How do you keep yourself motivated?

[jbeave]

I've been working on a character for about a month now, and I've only got a few basic poses so far. I'm no where near being done, and I think I'm starting to lose interest. I've sat here today for a few hours working on the running frames, and it's just boring the hell out of me now. I started this project so I could make a platformer game with it, and if I quit now I won't be able to even start programming the game...which means I'll have literally wasted a month of my life doing this. I've tried making new designs for enemies and bosses but I have no inspiration. Though I do have ideas, I just can't quite put them into pixels yet...if that makes any sense.

 I know I'm not the only person to ever be in a situation like this, so any advice?

[crab2selout.png]

Never a bad idea to make lists of what you want to accomplish/need to do. Could be you're just unsure of what to do next or maybe overwhelmed by what to do next.

I kind of have the same problem, but I've gotten into the habit of documenting my ideas so that if I do get bored, I can switch focus for a bit and come back to a project later.

[NaCl]

I find that the more I stress about "losing motivation", the more certain it is I will not finish that project. Pixel art is just a fun thing for me, so I do what I feel like doing when I feel like doing it. Also I find that if you take interest in what you are doing, not just the result of what you are doing, then motivation is no problem. Switching between tasks is always a good idea too, I doubt you need to finish the art before you can start programming. In my project I just used to stand in art (stick figure) to get things up and working.

As for inspiration, for me it gets stifled when I'm trying to force it. I'm not working for anyone, so I just relax and let ideas come, and if I can't think of something then no big deal, there is no deadline.

[xhunterko]

I have to agree with the already stated advice here.

Make sure you have everything written down. Work on the priorities. Or better yet, don't work on the priorities. Take a break and work on something different. If it's not what you really want to do, then, yes, you will lose motivation, and fast. If it helps, stop and find a contest to participate in to challenge yourself. I'm trying to create a puzzle game for one right now. Which is something I've never done before. Break out that wacom/tablet/notebook and doodle a little. Play some other games for awhile. Or play those that inspired you to start in the first place. If you think you got a basic engine down in your head, stop and code it. Make a little goomba like character, make a smallish game with that. Then go back to that Metroidvania/Cave Story type character. That way you already have what you need. And, never, ever, ever ask for crit on it unless your absolutely sure you need it! Waiting for crit will severely halt your dev time! Or, instead, ask for crit, and use your little low bit goomba instead as backup while you dev. Just make sure and give it arms so it can wall jump and hold guns and such. And, one thing that I've found really helpful is: Look at what others have done. There are tons of indie games to look up. And new ones are being made almost every week/day! It keeps me thinking, if another person can do this, then I can do this too. And if all else fails, play an old commercial game or two. If that doesn't get you inspired, I don't know what will.

[Joe]

Well, from what I've learned and experienced, the mind will only let you be motivated if the end result has some intrinsic value.  Examples being mowing people's lawns in return for money(positive motivation), or putting on your seat belt because you don't want to die(negative motivation).  Okay, that last one could also be viewed as positive, but the point is death is something bad you don't want to happen to you.

From this I derived a few things that help me:  When I start a project, I visualize just how awesome it's going to be.  Everyone's going to love it, I'll have learned a lot, and I'll feel good.  Now, I want that.  That's positively motivating me to get off my ass.  However, it's inevitable at this point in my life(I'm slowly trying to kill it) that laziness and procrastination sets in.  To kind of kill that, I think about how my life is so finite, and that sitting around being unproductive is not a neutral state.  It's not moving me forward, so it's counter-productive.  I'm wasting time that I could be learning things and working towards becoming better, at whatever it is.  Now, I don't want to be counter-productive, so even if I don't continue with this specific project at the moment, I'll still go do something else productive.  This all helps to varying degrees of course, and it's not always helpful but most of the time it gets me back in gear.  I will tell you though that positive motivation is way stronger than negative. 

For where you are now, I'd say re-think it a bit.  Remember why you wanted to start this project in the first place, and visualize just how awesome it's going to be.  Break everything into chunks, and break the chunks into smaller chunks, and do them.  That's how I complete large-scale projects.

