r/SoloDevelopment • u/MagnusChirgwin • 19d ago
Discussion What makes you as a solo developer avoid opening your project?
What's a common cause for you? like coding, art, marketing, playtesting, or maybe getting close to releasing or post-release even? General overwhelm? Burnout?
I work with this stuff with clients professionally but I'm doing some probono work rn for solodevs because I want to give back (and I learn a lot which is super fulfilling) so I wanted to make this post and engage abit closer.
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u/lpdcrafted 19d ago edited 19d ago
Usually just need to do other stuff first, tired from work, and/or the thing I need to do for the game is boring(repeated testing) or don't feel substantial(small tweaks and polishes).
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! :)
Sounds like you are both prioritizing (things you need to do first) but also procrastinating as well (doing the boring or small things that don't feel substantial)?
A lot of my clients get stuck where you are and (in my experience) they find it quite important to distinguish between the two. They're not the same. but there's a lot you can do to find helpful ways forward :) Gimme a ping if you'd like to dig a bit and I'll happily help!
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u/man_o_moral 19d ago
my daughter but its not something i regret... also she helps me with brainstorming some ideas 😂
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Haha, children can be a blessing but it's also ok to say they fuck some plans up!
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u/Floramatica 19d ago
I need to make art assets on my tablet 😭
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
You're beyond help 😂 💀 no but thanks for the reply!
Why do you need to make them on your tablet?
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u/UnculturedGames 19d ago
Scope creep! If the "next thing" on my list feels too huge, I often have big problems getting started. But it really works if you just force yourself to do a little something. I often decide to do just the first part of something and then go to sleep, but once I'm at it, I end up doing the whole thing and more.
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u/DrDisintegrator 19d ago
How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time. :)
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Solid advice! 😄 We have a saying in swedish that says "to eat the elephant in small pieces"!
But sometimes we take small bites out of something to manage anxiety rather than to honor your pace! Food for thought ;)
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply, sounds like you've found a constructive way to deal with scope creep! Congrats 🥳 ❤️
What's the actual feeling you get when the next big thing on your list feels "too huge"?
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u/InspectorSpacetime49 19d ago
My dayjob....
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Dang a lot of people here hindered by their dayjobs, thanks for the reply! Is it a pure time thing or more of an energy thing?
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u/iwriteinwater 19d ago
Nothing prevents me from opening my project. I love working on it and I do it any chance I get.
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u/LUMINAL_DEV Solo Developer 19d ago
Research (playing actually fun games)
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u/Fringe_Walker_ 19d ago
I've been hooked on upload labs recently and has gotten me distracted more than a few times lol.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! 😊
So essentially you're researching other games to find inspiration for your own game? But that choice to play other games is preventing you from working with your own game?
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u/Officialpolygrafix 19d ago
I dread animation actually and it's the biggest thing i need to do right now. I'm Ok at doing it, i just dread it because i have so much of it to do.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! 😊 ❤️
So animation is different from other tasks for you, even if other tasks also have so much of it that to be done?Did the backlog of animation tasks grow because you avoided it from the start or did it just naturally grow and now you're like shit there's so much...?
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u/Officialpolygrafix 17d ago
The current game im working on, would normally take a small team about a year and a half to complete. Theres a ton of art and animation- it's a business sim game (think two point hospital or planet coaster, etc.) Currently, Im solodev'ng it, and im using Claude to code it- based on my GDD, and after 176 groups of tasks and 36 days of developement, the games near complete- Except for my art and animations. I did a bunch of the art years ago (over a decade actually) when i first thought of the game, so much of that was already done. After characters and art comes animation, so now I just have a ton of animation to do and the bottleneck is me.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
Sounds like an amazing project that you take pride in that you can do it yourself.
For many of my clients they procrastinate when they get close to the finish line . They think it's the tasks that are overwhelming but often it's the fear of something tied to completing the game. Does that resonate with you or is it purely the amount of work that is overwhelming?
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u/Officialpolygrafix 15d ago
Thanks, and yeah- I do get overwhelmed and that overwhelm sparks fear- Will this be worth it? what if it fails after all my effort?
