I was just wondering, since I get really good ideas (by my standards, okay?) sometimes that I can't use in my current game: What do you do with them?

I mean, as a basement-game developer, like, sub-indie. Like me, one guy (or girl) working on an idea. I assume there are more like me out here and I assume that they have more than one idea too. Do you work multiple projects? Do you shelf your ideas for the time it takes to get your current thing done? Is it even a wise idea to start multiple projects in a hobby-dev type of situation?

Also: This marks my first post that can be read without needing a coffee break. Yay for me.

As someone who is a bit of a work-a-holic, I have to put a lot on the back burner, or rotate them out depending on priorities. This leads to a wealth of backlogs from written materials, to information on my hard-drive. In other words, any projects I work on, I record nearly everything in notebooks. I have a few stacks of notebooks in my closet with notes, math, designs, art, stories... etc. They are there for me to look back if I need to, or simply as a personal archive.

Generally, I try to stick to at least, two projects at a time. Doing too much, you won't get enough done. So, you could end up with multiple incomplete works that are shitty and unpolished while you could have focused on one project and made it a well crafted work of art. That's kind of how I approach it, of course.

always write down those extra ideas. then remember where you have them stored.

3 hours ago, neveza said:

So, you could end up with multiple incomplete works that are shitty and unpolished

I have a pile of chapter ones as high as me from when I thought I was going to be an author. All of them fitting that description.

2 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

then remember where you have them stored.

There's always a catch, isn't there.

If its a good idea, I write a page about it in a google doc. I try to capture the essence of the idea and why its exciting. Then I forget about it and get back to work. 

If it's a really good idea, I can't forget about it. That's a good sign, but I get back to work anyways.

If the idea doesn't go away, then maybe it's time to spend a few extra hours exploring the idea and its feasibility. What would it take to create a rough prototype? How much would it cost? What are my resources? How would I fund it? How does it fit into the market place? How do I sell/pitch it to customers? How do I distribute it? Does the idea pass through all of these filters? Good, keep it cooking, but get back to work.

Okay, I made a really rough prototype. The idea isn't dumb. It works. How much time and effort do I want to dedicate to further developing this? Is it better than the current project? Is it more profitable to stop my current project and develop the new project? Can the idea wait for the current project to wrap up? Do I have a habit of leaving half finished projects laying around because I can't maintain the motivation and drive to finish them? If yes, then what's to say that the new exciting idea won't meet the same fate? 

In my eyes, this is a ranked list of what's most important:
#1: Do I have a product customers will buy? How do you know? Are you sure? Really sure?
#2: How will I market my product to customers?
#3: How will I distribute my product to customers?
#4: How will I create the product that customers want?
#5: How will I manage the project and walk it through from beginning to completion?

My questions are customer oriented and project management focused. Ideas are a dime a dozen. They're essentially worthless. What matters is creating something tangible which you can sell. The creation process is making an idea happen -- executing. As many of you know, simply completing a game and releasing is not enough. Lots of great, polished games are released every day and still fail because nobody buys them. Find out why others fail, and don't do whatever they did to fail. You will probably still fail, but at least you didn't fail for the same reasons. Success probably happens not because you did everything right, but because you didn't do anything wrong.

So, when I think of an idea, I write it down and it has to pass all of my filters designed to help me avoid doing wrong things. Good ideas float to the top, bad ideas stay in the pile of ideas and probably never see the light of day.

13 hours ago, slayemin said:

#1: Do I have a product customers will buy? How do you know? Are you sure? Really sure?
#2: How will I market my product to customers?
#3: How will I distribute my product to customers?
#4: How will I create the product that customers want?
#5: How will I manage the project and walk it through from beginning to completion?

In my case I would only have to mind issue 5. I'm currently still in a position that I don't have to answer to anybody and the only customer I'm working for is me. I know that's commercial suicide, but if I die laughing it's good enough for me. 

But in light of number five, I'd say I better stick to the one project that's running andhope that whatever's in my scribbles-foldder will still make sense to me when project 2 comes around.

35 minutes ago, Bakkerbaard said:

In my case I would only have to mind issue 5. I'm currently still in a position that I don't have to answer to anybody and the only customer I'm working for is me. I know that's commercial suicide, but if I die laughing it's good enough for me. 

But in light of number five, I'd say I better stick to the one project that's running andhope that whatever's in my scribbles-foldder will still make sense to me when project 2 comes around.

This is mystifying to me. What's the point of going through all the effort in making a game and then never letting people play it? That's like... writing a 300 page novel and then hiding it on a bookshelf so nobody can read it. Or painting a picture and then leaving it in the basement to collect dust so nobody can see it. Or making a movie and then putting the cassette tape in a box, never letting anyone watch it. Or working for a paycheck but never cashing it. Or composing a beautiful song, but never letting anyone hear it. What's the point of doing anything creative if its not shared? How can you hope to get better at your craft without reactions from others? If you're a novice and you think your work is garbage, that's even more reason to show it to people -- you want to learn from feedback so you can do better.

21 hours ago, slayemin said:

This is mystifying to me.

I'll clear that up then. Or try to at least, because half the time I don't know what I'm saying either. You should see me try to get directions.

I am in fact a novice, but that's not something I'm gonna let get in my way this time. My problem is that I am also a realist and comparing my level of discipline to the level of energy needed to get a game to release-stage, I best enjoy making the game as the chance of enjoying playing the game is too slim to bet on. That is not to say that I won't release the game if it gets completed. It would just be the first time I get something completed.

The commercial suicide thing was more referring to the fact that I am writing the game for myself only, as in: I'm doing a game I wanna play, with jokes that would make me laugh and characters I like. If it turns out in the end that there are other people who like it too, that's a nice bonus.

I just can't help being realistic about it, I mean, how many people on this forum alone are working on a game? That's also kinda why I try to pick my words carefully, like referring to my game as "this thing I'm toying with", I'm still at a point where I think that calling myself a game developer is offensive to people that actually know what they're doing. Either way, worst case scenario, I'll have had some fun and learned some stuff.

So, to sum it up: I'll release the game if it gets to that point, is what I'm saying, I think.

2 hours ago, Bakkerbaard said:

So, to sum it up: I'll release the game if it gets to that point, is what I'm saying, I think.

That's fine if you are just doing it as a hobby.

Knowing your making a game so that others can play it is a drive force, it allows you to get trough the mud and muck of making games. If you ever find you can't make a game from start to end, try making a game you think other people want.

On 1/30/2018 at 3:45 AM, Bakkerbaard said:

I was just wondering, since I get really good ideas (by my standards, okay?) sometimes that I can't use in my current game: What do you do with them?

Writing ideas down is great, there is a lot you can do with pen and paper. There is also software for this: http://vue.tufts.edu/ it's free software that helps you plan things.

There are payed software like this but honestly can't say if it's worth it. The only reason to even use this is so that you can use your digital doodles.

Collect your ideas, often you end up using them in very strange ways.

1 hour ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Writing ideas down is great, there is a lot you can do with pen and paper. There is also software for this: http://vue.tufts.edu/ it's free software that helps you plan things.

Thanks. At first glance that looks like it could be useful to me, for one thing or another... I'll give it a more in depth look later.

At the moment I'm mostly taking the ideas I can't qute use and beat them into something that I might be able to use and stick that in a Google Doc. But ideass you have to beat around first aren't usually the highest quality ideas. ;o)