate it' vs 'I need to do this') and it can be fulfilling in its own right because you never take a battle that's not coherent with your initial mindset. But it does require you to do 'more' than the job would usually demand. If being indie proves to be too hard on your motivation, I suggest either of these:

- Deal with it, you're a grown man. You're there because you chose to be there. Make yourself a system to handle the hurdles along the way. A system is what makes pro sports players able to perform day after day (notice how a golfer, for example, has a very specific habit before putting, how he takes his ball, moves back, checks the scene. When interrupted by noise, they often do the ritual from the start just because it puts them in the right mindset).

- Give up on being an indie and go back to the industry. If you're struggling with motivation there as well, consider giving up on the video game industry. Chances are you like games, and like the idea of making games, but possibly, you don't particularly enjoy making games, at least professionally.

2-4 areas hey, I had never thought of that. I have 3 physical hobbies but each of them have 1 or 2 set times a week, and they are not very long. I'm definitely not giving up on the programming though, it is heaps of fun but I just need some direction I think. I keep thinking of ideas for games and just so I don't forget them I write them down into my design doc folder and I have quite a few, I'm only working on one at a time but I stop working on one and move to another which sucks. But I have mapped out my fortnight into Google calendar so hopefully that helps.

That was my team problem and the reason why we haven't released any game. I ve worked with various teams for the past 5 years... always reaching to close to beta and then they stop.

I know the whole topic is about solo dev a game but I think all you need is 1 person thinking alike. Preferably artist or a Game Designer.

You ve mentioned that you don't enjoy creating the gameplay. So I think all you need is someone to point you into directions and keep you on the track.

Example:

Game Designer will tell you "by next week we will need this and that" small pieces at a time for you to develop and learn. Slowly slowly without realizing it you will have a released game. That is of course of you don't leave the team.

Artist will help you keep working. Doing it alone you can always say "maybe tomorrow... next week" end up not bother to go back after so long... but if you have a person on the team working too, you will see the game evolving from your partner side and try to catch up.
Such as code the new character s/he made. Listen to his ideas and find new concept to work on.

If you get excited with new ideas artists is what you need. Because during game development s/he may think of something better.
With a game designer the game will most likely be already on the papers. He will only guide you on how and what is need to be done first and have your next assignment ready.

Even better find a team with an artist and a game designer. This way you will get an organized schedule and your partner progress that you need to catch up.

And since you have a lot to do in your real life (even if I don't support it) a team without deadlines could work for you. Or a team with flexible deadlines. But still they will have demands :)

That was my team problem and the reason why we haven't released any game. I ve worked with various teams for the past 5 years... always reaching to close to beta and then they stop.

I know the whole topic is about solo dev a game but I think all you need is 1 person thinking alike. Preferably artist or a Game Designer.

You ve mentioned that you don't enjoy creating the gameplay. So I think all you need is someone to point you into directions and keep you on the track.

Example:

Game Designer will tell you "by next week we will need this and that" small pieces at a time for you to develop and learn. Slowly slowly without realizing it you will have a released game. That is of course of you don't leave the team.

Artist will help you keep working. Doing it alone you can always say "maybe tomorrow... next week" end up not bother to go back after so long... but if you have a person on the team working too, you will see the game evolving from your partner side and try to catch up.
Such as code the new character s/he made. Listen to his ideas and find new concept to work on.

If you get excited with new ideas artists is what you need. Because during game development s/he may think of something better.
With a game designer the game will most likely be already on the papers. He will only guide you on how and what is need to be done first and have your next assignment ready.

Even better find a team with an artist and a game designer. This way you will get an organized schedule and your partner progress that you need to catch up.

And since you have a lot to do in your real life (even if I don't support it) a team without deadlines could work for you. Or a team with flexible deadlines. But still they will have demands

If I might chime in on that... I had the exact opposite expierience. Granted, bar one pretty good programmer the guys I tried to team up with 2 years ago were most probably not only no very expierienced, but also not very motivated.

But also, I myself was (and still am, 5 years part time expierience is NOTHING) kinda new to the whole Game dev topic, and while I have some years of expierience with leading a team of people in the army (which hardly qualifys as real expierience outside of the army), I had zero expierience of leading a team and managing them in a hobby game dev project.