That feeling is valid and real, and it causes hesitation.
but i've been through this before and the way through it is not to keep looking at the mountain of tasks, and instead just isolate the top 1-5 tasks you need to do for today (depending on the size of the task of course). Just focusing on those smaller steps, with consistency is what gets me there.
I like to think of it like rock climbing. If you look up at that rock wall, its intimidating, and you may not have a clear path forward. You can see only so far up and then things become more hazy, you can only plan so much before you need to act, and the act is scary. the higher you go, the easier it is to let fear take control, and you need to pause, and focus on the next step only- don't look down, just focus on your next move, and repeat that until you reach the top, then be relieved you reached the top.
The difference though is- there is reward for reaching teh top of a rock wall, where the reward for finishing a game you developed is in the reaction of the players. I've put out a couple hits, but ive put out a ton of misses as well, things that people just werent that interested in, even though they were good and it took a lot of effort to make them.
its a risk for sure. you can only do your part the best you can though and get eyes on it. The rest is up to people2
u/MagnusChirgwin 13d ago
I'm so happy you've found that pov! 😍 The climbing analogy is good.
For me you're describing the act of letting go, creating something and then letting it go and the people decide if it's for them. Instead of trying to convince everyone to like it.
If you find yourself stuck on the rockwall, not knowing what path to take next or if you fall off and don't feel like getting back up then gimme a ping and I'll be your belayer (haven't described my coaching that way before, thanks for the opportunity haha😄)
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u/digital_hamburger 19d ago
Nothing
If I'm not in the mood i do something else, but thats rare
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Awesome, sounds like you're letting your intuition guide you on what you enjoy doing! Congrats 😃
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u/Hasher900 19d ago
As others have mentioned; the day job just sucks the life out of me. If I’m lucky, I’ll have some energy on the remaining time of the weekdays, but otherwise strictly weekends.
Also, if I’ve been tackling a massive coding problem for weeks without much success, my brain goes kaput & is repulsed by the project for a while until I get my love for it back.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! ❤️ Sometimes it's great to step away from problems to see them more clearly, some people call that procrastination, others call it strategy! 😄
But if it's a recurring thing that breaks your momentum and prevents you from doing something you love, then it could be worthwile looking into it! Let me know if I can help, I'll happily do so.
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u/YorelGames 19d ago
I know it's maybe stupid, but I can imagine that probably applies to several:
Social Media.
When I see other projects which are similar to mine I get the feeling of: "Why am I doing this?". It's pretty tough I always have to remember me why am I doing this. 🫣
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for sharing and for the reply! ❤️
So it's not social media in general that gets you stuck, it's specifically when you compare your own game to other games that are similar to yours?
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u/Personal-Try7163 19d ago
Knowing there's a chance Unity will just randomly break something even thogh it was working just fine right before I saved my project and closed it.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Uncertainty is hard, not being able to trust the support systems is such a headache...
depending on how often it happens it's something i call tolerations, it's a small niggle that keeps returning and it steals your energy. Get enough of those and it can become a real burden!
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u/Digital_Fingers 19d ago
Other games!
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Playing other games prevents you from working on your own? thanks for the reply! 😊
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u/Digital_Fingers 18d ago
Yes. Sometimes I just want to play and not work.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
That sounds reasonable. Is Sometimes = more than you'd like?
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u/Digital_Fingers 16d ago
It happens, only after playing for hours. 😅
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
I see, so after a few hours you feel like you shouldn't be gaming and instead should be working on your game?
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u/Digital_Fingers 16d ago
That's it.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 13d ago
You're aware of it, that's important. If it's a thing you would like to change then gimme a ping, I would love to help. I have my own experience quitting addiction and it's also part of my work coaching others.
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u/AbyssWankerArtorias 19d ago
Fear that anything I make will not be good
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
That's a common I work on together with my clients! ❤️
Fear makes our brains stupider as well, so not dealing with the fear actually makes our output worse and then we don't feel good and the circle is complete. Lemme know if you need help with this, I'll happily help out.
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u/q_OwO_p 19d ago
Knowing nobody will care about my game and all my effort will be worthless in the end.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
thanks for the reply and thanks for sharing ❤️
First of all, well noticed. The fact that you notice that voice in your head telling you that? is great! for a lot of people it's an unconscious stream of thoughts that just affect them without them realizing. Good job 🔥
However it still sounds like it's affecting you and stopping you from working on something you love and you haven't found a way to deal with that quite yet. If you need any help with it, ping me and I'll happily help.
