Purpose, motivation, and why I've been struggling to finish game projects

outfrost · June 20, 2025, 2:36am

Just watched this video from Game Maker’s Toolkit, and it made me reflect on how some of my ideas about indiedev have changed while I’ve been doing this as a hobby for 5+ years, and realise what I might’ve been doing wrong.

The first time Savior and I actually put time and effort into turning a jam submission into a commercial game, I thought it was gonna take maybe 2 or 3 months of work. We just needed 8 more levels, some polish, and we could ship it - how hard could it be? We’d just made 2 solid levels and all the fundamental logic in a weekend, after all. People were enjoying it, and the implementation was simple.

Years later, we had, of course, not shipped a commercial release at all, never mind in 3 months. I didn’t know what story I could tell through the sassy narrator, we were both out of ideas for levels, and Savior said he’d rather work on another jam game we had come up with since.

I was beginning to believe it’s not viable to just “finish up” a jam game, and we will instead have to rebuild them into something bigger, more appealing. I mean, are people even gonna consider wishlisting a short, simple game, without a profound narrative or endless replayability?

With our current game project, we decided to rebuild the whole scene to be more immersive and visually interesting (and support mutliplayer if we decide to implement it), and I went around rewriting most of the code.

It took a very long time, and the gameplay has pretty much remained the same - worse, some of it doesn’t even work yet. This has definitely been a drain on my motivation, and now it’s making me think: maybe it’s less about the feature list, making the game appear bigger, or finishing it quickly, and more about trying things out, concentrating on what’s fun, and having fun working on it?

Similar to what I recall @exodrifter saying about herself, purpose is very important to me in making games. What do I want to achieve with the game, what should it communicate, what do I want to make players feel, would I want to play it myself? Why am I making it?

Well, I have a few future projects in mind with a moderately profound purpose, but I think I’m realising these jam games we’ve been developing exist in a category of their own. Their purpose, right from inception, has been to make something small and fun, to enjoy experimenting, and to see people’s reactions. That’s why I’ve struggled to find a compelling and enjoyable way to make them bigger and more appealing - they were never meant to be that, and I’m kinda working against their strengths.

Not every game has to be big and mesmerising, and not every game has to tell a story. A commercial game sprouting out of a jam experiment can definitely be the opposite of those things.

^{I should finish Pillars at some point.}

misterpedantic · June 20, 2025, 4:25am

I don’t know enough about you or your motivations beyond this post, but a few things seem to be true:

You thought what you were doing would be easy.
You found out some things about what you were doing were more difficult.
You say you’re unmotivated, which could be an expression of a lack of intrinsic or extrinsic sources of reasons to do what you think you want to do.

I’m running the risk of sounding like a horrible old man or discouraging you from doing what you’re doing, but you may need to be brave enough to look at what you’re doing and make tough decisions that lead you to an answer to what I think is a very valid question you brought up: Why do this?

For lack of someone coming from outside to tap you on the shoulder and provide some grand motivation for you, it might just be time to gain the experience of having finished more things. Or barring that, putting something aside in favor of something else for which motivation is more clear. Either way, it might be that you need to draw from a well outside yourself for some of that inspiration, but setting your own goals and being brave enough to face the outcome for your own sake, is the well you have to seek within. That’s the only one you can depend on, ultimately.

I wish you all the best in this.

outfrost · June 21, 2025, 2:49am

Thank you!

Not strictly true. I knew making compelling games was a complex and often difficult endeavour (I had already made 10 other jam games, and tried making a game and an engine at the same time), and I had respect for the god of scope creep. That said, I certainly underestimated how much more inspiration and focus we’d need to continue.

Not quite what I said or meant; I’ll elaborate.

I mentioned the unsatisfying progress being a drain on my motivation, because it has chipped away at the motivation I did have when starting or deciding to continue these projects.

Game development is one of the most motivating things for me personally, both intrinsically - crafting experiences I and others can enjoy, making stuff work in an endless variety of ways, doing things my way, creating experiences that I think should exist, expressing myself in a creative medium so central to my childhood, adolescence, and who I am as a person - and extrinsically - seeing the reactions of others, getting people’s attention, causing people to feel things, building things together with a team.

These are all reasons for making games that bring me great joy and keep me moving forward. Some of them depend on actually finishing projects. That’s why we decided to shelve Pillars of Anguish for a while, and focus entirely on Re:Placement instead - we felt we were in a much better position to finish the latter than the former. So far that seems to have held true.

Had I not been prioritising finishing a project this whole time, I’d’ve likely been working on my dream game - a much larger, much more complex and difficult project, which is a huge motivation for me to pursue indie game development specifically, and which I don’t think I would’ve been able to complete in a way I’d be satisfied with. Not yet.

And that, I think, is a big part of why finding creative drive and keeping motivation up is not as nice and straightforward as one would like. The projects I’ve worked on so far are all, in a way, stepping stones, to help me eventually reach for a bigger goal, a magnum opus. They all, inevitably, feel a bit like getting stuck on a side quest, even if they’re really part of the main story.

The new realisation I’m having is identifying the ways in which these smaller projects connect to my reasons for making games. They’re not just about crafting a polished, enjoyable experience for the players, but also, more importantly, about trying stuff, seeing it in action, and having fun working on it. About learning. So I will make sure there is more of that in my projects going forward.

That’s what I wanted to share. I’m wondering if others have similar experiences, or mildly related thoughts.

I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death.
— Monty Oum^[1]

https://web.archive.org/web/20150203143527/https://montyoum.net/archives/602/ ↩︎

LezLiz · June 21, 2025, 11:30am

Yeah, I also feel that jam games tend to be a thing of their own. Sometimes the stars happen to align and you find a way to adapt it into a bigger game later, but in my experience it’s always a bit of a struggle.

