My older games were kind of uh... well I didn't take too much time focusing on every little detail. And thankfully, most of them either didn't make the QC cut, or I decided against submitting them. Can't remember. Anyways, every time I open a project up I notice things that aren't [url=https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amfgg.net+polished][b]polished[/b][/url] and I end up spending hours on some banal task such as making sure a coin sparkle animation is [url=http://i.imgur.com/maA3YJA.gif][b]perfect[/b][/url]. While perfectionism and wanting games to be polished is good to a certain extent,* I can't let it continue to be an obstacle. For example, the physics for my Mario's Lava Madness [s]reboot[/s] [color=lightcoral]u[/color][color=gold]p[/color][color=khaki]d[/color][color=lime]a[/color][color=mediumturquoise]t[/color][color=darkorchid]e[/color] have been done for months, but every time I open up the GMK... well... refer to the last sentence of the first paragraph of this post. [b]How do I find a balance?[/b] It's really frustrating that I am actually actively working on my fangames on almost a daily basis (except when I'm swamped with college homework :whoops: ) but I have nothing to show for it. [size=90][i]*I mean if it weren't for perfectionism I wouldn't even be rebooting Mario's Lava Madness. NONE of my games are anywhere near perfect by any means whatsoever, but Mario's Lava Madness is particularly bad compared to my other works. Updating it to something fun and polished will alleviate that feeling that I have of Mario's Lava Madness being a stain to my small, but... and hopefully this isn't egotistical... not-too-horrible submission record. I'm actually going to release this as an update to the game I already submitted to the site in when I was 15 years old, since in the title screen I've included a "Retro 2005 Mode" option where you can play the original game untouched.[/i][/size] [i][size=70]Oh I should probably update GOSIME too. Last time I tried to update it I actually ended up rebooting it and it would've had to be accepted as a different submission. Once Mario's Lava Madness is done I should just optimize GOSIME's code and squash the glitches.[/size][/i] [img]https://s12.postimg.org/qdmx2s1pp/Colon_V.png[/img] The only reasonable solution I can think of (for this specific case at least) is that once I add the skidding dust animation and a few skins... I'm just going to ignore any other imperfections, release the game and wait for people to notice flaws in the game. Every time like... uh... three flaws are noticed, I'll update the game. Is this a good idea? Oh and [url=http://pastebin.com/raw/AEbyjMYY][b]don't even get me started on Mole Mafia[/b][/url]. :soveryhappy: I'd like to clarify that I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting a game you release to be polished or adequately presentable (or knocking a few points off a game score in a review when a game doesn't look to snazzy) but taking perfectionism too far is obviously a problem. At least, in my opinion it is. Darn, almost went an entire post without the "in my opinion" disclaimer. Maybe next time. :biggrin: Oh and none of this post is intended as a bash toward reviewers. I like constructive critique; it helps me grow. I'm the one who's taking paranoia of critique a tad too far. But by all means, if I screw up something in a game, don't have any mercy on me. :thumbsup: I want to fix any issue my game releases may have. Enough about me, I want to get back to the general premise of this thread since I'm sure I'm not the only person with this problem: [b]What's the balance between polishing your game (or any other creative project!!!) to where [i]you feel it's good enough to call "finished" but you don't get so focused on details that the project is scrapped[/i]? What tips might you folks have for stopping yourself from being distracted from bigger picture every time a little tiny detail bothers you?[/b]

I wish I knew, because I have the same exact problem. Why do you people think Heaven for Luigi is taking me almost a year to complete when I said I'd have it done by Summer? Maybe we just need to know when to quit. You know, say "enough is enough" and move onto the next part of the game dev. But then when you release it after many cries from people going "it really won't matter if the coin animation is perfect" you'll have people reviewing the game and deducting points because "the coin animation felt a bit stilted" ><

Yikes. Well, it's reassuring to hear at least one other person is having this problem. Sorry to hear you're struggling with it as well though. D:

I don't think you can stop it really. My game took 10 years to make because in my mind it wasn't "perfect". Even in the end I knew it wasn't perfect but I released it anyway with an auto-updater so I could work on it while giving people something to play. If it wasn't for the fact that I'd lost all the code for the game I'd probably still be adding and fixing things. If you want it to be perfect but still want people to be able to play it, release it with an auto-updater so you can add polish after it's released. That's my suggestion.

I usually just stop when I realize "no-one is going to care" and there are other more important things to take care of. Especially when under a time constraint.

