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Too many projects?

9 replies [Last post]
Wed, 08/11/2004 - 07:42
rkalajian
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Joined: 12/31/1969

I've recently fell into a rather odd problem. The more I work on my games, the more I have ideas for new games. Not really a problem, but i'm getting bogged down in several projects, both for myself, and Winter-Wind Studios.

I just posted a journal entry a while ago listing some things i've been working on, and i've just added another to the list. It's getting rather large!

I've noticed that some other people have rather lengthy lists of projects they're tackling. Any advice on how to manage well and not spend too much time working on one game over another?

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 09:04
#1
Anonymous
Re: Too many projects?

rkalajian wrote:
I've recently fell into a rather odd problem. The more I work on my games, the more I have ideas for new games. Not really a problem, but i'm getting bogged down in several projects, both for myself, and Winter-Wind Studios.

I just posted a journal entry a while ago listing some things i've been working on, and i've just added another to the list. It's getting rather large!

I've noticed that some other people have rather lengthy lists of projects they're tackling. Any advice on how to manage well and not spend too much time working on one game over another?

I think this is probably a difficulty for everyone. I try to hold off moving from the thinking to the writing stage on many games until the ones I'm writing/prototyping are done. So much tends to change, for me anyway, between thinking of an idea and its finished format that letting it gestate for a while is probably helpful, to let it settle.

But, at the end of the day, you probably just need more hours in the day! :-)

Richard.

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 09:11
#2
phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
Re: Too many projects

rkalajian wrote:
I've recently fell into a rather odd problem. The more I work on my games, the more I have ideas for new games. Not really a problem, but i'm getting bogged down in several projects, both for myself, and Winter-Wind Studios.

I just posted a journal entry a while ago listing some things i've been working on, and i've just added another to the list. It's getting rather large!

I've noticed that some other people have rather lengthy lists of projects they're tackling. Any advice on how to manage well and not spend too much time working on one game over another?

I use a program called Keynote where I have consolidated all of my game notes into one virtual 'notebook'. With the program, each game design I'm working on is a seperate tabbed 'note' within the main screen of the software. This program has done a great deal lately to facilitate working on all my games, even new games that pop into my head. If I find I am stuck on a particular game, I just tab through the others and then I get fresh ideas on those as well. IMHO, spending too much time on any one game is not really a problem unless you're driving down a dead end road. Any game that gets nearer to completion is a game that is that much closer to being scratched off your list, even if it's temporary (I.E. until the next time you playtest it).

Good luck!
-Darke

P.S. You can find Keynote here.

Oh and here is a screenshot:

This software is freeware.

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 09:35
#3
rkalajian
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: Too many projects

Darkehorse wrote:

I use a program called Keynote where I have consolidated all of my game notes into one virtual 'notebook'.

Cool, downloading it now. I've been looking for good software to keep things more organized.

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 09:46
#4
Scurra
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Joined: 09/11/2008
Re: Too many projects?

Richard_Huzzey wrote:

But, at the end of the day, you probably just need more hours in the day! :-)

My dad says that he could have sworn there used to be eight days in a week and he can't work out what happened...

(nb it's the precious playtesting time that's the problem, not the game development time IME. You can fine-tune, rewrite and/or completely scrap a game as much as you like, but until you actually test it with real people, you'll never know...)

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 09:50
#5
GamesOnTheBrain
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Joined: 07/24/2008
Too many projects?

LOL... I wish I could help you. That's how my wife came up with the name for my "company."

One particular month, I was regularly having trouble falling asleep. While tossing and turning, my wife asked, "Can't sleep?" I replied, "No, I can't." She then said, "Do you have games on the brain?" I laughed. "Ya... hey, that's a good name for a company!"

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 09:58
#6
Anonymous
Re: Too many projects?

Scurra wrote:
My dad says that he could have sworn there used to be eight days in a week and he can't work out what happened...

Must've been an act of Congress/Parliament. I bet it was a weekend day, and the corporate bigwigs pushed it through to increase productivity. Grr! [/soapbox]

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 13:06
#7
OrlandoPat
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Joined: 10/16/2008
Keynote looks interesting

I'll have to give Keynote a whirl. Does it have a way to keep earlier versions? Right now, I have nested directories for each game idea ("gamename/version 1", "gamename/version 2", etc.)...

Something that managed that for me would be really nice.

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 13:20
#8
phpbbadmin
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Joined: 04/23/2013
Re: Keynote looks interesting

OrlandoPat wrote:
I'll have to give Keynote a whirl. Does it have a way to keep earlier versions? Right now, I have nested directories for each game idea ("gamename/version 1", "gamename/version 2", etc.)...

Something that managed that for me would be really nice.

Within each note page, it supports a Hiearchal structure.. So for example, if you had a game named Whirling Dervish, you could do something like this:

Notes
Ruleset
L---Revision1
L-----Setup
L-----Round Order
L---Revision2
L------Setup
L-----Round Order
L---Revision3
+
L---Revision4

Etc. You get the gist. It's easy to add children and parent 'nodes' to the structure of each note. You can also move nodes up and down, left and right throughout the tree structure rather easily.

-Darke

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Wed, 08/11/2004 - 18:37
#9
GeminiWeb
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Joined: 07/31/2008
Too many projects?

I'm relatively new, having started my first game around last Christmas ... and now the ideas for other games come to haunt me ...

I like have lots of ideas up in the air ... be they just a theme (space colony), specific mechanic (type of blind voting, turn order mechanisms), or something that starts to look mor elike a game.

That way, I can find myself pulling bits & pieces from each other to put together a game (I starting to feel like an Igor now ... creating games from dead game bits?)

That said, however, I think I'd only want 1-3 at the major playesttsing and revision stage and at any given time.

Mind you, my biggest delays are also from a lack of playtesters ... (and a 4 year old son and a 2 year old son ... and a wife who wants stuff done around the house before the next baby is born in November ...)

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