I’m actually working on turning a jam game into something big right now, and yeah… You can slap together a certain amount of content for a jam even with the most atrocious workflow, but it might not be too sustainable in a larger scale. Definitely wasn’t for me. I was losing my mind a few weeks after the jam already. Had to spend closer to 3 months to redo stuff to make development enjoyable again.

Finishing games is also tough. It takes so long and the content grind for bigger games in particular can feel like a huge chore at times. But it’s still fun if you approach it the right way. A bit like mining a chunk bare all the way to the bedrock in Minecraft or something.

I don’t know, I guess my one tip is to take really good care of yourself. Keep reminding yourself of the great things you have achieved and always be extra forgiving if you have been struggling. Take time off regularly and touch grass or whatever you find comforting. Find ways to make your vibes good and enjoy chipping at it little by little.

exodrifter · June 24, 2025, 1:13pm

I treat the why question very seriously. If I’m working on something that isn’t just for survival and it cannot be connected to what I feel are the most important aspects of my life, then I’m unlikely to take interest. For me, this is the default mode of operation and it’s an intrinsic part of my ability to stay motivated and feel like I have purpose. It also seems obvious and self-evident – I don’t feel like I need to justify or explain it.

But, I’ve come to understand over the years that not everyone operates this way. I’ve met quite a few people at game development events that get stumped by the why question. People who sometimes just want to make any kind of game and have trouble coming up with ideas for what they’d actually like to make or how they’d like to improve a game they’re currently working on. I have, at times, found this shocking. I don’t mean to say that these people are bad for not knowing why or that they are worse game developers; it was just difficult for me to understand. I can’t imagine wanting to work on something without knowing why I want to.

I usually say that knowing why you are making something can lead to better decision-making when you’re deciding what or what not to do for a game. It can also help you feel more motivated, because you understand what the game is being made for and you feel more rewarded by work, because the features you are adding are for meeting that fundamental goal. Knowing why can be really motivating! Usually, this helps, but I’m a bit at a loss for how to explain my perspective.

Again, it seems self-evident to me – even if it might not actually be strictly true. Maybe the why question isn’t that important for finding purpose. It feels important to me though.

maidmage · June 25, 2025, 10:49pm

For me the question isn’t “Why am I making games?” but rather, “Why am I making this game?”. I’ve always known for a while that I want to make games, I really enjoy how it unites artforms, being able to create something both visually, sonically, and narratively, into one nice product. I also really love problem-solving, and programming has been able to scratch that itch nicely.

If I wasn’t making games, I’d be trying to make movies.

I also have a similar goal in mind, I want to eventually build projects bigger than myself that I’m not ready for. There are dream games being formed on the back burner, but I train my eyes to focus on more immediately achievable projects.

The issue is with that side quest feeling. Often times ill get stuck working on a specific game for so long… I start to wonder why? I start to wonder if its a waste of time, and if its stopping me from reaching my true goals. Its a weird kind of feeling that once a project stops becoming useful to me, or loses my interest for some other reason. I don’t finish working on that game. No demo, no polished release, nothing. I get caught up in the failings of a project in progress, so I abandon it and start studying whatever topic I wasn’t understanding properly. Instead of redoing or refactoring, I do it again elsewhere. I clip that branch instead of letting it blossom, and move on to the next thing.

As a result, I end up learning a lot, but I often times don’t have a lot to show for it. So sometimes when I hit a wall or a stopping point, I go to look at my work and realize how much of it is intangible. That’s led to burnout a few times, because if you don’t see results your bound to lose motivation. Even though deep down I know I’m getting closer to reaching my goals, I kind of just have to trust myself to keep moving forward.

If we wanna lean on that “side quest” metaphor, I’m not finishing those or the main story either. I guess I’m kind of power-leveling - doing side quests to unlock certain items but not finishing them outright.

I’ve recently come around to a point where I’m way more satisfied with my art, the quality of models and animations I can do, but I’ve been lacking on the execution. Actually having something to show for all the work I’ve done. Now’s the time where I’m satisfied with my art and where I can stop studying and start creating. So now, in theory, there’s nothing stopping me from actually finishing a game project. There’s no imminent subject that I need to learn or practice.

Ironically though, I’ve run out of time for making games. Maybe there’s a way I can bake my cake, have it, and eat it too, but I don’t think i can balance that as of now.

outfrost · June 27, 2025, 6:14am

I 100% agree with you, and the first time I listened to you talking about this, it cleared up a lot of thoughts for me. It really helped me identify why I felt more drawn to certain projects and ideas, why some things seemed more rewarding or motivating, and why I become demotivated and dissociate so easily in corporate settings. I think I just failed to consider it to the depth I needed.

I’ve come up with this new game idea, which at its core is way more fascinating to me than the things I’ve been working on so far. I’d love to start working on it right away, but finishing my current game is still important to me. I’ve invested the work of multiple friends into it, it’s more than half way done, I really want to finish something, and this is a decently small project to use for learning. Maybe I’m operating under a sunk cost fallacy, but it’s not just my cost any more, and, all things considered, I enjoy working on it when I’m not stuck in refactor hell.

I think, going forward, I need to more tightly focus my work on the parts that align with why the game exists in the first place, and make a more conscious decision to not try to find extra parts to add just for the sake of it. Getting around to making the next game I’m excited to make and play, and not spending more time than necessary to make the current one decent, will be good for my creative drive.

It feels bad to have spent a year of my savings making a lot less tangible progress than I expected, but it’s been an important learning experience.

And I’m already planning the development process of the next game in a way that should make it more rewarding, motivating, and flexible. Even though I’m not where I wanted to be, I’m excited for the future.