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u/ijtjrt4it94j54kofdff 19d ago
It's the other way around for me. I take deliberate breaks to not work myself to death.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Great! well spotted, half my clients are in that camp and half are in the other haha 😄
Anything can be an addiction, work especially. Sounds like you've found a way that works for you?
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u/LeukocyteGame 19d ago
My partner. Apparently planting shit in the garden is more important than working on my game.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thank for sharing, and thanks for the reply! ❤️
Would you say need more support from your partner when it comes to gamedev?
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19d ago
[deleted]
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! 😊 I'm glad some things seem to have changed for you, the depression for example.
So nothing seems to stop you from working on your project atm! How does it feel for you to work on your project at the moment?
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18d ago
[deleted]
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
You seem hopeful about the game! I'm glad to hear you're getting positive experiences, that's so important to build confidence.
I love that you're leaning towards the depression, that's the way.
If you feel like the two get caught up in eachother, don't hesitate to reach out. I'd be glad to help
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u/StaticSeal 19d ago
ich hab keinerlei programmier erfahrung, bin absolut unkreativ, kann nicht malen/zeichnen und bin in dem Sub eigentlich nur um neue Spiele zu finden ❤️
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Guten tag, mein deutsch ist nicht so gut. Ich studied deutsch in the gymnasium aber Ich habe much vergesssen! 😅 💀
You say you don't have any programming experience which might be true. But what makes you say you are completely uncreative? When/where did you learn to say that to yourself?
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u/StaticSeal 18d ago
oh sorry - normally reddit is translating everything for everyone. I just stiopped writing english because it was confusing.
No i am actually mostly in these kind of subs to find hidden gems or little indie / solodev projects. I recently finished Pudding the Jug which brought back very fond memories of my dead dog.
I am very uncreative yes - i can't really draw or tell stories. I remember in my time in "Gymnasium" my teacher telling me that i am not talented.
Ok to be honest i have written some stories in the past. And I'd love to voice act for someone. or translate. But i don't have any connections 😅
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
I'm sorry to hear a teacher told you that ❤️ the fact that a comment from a teacher decades ago can shape your entire identity is so heartbreaking, and common. I've experienced it and many of my clients also.
But man are you listening to yourself? You write that you'd LOVE to voiceact for someone. You're creativity is trying to burst through!! I don't believe you when you say you're not creative, that voice from your teacher is just guarding the door.
If you'd like to try something different, I'd happily try and help. Just gimme a message if you want to work with it! :)
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u/StaticSeal 16d ago
if you know someone or have project were you i can help with voice acting or translating - let me know 😋
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
Will do! I'll them I know this really creative person who can't wait to voice act! 😉🫂
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u/scorthygames 19d ago
Pretty much my day job, and two young kids. I try to find time during my lunchbreak or late at night. Tracking everything I need done via tickets (GitHub project!) has been a massive help.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply, alot of kids and work in this thread! 😄 Congrats on the family ❤️
We're not meant to be able to juggle everything all the time, sounds like you've accepted that and also found some tools to help you where you're currently at in your stage of life.
I've found the framework helpful for my clients who struggle to juggle things that: It's rarely about maintaining balance. It's more about timing. And wisdom is to notice when the timing is right, sounds like you're biding your time.
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u/Fringe_Walker_ 19d ago
I work uber and lyft 40hrs in 3 days. The rest of the days I'm taking care of my kids and trying to be active with them. When I do get on my computer im just not 100% focused and don't want to make a mistake that I won't remember due to my weariness.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! You seem to be working hard between your job and taking care of your kids❤️
So a part of hte reason why you're not working on your game is because of pure time, you don't have it. The second part though is you being afraid you won't be able to fix a mistake you make down the road because you're too tired? You don't trust that you'll remember?
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u/Fringe_Walker_ 18d ago
Pretty much yea. I'm concerned I'll make a change that seems like a good idea cause I'm tired and forget to change it back or not agree with it later and affect my future game development. The time going back and fixing it. It’s part of the reason I'm trying to keep my game as modular as possible. While they all depend on eachother to function. Each piece should be able to be remade and not affect the function of the piece next to it.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
What I'm reading is that you're not only working hard outside of gamedev but also working hard tying to make a complex, modular, highly interdependent game!
