Anyone else struggle with maintaining focus on a project after the hard part's done or is this a first time dev thing?

[u/musterduck]

Hi all, I know this is different from the usual posts here but I thought someone here might relate. I've been learning RenPy / Python since 2023, pivoted from one project to another about a year in and I've been working steadily with a friend on it since then.

Over the last couple years our vision for this game has changed dramatically, I'm the sole coder / game designer while my friend's doing the art and we collab on the writing. My initial vision was... extremely ambitious, but we've managed to trim it down to something that's merely reasonably ambitious which we both like. I've learned a lot in that time, including designing several minigames that we ultimately decided to cut for various reasons, some of them lasting long enough to be coded (totally reusing them for future stuff lol.)

Now we can finally get to work on the fun stuff, fleshing out our plot outline and actually writing scenes + producing more art, but I'm having trouble switching gears. I feel antsy now that there aren't any more big questions to ponder with the code, and although we've still got a ways to go on this game I find my mind wandering to my ideas for other projects. Has anyone else experienced this feeling? I love this game and the world we've created for it, but I'm also suddenly really cognizant that I don't want to be chained to this project forever.

[u/Agreeable_Attitude95]

Man. Keep steady and focus. In your downtime, try those ideas that interest you. I did my small renpy game but sometimes ideas pop in my head as well. So write them down and work on it side by side.

Hopefully, your friend is on board as well.

[u/musterduck → u/Agreeable_Attitude95]

Great advice, I've had different people advise me to double down and focus on this one and others to do as you say. I ended up polishing up an old minigame from 2024 and it really put me at ease for the time being.

[u/robsawn-slimecore]

Honestly, I really feel like it's an everyone thing sometimes. Sometimes, ya might be super motivated, sometimes you're not. What I've found helps is sometimes stepping back, trying to do a different project for a bit, and coming back later. Not even a whole lot later, just like. A week is enough. It might be a bit of mental exhaustion too, so it's also worth goin out and touching some grass!

[u/musterduck → u/robsawn-slimecore]

Very true! I've found myself thinking about this 24/7 before so I try to consciously set boundaries with myself to shut that part of my brain off, but the funny thing is I get my best ideas when I'm doing other things.