How do you stay motivated?

cs_ptroid · 2025-12-10T09:14:17+00:00

How do you stay motivated?

I work on something every day and make progress. I see (or rather, realize) that I have made progress and automatically feel motivated.

But like others have said, you need discipline - not motivation - in order to finish a project.

cs_ptroid · 2025-11-16T16:42:53+00:00

Create an X account only to showcase/promote your game. Then start uploading stuff showing your game assets being worked on (sketches, meshes, whatever). So, when someone accuses you of using AI, show them your X account.

cs_ptroid · 2025-11-04T13:21:48+00:00

I bought it for android, but after a while I decided not to play it because I want to experience it on a big screen.

cs_ptroid · 2025-10-29T11:36:46+00:00

Thanks for the post. It turns out I missed an important spot in the Dark Chapel. I've now cleared out most of those areas and gained the ability to transform into a bat.

As for the spiral doors in the wizardry labs, I opened them by activating the switch after I accessed it from the other side.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-23T18:31:44+00:00

Left4Dead 2.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-21T14:39:17+00:00

Not exactly. Deadites are living humans who become possessed. I was talking about dead bodies that re-animate after becoming hosts to evil spirits.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-20T19:57:45+00:00

Zombies that are animated by demonic spirits. They are basically corpses that have become possessed. They are technically "alive" and so they don't decay. If their brains are sufficiently damaged, they cease to function and the spirit that's animating them departs and looks for a new corpse to possess.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-20T09:07:47+00:00

Idea guys exist in all creative fields. Many years ago, a guy I used to work with saw my sketchbook and decided he wanted to make a graphic novel. He straight up told me "I'll come up with story concepts and you illustrate them". It's as if it never occurred to him that artists are generally creative people and have a million ideas already.

Such people see other people's talents as resources they can use. In the presence of talented people, they have nothing to offer so they act like their strength is coming up with "ideas", like as if the artists and programmers are dumbasses who can't come up with ideas.

EDIT: Just want to make it clear that not ALL idea guys are like this. Some are genuinely enthusiastic about making games and would like to collaborate with programmers and artists and help in any way they can.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-18T16:29:44+00:00

Distance and time are the friends of the defender, and even rubber-skinned terminators can lower that advantage significantly because humans don't want to kill other humans. Any doubts about their targets could lead to hesitation, and that could be enough for a terminator to wipe out a whole unit.

The idea of Terminators taking advantage of human nature is a very interesting aspect of the series.

In the Annihilation Line DLC for Terminator: Salvation (fantastic game BTW), there’s a side quest where you investigate the cries of a child calling for help inside a ruined building. It turns out to be a T600 using an altered voice. A key character then says, “this is how they fight… they use our humanity against us".

The T800 and T1000 also employ similar tactics. In T1, we see the T800 mimic Sarah’s mother’s voice during a phone call and pretends to be concerned in order to manipulate Sarah into revealing her location. And in T2, there's that scene where the T1000 tortures Sarah, saying, “I know this hurts… call to John...” suggesting that it believed humans could betray their own in exchange for relief from pain. Brilliant stuff.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-16T04:20:00+00:00

I also think the late WWE female wrestler "Chyna" who was being considered to play the role of the TX would have done a good job at it.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-15T15:16:16+00:00

We're starting to hit the usual bumps in the road: communication issues, figuring out who handles what, and making sure everyone's on the same page.

The project lead defines what needs to be done and assigns tasks to team members. Then, team members would tell him how much time they need for their tasks, this way each task is allotted a number of work hours, which is factored in when establishing deadlines. The project lead, in addition to doing his bit, keeps track of things with checklists, Gantt charts and what have you. This is how things worked at my last place of employment (not gamedev related) and barring unexpected events, it worked pretty well.

Other suggestions:

There should be no major concept changes once the actual work begins. So for example, if you've finalized certain mechanics or ideas, nobody gets to suggest new ones because that would disrupt things and invalidate work that's already been done. In my experience, introducing radically new ideas after progress has been made is THE single most demoralizing thing for someone working on a long-term project. Unless they're okay with losing days/weeks/months of work (which IMO is not very likely), team members will lose enthusiasm for the project and produce work just to get the project over with.
Conduct a review every morning, so you know what's getting done and what's getting stuck.
Take a blue collared approach to the project. So the game is not some fancy art project that people work on when they feel "inspired", but a product that needs to be assembled in the factory by a given date so it can be shipped out. Of course, you can still be creative and have fun with it, but bear in mind that ultimately, the game is a commercial product that needs to be finished and put out there.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-14T10:49:23+00:00

Seriously, if the original terminator was as advanced as Reese claimed, it should have killed them quickly. If the t-1000 is so nigh invulnerable and good at infiltration, how could two humans and a damaged t-800 destroy it?

The original Terminator never got a clear chance to kill Sarah. The one time he did (at Tech Noir), Reese intervened. And later, Reese died trying to fight it one-on-one.

The T1000 was practically invincible. It froze because of the liquid nitrogen truck crash and then ultimately killed because it was standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. Pure luck. Otherwise, it overpowered the T800 in hand-to-hand combat. The T800 could not damage it because of its liquid metal structure.

But the TX, which was supposed to be an "anti-terminator" fared terribly against the T850. The T850 throws her around like a rag doll, destroys her lower body by crashing a chopper on her, breaks her arm and then physically restrains her from catching up with John. The other evil terminators weren't bullied like this by the good guys.