It helps to remember that there is no such thing as perfection (in art). Think about how long humans have been doing this stuff. Paintings, books, movies, video games. And think about how many humans have collaborated on a single project, and pumped in insane amounts of money. They all couldn't make perfect things, for if they did, everbody else would have stopped trying. Besides, perfection is subjective and definitions change over time. There have been games that have been hated 20 years ago and have become timeless classics today, and the other way around as well. So even if you would achieve a perfect game right in the moment you release it, it will no longer be perfect two days later, nor two days before. But sometimes you create something that's not perfect in your opinion but give it some time on the shelves and it becomes a cult classic and people will love it precisely because it's NOT perfect. Some of my favorite games ever are not perfect. Because perfection is predictable. Predictability is boring. EDIT: And no, this is not an excuse to make a game which is garbage ;) EDIT 2: And yes, Midas Machine will still be in development for 10+ years and will be perfect when it's out. Because Chaoxys and I are different to you normal people.

[quote="Guinea"]EDIT 2: And yes, Midas Machine will still be in development for 10+ years and will be perfect when it's out. Because Chaoxys and I are different to you normal people.[/quote]To be fair, I don't know anyone still using GM7 ;)

I'm in the same boat as you, Puddin. Since I can't really judge my own progress so easily, I have to run it by some people to make sure that it's just right. Generally speaking, I aim to make it look "good enough" at the very least. The only trouble is that there are artists out there (even at least a couple on this site) who have seemingly high standards to art. If they don't end up critiquing my work, then it's likely that they'll not even bother with it. As a result, I have to work more than twice as much just to ensure I'm hitting those standards. At this point, I wonder if it's honestly worth it to nearly break my back for a group who is hardly easy to please at all (especially if the issue is actually beyond drawing an anatomically correct human).

Prioritize. Give more focus to the more important tasks. If the goal is a fun game then prioritize on maximizing fun-ness. Ensuring that a coin sparkle is perfect by spending a lot of time and effort is inefficient and ineffective. The max amount of fun that the sparkle can possibly introduce to your game is muuuch smaller than you can get by developing the story or game mechanics. I try to keep a todo list so that whenever I take a look, I'm reminded of the more important things I should consider doing first. If you think of perfection as something unattainable, then you'd see that there's a point where you're no longer significantly improving anything and just wasting your time and energy, both better spent elsewhere.

When perfection starts holding you back, then this means you're losing sight of what you're trying to achieve. However, and this is just my opinion: You have to perceptive to a lot of different views, and know your aim of who (the audience) and what (your grand scope of the project, the skillset you have, etc) of the goal you're trying to achieve, is. Have fun with it. As generic as that might sound and uh... ambiguous as it is... Have fun with it. For example, if you're feeling ill about the coin animation not being perfect, go ahead and do something else. Maybe it just isn't the right time, and you can always come back to it. (also, keep in mind I'm not giving you a complete answer, just two cents)

Maybe you could try setting a deadline once you get all the important factors down. That way you only have a limited time to work on the game's polish, which could keep you from working and reworking a minor detail since you are pressed for time. I don't really make games, but with artwork that is a struggle as well. I guess a lot of it is just knowing when to say "enough is enough." Deadlines do help with this though. :D

As someone who is really nitpicky about graphics, I honestly don't care if I'm Mr. Circle running around in Rectangle Land with his pal Mr. Triangle. Whatever you do, keep it consistent. Don't mix different sizes of pixels. Don't have graphics from wildly different styles. Keep your color schemes consistent. Consistency shows that time and effort was put into the art, regardless of the creator's artistic ability. Also, ask yourself why you're worrying about little details like skidding dust and coin sparkles. Most often, things like that are important because they give the player feedback that they're interacting with the world. That sparkling animation doesn't need to be perfect, it just needs to communicate that a coin was picked up. That block-bouncing doesn't need to be stylish, it just needs to react to your hit. Etc etc etc. As far as gameplay goes, focus on having controls at least as smooth as a normal Nintendo game. You don't need to go above and beyond and have a million different movement states like Dustforce, just make sure you've met people's expectations and the player feels fully in control of the character. Lastly, the scope of your game will determine how refined the controls need to be. If your scope is small like Super Meat Boy, they'd better be razor-sharp. If you're making a much larger game, then they're not quite as important since the volume of content can make up for it.

The way I see it, perfectionism is only in the eye of the beholder, so something you find "meh-it-could-be-better" might be "this-is-fabulous-ten-outta-ten" to someone else (or the other way around). So even if there's tiny details missing, who would care but you? Don't let the little things hold you back and just move on.

Sometimes it's not as simple for some as setting a deadline or not caring about the small things. I mean yeah probably no one will notice if the coin animation is a bit sloppy but there are times when delaying a game can lead to better game mechanics. My game was at a point years back where I probably could have just shoved it out the door but there were so many things that could have been better so I chose to hold off and work on the little things like adding a map so people could find their way around easier or redoing the menu and adding the ability to save anywhere to make things easier on the players. The other thing I take into consideration is replayability. Again, I could've chucked my game out the door and not given it a second look but I wanted people to have a reason to keep playing. Adding achievements, trophies, a "final boss", costumes and so on was stuff that took ages to implement but in my opinion helped increase the replayability of my game. I'd also just started adding in sidequests and other things when I lost my code but that would've helped too.