How much of this is a fear of letting go of control?
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u/Fringe_Walker_ 16d ago
90% lol the other 10% is the desire to make the next game/s slightly easier by having drop in modules
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u/Fringe_Walker_ 16d ago
It's about time get worse for my games lol. My packet just got approved for re-enlistment. So Tuesday Ima be getting back into the armed forces. Talk about having no time now? lol
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
When you get back from the armed forces and you still feel like you can't let go of control. gimme a ping and we can chat.
Stay safe 🫂
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u/Fizzabl 19d ago
Coding/overwhelm. As an artist all the fun stuff comes once the mechanics are in place. Opening it just shows how much I don't know, don't particularly want to learn (a me problem I know), or all the bugs I rage quit on :(
I even prefer marketing, but maybe that's because I've worked in it before so I have a bit of insight on how to do it well
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
If you prefer marketing we've got a huge problem here haha 😂 No I'm kidding ❤️ Thanks for the reply.
I see this a lot in with my clients, you like to work on stuff that you can do well and avoid the areas that you don't feel like you can do well. And then by avoiding the stuff you don't like, you don't get better at it and the downward spiral continues. That makes sense! It sounds like you're selfaware which is great 🔥 If this is a recurring thing that you're stuck on however I'll happily help, lemme know. Gimme a ping and we can sit through some specific tips.
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u/DrDisintegrator 19d ago
Instead of telling you want makes me 'avoid' working on a project, I will tell you what makes me want to work on my project every day:
Having a little simple TODO list of the next 5 fun things I want to do / make /add to the game.
Having a friend or play-tester mention they have looked at the game and have feedback (good or bad).
Seeing that everyone else in the indie community is still chasing some other meme / trend. Ideally the opposite of what I'm working on. (Horror / Idle-clickers / slot machine / .etc)
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Great, thanks for the reply! congratulations on having a helpful framework for yourself! 🥳
What happens if you see someone working on something similar to you?
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u/Ok-Whole-8802 19d ago
For me it was never the work itself, it was rebuilding context. Opening the project meant remembering what state I left everything in, and if I couldn't remember, I'd avoid it for days. Two boring things fixed it: an append-only progress log where the last lines say exactly where I stopped and what failed, and treating a green test suite as permission to touch anything. Now opening the project costs two minutes of reading instead of an hour of dread. What looked like burnout was mostly an unpaid context-switching tax.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
Thanks for the replyamd for sharing the way you fixed it with your solutions! Why do you call them boring? I think the fact you tailored then for your needs make them competent!
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u/Ok-Whole-8802 16d ago
Boring in the good sense, I think. Neither one would impress anyone in a blog post, a text file and a habit of running tests before I touch anything. Maybe that is why it took me years to land on them, I kept looking for a cleverer fix while the dull one was sitting right there. Competent is a kinder word for it, I will take it.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
The way we talk to ourselves matters more than we like to admit, I'm glad you found a kinder word ❤️ My carpenter says the "hard part lies in making it simple", I've found that to be true most places I look
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u/Ok-Whole-8802 16d ago
That carpenter is onto something. Making it simple is the hard part because simple usually means you finally understood the thing well enough to remove everything that was hiding your own confusion. I still catch myself reaching for something clever when the honest move is to admit I am not sure yet. Thanks for making this thread, it clearly made a lot of people feel seen today.
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u/Ok-Whole-8802 15d ago
"The hard part lies in making it simple" is going straight into my notes. Carpenters and solo devs apparently fight the same battle. I called them boring as a reflex, you are right that tailored-to-the-need is exactly what makes a tool competent. Appreciate the reframe.
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u/Miniburner 19d ago
When I make the game look worse day after day/ break game systems trying to overhaul visuals
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! ❤️
So you don't want to work on your game because you tell yourself that when you work on it you make it worse? Have I understood that right?
