I’ve had some experience building applications and games for projects prior to this class. One of the games I was involved with came out of a simple idea that initially was very close to our hearts. We thought that our game was going to be amazing and so did all the people encouraging my team. The game had a simple mechanic: You control hippos on the game screen and make sure they don’t die. The objective was to eat all the tiny creatures on the screen. The catch was that the longer you hold down the button, the faster your hippo moves, and as you progress in levels, you have to control more hippos. While we loved this concept initially, by the time the game was ready to be showed off, all three of us hated it. We did not want to build anything further for that game, nor did we want to play it.
I feel like this is a common occurrence for artists who are creating their own artwork, be it a painting, a book, or a game. Chipeur’s blog lists many ways that work for her when she faces such a scenario. Some of her techniques require extreme self analyzation, while others are simpler methods such as taking a walk. In my experience, not many of those work for me. But getting a fresh perspective on what I’m creating tends to give me new enthusiasm. What are some of the things that keep you from getting frustrated about your game or project?
Source: https://alifeofgab.com/what-to-do-when-you-hate-your-artwork/
I agree, it definitely helps to get a good night sleep or take a small break (best is a coffee break) to prevent frustration during the course of a project. During the course of development and publishing, it’s important to understand that the first version of a release is never going to be bug-free or perfect. Don’t let that discourage you from the project or the overall main goal though.
I would say that one of the best feelings ever is when you get constructive criticism, in example when you publish the first version of your app or game on an app store and it gets a poor review, and you make a change to better that app or game based on the criticism and it influences that individual to update or amend their poor review to a good one. To me, that feeling is very inspiring and reduces a tremendous amount of frustration and stress which allows you to focus more on other features and ideas that help benefit the overall concept or goal of app or game.
I think there are some important differences between working on a piece of art, and working on a piece of software (game in this instance). In the art domain this wouldn’t be feasible, but a good way of getting over the developer frustration is trying to put out a bare-bone product as soon as possible. In class we talked about focusing on getting a working game prototype in order to receive feedback early in the development process and this is somewhat related. In order to have a finished product relatively quickly, you have to focus on the essential mechanics, so this keeps you focused on the main goals. The chances of you getting bored and frustrated with the project are also lower since you don’t spend so much time working on random, and possibly, useless features. I see a lot of game developers taking this route, where they make a game surrounding a concept or mechanic just to get a userbase. Then, using the feedback and maybe some kickstarter funding, the developers can launch a full featured and polished game v2.0.
When I get really stuck on anything when coding I like to walk or take a shower. It is in the moments when I stop focusing on the issue in detail that I can see the bigger picture. And when developing my own projects, I do tend to get frustrated when I can’t seem to make what I imagined perfectly. It helps me to log every bug I find in a spreadsheet and then start tackling each one individually until the list is gone. Usually when I debug I struggle with the fix and then try to fix something else and that leaves me accomplishing nothing. The list in the spreadsheet motivates me to fix them as well as keeps me focused on one bug at a time.
It definitely helps to walk away and maybe get a good nights sleep to avoid the project getting stale. I have noticed in my development that if I am working on a particular project for too long I get frustrated and make more mistakes than usual. Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes on your project. I find that when I just bounce ideas off someone it helps me overcome obstacles in development.
I do not have much experience in making games. But when I come to software development, I had experienced more or less the same thing. You think of the great idea that you think everyone is going to love. But during your development of the product, things can get boring and feedback from other people is sometimes even less encouraging if even any positive. But one thing you hear again and again from people in the industry is that no idea are perfect and development can often fail. What I think is most important when it comes to the frustration we all experience is that you learn from it. Think of it as a good practice, and that you will be one step closer to becoming a better developer.