Elysian Shadows

So, what keeps you motivated making games / writing software / developing ?
Is there anything you do now and then to just stop slacking and getting the fuck back to work?

Personally, what keeps me motivated is progress, and when there's little progress, I easily stop doing stuff. (Which I hate)
But then I go and watch AiGD, or other game dev vids on youtube, which helps my motivation a lot!

It's a bit of an evil circle, but I guess it's how most people have it now and then.

Problem solving! It's my drug. And although I do have times when I'm doing other stuff, whether it's learning a language or reading manga, I always end up coming up with an idea for the problem I've been working on, and come back to coding. I put on some awesome music and code away!

Impressing my boss. Seriously, it's by far the best motivation I've ever had.

dandymcgee wrote:Impressing my boss. Seriously, it's by far the best motivation I've ever had.

Dude, BIG +1 I miss my working days as an IT Technician.

Edit: wow that sounded like I'm done for.

Making progress on a TODO list or solving an annoying problem will keep me rolling for sure, though to initially get started? Making lists always helps, especially on a white board... don't know why, but it does lol. If it takes me longer than 'normal' to get setup to start developing, I find my resolve wavering... I've gone through about 3 PCs in the last 6 months, each time having to replicate my original dev setup and that's been discouraging... then I got SVN setup on my web server and that's helped keep everything organized and easy to get to. That also helped since that was a small project that I knew I could get running in a short time and have something to show for it.

Ha, that's a good one to actually: Have some smaller task(s) to get me started and once I get on that roll, like I said initially, making progress or solving problems usually keeps me going. It's always nice when I have to restart a playlist after random deafening silence takes over because I didn't realize that much time had passed.

Trask wrote:Making progress on a TODO list or solving an annoying problem will keep me rolling for sure, though to initially get started? Making lists always helps, especially on a white board... don't know why, but it does lol.

Definitely. Crossing items off a list is a sure way to see yourself getting shit done.

Trask wrote:It's always nice when I have to restart a playlist after random deafening silence takes over because I didn't realize that much time had passed.

Haha yea, that happens to me all the time.

Ginto8 wrote:Problem solving! It's my drug. And although I do have times when I'm doing other stuff, whether it's learning a language or reading manga, I always end up coming up with an idea for the problem I've been working on, and come back to coding. I put on some awesome music and code away!

same here. I always have code in the back of my mind

M_D_K wrote:

Ginto8 wrote:Problem solving! It's my drug. And although I do have times when I'm doing other stuff, whether it's learning a language or reading manga, I always end up coming up with an idea for the problem I've been working on, and come back to coding. I put on some awesome music and code away!

same here. I always have code in the back of my mind

+1

Architecting for me. It's why I'm in this business. I'm not the best mathematician, I'm not the best problem-solver, I'm not even necessarily the best programmer either. But having a problem in the back of my head that I am constantly building or "architecting" a solution towards is the most rewarding thing in the world for me. It's like a constant dopamine drip. I like whiteboards, I like drawing diagrams, I like dev notebooks--I like building software/hardware/algorithms graphically to solve a problem.

I'm not a very left brianed thinker is what I have discovered. I am engaged very much in left brained activities (all of my hobbies), but I approach them with my right brain as an artist draws a picture, a writer writes novel, or as a musician composes a track. I have NEVER been good at abstract math without any application--my brain cannot graphically associate anything with the problem, and I cannot "architect" a solution without a context.

You guys should check out "Programatic Thinking and Learning (Refactor Your Wetware)." It's a book focused on self-analyzing the ways that you think and process (aimed at programmers). It helps you not only broaden your horizons, but also play to your own strengths. The book has been a bible to me as far as game development and engineering goes.

dandymcgee wrote:Impressing my boss. Seriously, it's by far the best motivation I've ever had.

You had better not let that get you carried away. Especially if you know that you are more competent than your boss is.

I've seen self-motivated, passionate people become reduced to boss ass-kissers who lose all self-motivation and only care to do what is assigned at work and only do that to show off to the big man...

GyroVorbis wrote:

dandymcgee wrote:Impressing my boss. Seriously, it's by far the best motivation I've ever had.

You had better not let that get you carried away. Especially if you know that you are more competent than your boss is.

I've seen self-motivated, passionate people become reduced to boss ass-kissers who lose all self-motivation and only care to do what is assigned at work and only do that to show off to the big man...

Considering the whole place consists of 8 employees, the "big man" is more like your best friend. He is quite knowledgeable and works with me on projects rather than assigning me random shit to do. I call him my "boss" because I don't know what word is right. Really the only thing that puts him above me is his length of employment and his power to tell the owner of the company that I'm not doing well and should be let go if he saw fit.

With the things I work on checking items off a check list and impressing my "boss" are the exact same thing really. I get a constant feeling of accomplishment and know I'm progressing farther toward a finished product. As far as losing self-motivation, that's something I've always had a very hard time with in the first place, and if anything I'm probably gaining it through this experience.

GyroVorbis wrote:Architecting for me. It's why I'm in this business. I'm not the best mathematician, I'm not the best problem-solver, I'm not even necessarily the best programmer either. But having a problem in the back of my head that I am constantly building or "architecting" a solution towards is the most rewarding thing in the world for me. It's like a constant dopamine drip. I like whiteboards, I like drawing diagrams, I like dev notebooks--I like building software/hardware/algorithms graphically to solve a problem.

I'm not a very left brianed thinker is what I have discovered. I am engaged very much in left brained activities (all of my hobbies), but I approach them with my right brain as an artist draws a picture, a writer writes novel, or as a musician composes a track. I have NEVER been good at abstract math without any application--my brain cannot graphically associate anything with the problem, and I cannot "architect" a solution without a context.

You guys should check out "Programatic Thinking and Learning (Refactor Your Wetware)." It's a book focused on self-analyzing the ways that you think and process (aimed at programmers). It helps you not only broaden your horizons, but also play to your own strengths. The book has been a bible to me as far as game development and engineering goes.

I definitely get this. I think that's why I've been so interested in the design concepts you've brought up in the videos and forums. Everytime I see you guys spend 2-3 videos outlining a new design for the game by pulling out the whiteboards, talking about it, showing diagrams, etc; it gets me thinking deeply about design decisions and the structure of my own projects.

I've actually been struggling a bit lately with finding what motivates me to program since my game project has basically been 100% structurally solidified for awhile (and now it's launched) so there hasn't been much room for that kind of thinking. In addition, comp sci had been focusing on a constant stream of little programming assignments that fit into pre-molded designs. With the announcement of a large final project which involve coming up with a documented design, I suddenly feel way more into it. I like coming up with a conceptual model in my head of how the whole thing will fit together. As a matter of fact, I find I like that far more than I like programming. It's not that I don't like programming, but I get most of my excitement from designing the structure and interactions.

I always liked building Lego as a kid, but some of the best parts for me were the grandiose ideas I had in my head which would evolve as I played around with the blocks. It was at least as much about visualization and conceptualization as it was about hands-on building.