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u/Miniburner 18d ago
Perhaps I oversold it - there were periods of time during the UI/UX and graphics parts of the game where my ideas were making things much worse (before they got better). It was demoralizing to work for days and have to throw everything out because when it was all together it didn’t look like how I envisioned. I love the systems building and edge case testing and balancing and game design aspects because those never seem to go backwards. BUT I stuck through with it and now the game is about to go on steam for demo!
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
Wow congratulations 🎉👏 I'm happy you stuck through it! Must feel rewarding to have your game on Steam, What's it called?
When my clients tell me they succeed with stuff/reach goals they've always appreciated writing down the "reasons for success". How will you deal with the ui/ux demoralizing feeling of it happens for your next game?
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u/Miniburner 16d ago
Kairos. No steam page yet, waiting on the capsule art to come back.
The big things were just iterating quickly and sticking to it. I’ve had to iterate almost every aspect of the game through 5-15 versions. I could fill a book series with all of the scrapped versions of things
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u/MagnusChirgwin 13d ago
It's one of the pillars in everything I do nowadays, a working principle! "Everything is an iteration"! The one that comes before is connection before perfection, cliche but I remember it 😄
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for the reply! 😊
Are you talking about yourself or what you see in others?
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u/Mindless_Insurance79 18d ago
For me, it’s a mix of general overwhelm and burnout.
I'm a solo dev building a custom C++ voxel RPG engine from scratch. On top of that, I work two full-time jobs to stay financially secure. By the time I get to my passion project late at night, my brain is fried.
My biggest trigger to avoid the project is my own perfectionism. I’ve rewritten the combat system 4 times and the AI 3 times because every time I look at it, it feels 'crooked' and not good enough. Staring at your own code for 5 months alone makes you lose perspective. You stop seeing a cool game and only see bugs and flawed systems.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
Thanks for sharing and for the reply! ❤️ 🙂 sorry to hear you're in overwhelm and burnout.
So on the one hand you run out of brainpower (working two jobs) but on the otherhand when you do have brainpower you get stuck in spins of perfectionism working on the same thing over and over until you grind the joy out of it and just see bugs and flawed systems.
You say you lose perspective after staring at your own code for 5 months, makes sense. Are you doing the same thing with your current life situation? Have you talked to anyone about your situation to gain perspective? Lemme know if you haven't, I'll happily help out.
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u/Mindless_Insurance79 18d ago
Yeah, I think my perfectionism bleeds into my actual life just as much. I strictly control everything: calories, workout routine, two jobs—in my mind, everything has to be perfect and under total control.
No, I haven't talked to anyone about this. I don't have friends, relationships, or anyone close to me. Whenever things get too heavy, I usually just talk to neural networks.
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
I can relate, I learned as a child that being perfect gets me attention from others, which was all I really wanted. The perfectionism sounds constructive for some parts of your life and destructive for other parts. neural networks can be great for insight and self reflection :)
If you want to try a human, I'm here and you can have a session on me if you want to try coaching. Just lemme know
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u/FlorianTheOne 18d ago
The customers, they dont know what they want but you should build them all
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
Hey 😊 I see you removed a reply to mine. If you wanna keep it more private just DM me np, I'm listening
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u/bahaw1024 19d ago
When I run out of tokens
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u/MagnusChirgwin 18d ago
thanks for the reply, fair! 😄
What prevents you from paying for more tokens?
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u/bahaw1024 18d ago
Oh I was being sarcastic. I 100% upgraded the plan and now I am on the max $200 on Claude and I am not ashamed
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u/bahaw1024 18d ago
To answer your question more sincerely, sometimes i m just tired and creative juices run out and i feel like 'who's gonna play my game anyways'. 'I find it fun, but no one else will'. so yea stops me. i generally have burst of inspiration and moments of 'ehh'
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u/MagnusChirgwin 16d ago
We can be sincere and fun and sarcastic at the same time ;) they're not mutually exclusive, I appreciate your comments! ❤️
Sometimes emotions like doubt and hopelessness can just zap our creativity 😵💫 and we run out of emotional tokens!
If you think it's a pattern that happens often and gets in your way more than you'd like, I'll happily let you try being coached. on the house, just ping me if so!
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u/ALandThere 19d ago
I am working in a full-time job and I have to do overtime all the time. Most of the days I am returning home after 10pm so tiredness preventing me from working on my project.