I can’t finish anything without an external deadline. Otherwise i just keep refactoring and tweaking forever.
Game jams, a self-imposed deadline, promising other folks a demo on a certain day…
Sometimes i pick something as a reward, like playing some game (lately, TOTK) only after having delivered a new feature for whatever game idea.
Another thing that helps is setting smaller goals - a basic first version as 1.0, then small features to bump to 1.1, 1.2, etc. Bigger features can go in later versions! Don’t turn yourself off trying to do it all at once.
I think game dev is prototyping lots of ideas - then at some point you look back and decide one of them is worth a more serious time investment. In the mean time, keep prototyping!
Damn, that's an interesting tip to give myself a reward if I deliver something new. I will definitely yoink that.
I've always dreamed about doing versioning for my projects. It's so cool to see your project progress from 0.0.0 alpha to 1.7.4 alpha (the best Minecraft version in my opinion).
Wishing you a productive prototyping session, and thanks for your time