I started this project so I could make a platformer game with it, and if I quit now I won't be able to even start programming the game...which means I'll have literally wasted a month of my life doing this.

No.  That's a counter-productive frame of mind.  Just because you didn't finish it doesn't mean you wasted your time.  All of the time you spent on it so far, you've been thinking about things, whatever they were and you've been learning and developing your own way of doing things.  That's not a waste of time.  Even if your motivation runs out for the moment, it's totally okay.  Maybe one day you'll get a spark and go back to that project, and refine it to completion.  Maybe not, maybe you'll move on to bigger and better things.  But it's bad that you move on, it just means that you moved on.  But I hope you do complete this, it's a good habit to finish something every now and then.

[Gil]

Why can't you start programming first? Maybe that will be more fun and you can switch to art again when you're motivated.

[Mike]

I agree if you have the means of making a game then go ahead and do that even if you have to use placeholder art in order to do it.  That's what I'm doing right now as well.  First I make short animations using Flipnote Studios on my DSi because the turnover rate is sooo much higher than when I work straight in graphic gale.  Using Flipnote I can finish a punch animation in less than a minute and that's because I only focus on the key frames. 

First frame: Idle
Second Frame: Wind Up(anticipation)
Third Frame: Punch
Fourth Frame: I reuse the second frame in order to return to the idle.

Examples:  I don't consider any of these final but they work for my purposes and that's to test movement and set up hit boxes.  And quite frankly they are horrible and have changing volumes all over lol.(although even with finals I have a problem with keeping volumes the same  )







Than I make sure the timing is perfect for a punch.  You don't want it to be over in 10 milliseconds.  And then once the timing is good I can comfortably import it into my game without worry.

1.Find the best method that allows you to pump out art and animations as fast as possible.  Doesn't even have to look good.  Instead of starting with the final work start with the thumbnails and rough drafts.  You can't very well make a good, coherent essay without having an outline.

2.Start programming!  I use Multimedia Fusion 2 when I make games and that allows me to easily turn most of my ideas into a game concept in a little under an hour.  Even if you code with a programming language like C or C++ you can quickly and easily prototype ideas using programs like Multimedia Fusion 2.

3.Use the art you imported and make it work based on your idea for the game.  Trust me when I say it is very positive feeling to see a character I've created moving on screen.  That used to be my main motivation when making games.  It's just amazing to see those little characters move.

4.Repeat until the entire game is filled with concept art.  If you can get it to work with placeholder art then the game ultimately isn't going to change when you place the real art in it later.  Focus on how the game plays first!  Cool art is awesome I agree but I would prefer to play a game with placeholder art over that has great gameplay than a game with beautiful graphics and bad gameplay.(I don't care if "gameplay" is a redundant term so don't come bringing your insomnia gamer bullshit essays to me ^_^)

One more thing!

It's true about how critique severely slows down productivity.  It's good for learning but when you are in a hurry...not so good. 

[jbeave]

Thanks for the responses. It never dawned on me to use placeholder sprites to start programming... Maybe I can come up with a stickman or two and work from that.

[Darien]

I just want to say that just because you work hard on something for a project that ultimately doesn't come to fruition doesn't mean you 'wasted' any time--you've probably learned a ton working on that one character, even if it isn't immediately obvious to you.  IMO self-growth is often more important than any final project you might create.

Not that seeing things through to completion isn't meritorious--that, too, is a very important skill, but perhaps keeping in mind that with every step you take where you challenge yourself and learn something is valuable in itself will help you stay motivated even if it seems to be taking longer to get where you wanted when you started out.

[SirBilly]

You know I always spent to much time on my stuff and it never really turned out as good as I hoped because I'm to eager to sort of improve my pixel-skills in every piece. But the things I've done that I'm not only most satisfied with but that also the ones getting the most favourites by far on Pixejloint I finished within like 20 minutes. I sort of just drew without thinking 'is this correct or not'. It's strange really. Try it out, just paint and see what happens and if you start to mess it all up after getting stuck take a break and get back on it the next day.

And for inspiration I use the web-browser add-on StumbleUpon, scrolling through 'Art pages', you'll find something really inspirational eventually. I do anyway.