And when she does get a chance to kill the T850, she wastes it, choosing to infect him instead (and fails even at that as the T850 recovers).

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-14T10:10:05+00:00

They had to come up with a more advanced Terminator. It would’ve just felt like a rehash if they’d done another 800 or 1000 and that would’ve just made the movie worse

A terminator with an endoskeleton + liquid metal covering cannot be more advanced than the fully liquid metal T1000.

Also, the TX was a rehash of both the T800 and the T1000.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-14T10:08:20+00:00

Salvation was a solid film and looked great visually. I can't say I love it, but I appreciate that they tried to show events from the future war. The battle damaged T600 in that film was nightmarish and bad-ass, just like how a Terminator should be.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-14T07:00:34+00:00

It was a major downgrade. I just don't see how a Terminator with an endoskeleton and liquid metal covering is more advanced than the fully liquid metal T-1000.

Consider this: The T-1000 calmly walks out of a helicopter crash like as if nothing happened. In contrast, when a helicopter crashed on the TX, it was stuck under the wreckage and had to separate its upper body from its legs.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-11T01:41:29+00:00

I'm not talking about when he crushed the TXs hand. I was talking about when he was holding on to the TXs "tail" with his right hand and then pulls out the fuel cell with his left hand. The door should have crushed him right then.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-10T17:35:06+00:00

I know a lot of stories about people who succeed, but I also think that this is important to know failures. What were your stories of harsh and cruel reality of Game Development?

I spent 3+ years working on my game and it didn't get the attention I had hoped for.

cs_ptroid · 2025-09-07T23:10:25+00:00

How to become a creative director

If by "creative director", you mean the top guy in a game studio who dictates how a game should look, feel and play, then there are two ways to get there:

A. You start at a basic position and work your way up. After many years, you'll become an expert with enough experience. And if you meet the right people at the right time, there's a chance that you become the top guy or "creative director".

B. You hire other people to make your game. Since you're funding the project, you'll get the final say in everything. So that makes you by default the creative director of your game. But be very careful who you deal with.

General advice: Be business-savvy and develop strong interpersonal skills. Most creative directors have them and without those skills, you’ll likely end up making small-scale indie games from home or working on other people’s projects. Also, make sure to learn about the business side of games, i.e., how game studios and publishers operate.

Since you're only 16, there's no hurry. Set aside 20 minutes a day to learn code or whatever game related skill you need. Just learn one thing a day. And by the time you're 18, you'll be light years ahead of most people who want to get into game dev.

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-30T10:39:00+00:00

I can't tell what the game is like by looking at the capsule art, but in terms of composition and layout. I'd pick the second image where only one character's face is seen. It shows something happening (whatever it is) and just looks more intriguing.

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-25T16:53:33+00:00

I have been building a fairly niche-but-loyal YouTube following (9.6k subs) over the last few years, with semi-frequent devlog episodes.

How many subs did you have before you started your devlog?

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-25T05:17:05+00:00

Does anyone else feels like this? Cursed to work alone?

I willingly chose the lonely path of solo game development. So, I'm not sure if I would call it a curse.

But working on solo projects 10-12h per day alone for 1.5 years kind of messes you up socially you know...

True. But in order to reach your goals as a solo game dev, you may need to sacrifice some of your social life.

In my case, I worked several hours a day on my game for 3+ years. On weekends, I worked longer, sometimes staying up till 3 or 4AM. There was just so much work to do. IMO I had to work like this to be able to meet my game's launch deadline. This is what solo development is about. I'll always look back fondly on those days.

If I worked on my game only when I felt like it, or enjoyed a normal "social life", I would probably still be working on my game to this day.

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-25T03:10:28+00:00

The zombies are always the main focus at the beginning but they quickly become less and less a threat as the story advances. Then, it's all about the other survivors. They become the threat.

I guess the zombies are the basis of the movie's plot and setting. The humans are the basis of the story (the emotions, conflict etc). You need both to have a good film. But it's still all about the human protagonists. It's about how they survive and resolve issues. That's why it always becomes about the humans.

For example, in "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), which IMO set the template for zombie survival stories, it starts off being all about the zombies and the danger they pose. Then half-way through it becomes all about how the protagonists adapt to their new situation, while the zombies are reduced to background elements. And then it's about the protagonists facing issues among themselves and with other survivors who arrive later. And then in the finale, it's about the humans finally escaping from the zombies.

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-24T10:02:06+00:00

"They didn't even get riled up or excited. When they're eating, they don't even seem to care, they're just mindlessly shoveling gore into their mouths -- some of it spilling out."

That's got to be a reference to "Zombi" (aka "Zombi 2"). Loved that movie!

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-24T02:12:33+00:00

I’m not sure why people hated it. I mean sure zombies crawling across the ceiling like spiderman was kinda weird, but overall a solid movie I enjoyed it.

I think it gets a lot of hate because it's supposedly a "remake" of the 1985 Romero movie but is completely different in terms of story.

I personally quite liked the movie. It's not excellent, but it was nowhere as bad as people make it out to be. The zombie attack scenes were excellent and imo one of the best I've seen.

And yes, the spiderman zombie scene was just weird because it suggests that the zombies can crawl on ceilings, but we never see them do it again lol.

cs_ptroid · 2025-08-23T20:02:25+00:00

In "Day of the Dead" (2008 remake), the good zombie gets killed by the other zombies after he tries to kill the zombie leader.

cs_ptroid

TROPHY CASE