How YOU can finish YOUR game

[Vert]

But even for experienced programmers, I think keeping the scope in check is important. For myself, I adopted something I like to call "modular game design". It's basically structuring my games in a way that I can start small, but still expand it into something larger later.

For instance for Paperball, the initial level scope was just 30 levels, which then grew into over 200. But if I had known I would have to make 200 levels from the start, the sheer workload would have been overwhelming, and the game likely would have never been made. If the worst case scenario happens and you lose all motivation and just wish to be done with the game for good, it's nice if you can still compile it into something that feels complete. And even if you don't, it's a nice feeling when you know you don't HAVE TO make all the things you planned to have a complete game, and you don't have to stress about it.

Something I want to add to this - you can absolutely just push out your game without all your planned features as long as those features aren't terribly important to the core of the game, cause you can just patch it in later. Players and consumers love it when you add stuff like that down the line; Paperball launched without any way to customize the ball, and Coco added it in later to the delight of many players. (I still think unlocking skins would've been a better way to handle it rather than giving them all out at once but hey what can you do.)

I make games with my friend DJ Coco sometimes. Check them out here: https://cliax-games.com/
Or check out my blog: https://vertette.github.io/