In the end, not much came out of it, most of them never did any work, and even worse, it cost me a good part of my dev time to keep them up to date, try to motivate them, organize meetings, try to learn the necessary management techniques.

One after the other dropped out of the project. So I came up with a new plan with the last two (which also failed to really contribute till today) last year, came up with a more modest project (still very ambitious for a lone wolf), and just started developing on my own... without having to worry about the other 6 guys, not having to wait on a contribution that never arrives, and being able to completly focus on getting done what needs to be done.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying working with a team is not a good thing. Depending on your project and your skills, working alone can definitely be a very BAD thing!

What I want to say, before you assemble a team, you need to be aware: somebody WILL need to manage the team. This will cost this person, whoever he is, quite a lot of time (So it might actually be a good idea to have a guy that does just that, the project lead, so to speak). He WILL need some expierience in it (a group of hobby devs can be quite an unruly bunch... nothing different to military, but there they cannot just drop out like with a hobby project ).

So seeing how the TO is drowned in different jobs and hobbies, suffers from ADD and wants to program because he enjoys it, I would rather stick to smaller projects and find a pattern that helps to stay focused on his own than trying to assemble a team.

Joining an existing team or joining as non-lead in a newly assembled team might be a good idea on the other hand, provided they are working on an interesting project (the TO will need all the motivation he can get) and can relate to his time limits (it can be frustrating working with guys that don't even have 3 hours per week to work on a project when you invest 20+ hours into it yourself... so not everyone will tolerate a lower or lax time schedule).

My 2cents

I couldn't agree more.

As well as for the 5 years experience I wouldnt even call me Jr. Game Designer. After going through Sloperama I can clearly see that there will be always something more to learn. Even after 10 years there will still be new stuff to learn maybe even a new game era. (Such as Oculus Rift which it started becoming more and more popular).

Back to the post.

I know what you meant by saying "it can be frustrating working with guys that don't even have 3 hours per week to work on a project when you invest 20+ hours into it yourself... so not everyone will tolerate a lower or lax time schedule".

"
So seeing how the TO is drowned in different jobs and hobbies, suffers from ADD and wants to program because he enjoys it, I would rather stick to smaller projects and find a pattern that helps to stay focused on his own than trying to assemble a team."

But I think all he needs is someone to organize his priorities and how to proceed.
I offered to him my help. I can rewrite his documents and give him tasks to complete at his own free time. After completing with 1 i will pass another one.

This way he can narrow his focus on specific aspect and get motivated in finishing smaller parts of the game each time. Than losing motivation during building a whole game.

After this it will really be up to him to see how it is to be a game programmer (not only coding the fun part and losing interest as soon they are done) and decide if this is actually what he wants to do as hobby.


(That is of course if he wants to finish a game or just enjoying the coding of the 1st part of the game)

I hope that may help him and a lot of people who want to get involved in game Industry :)

I used to feel the same way you did until one I came across a quote:

"The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bull$#@% story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it" -Jordan Belfort

I'm not saying the author of the quote should be your role model or anything but for some reason that really struck a chord with me so I printed it out and taped it below my monitor. Every time I feel a little unmotivated my eyes drift automatically (now) to that quote and I quickly realign myself to task.

So not to put it rudely but I see a bull$#@% story you seem to be telling yourself and it looks like you are trying to tell us, maybe even trying convince us, to tell you, you don't have time, you should quit, or this might not be for you. But I read your story, and see one not so different from mine, and I say what's really standing in your way?

Well I have started making a schedule of my life and I think it will help, I'm going to do some today and see if I can get a rhythm going. I like the quote idea though. Really helps. I had been focusing on one small part at a time, and I do enjoy programming the gameplay, but I had cut down a game so that I was working with a smaller project but that wasn't as fun as the bigger one (not really big but it was a space game and I hadn't quite figured out how to do movement in space just yet so I made it 3rd person shooter) but I think i have sorted out how to make the bigger one. I love every part of making something (even if I am no good at it like the model creation) but I believe I'm a decent programmer and I have so many different projects all written out which I have designed myself that I haven't seen before some that are more just amalgamations of other ideas into one. I tried music design too but I don't know music so I will pay someone for that. But creating is fun. Not worried about making money off it.