Getting a new idea is the best and worst thing that can happen to me. It may sound weird, but it's reached a point where I'm actively stopping my brain from continuing its present thought pattern whenever I stumble upon a new one. Sometimes it works, other times the idea will pop up later on the same day, and will do so persistently and indefinitely.

What used to happen (and still is actually) is I'd get a bold new idea for a game. This idea will range from game mechanic, level design, story or artistic style and can be gathered from the most average everyday thing, something I read on the internets, to a movie I recently watched or a game I've played. It will start off with a high, both inventing new concepts and discovering them in my head. This is what I call "Riding the Brainwave". It just happens, and suddenly I have a name, a plan and a sprite or two already drawn, a basic engine or just a mock-up.

And then I remember all the other plans and projects I have.

If I open up a specific folder named "Gmaker" on my computer, I'll see a list of 27 folders, each containing specifics to a game idea I've once had. These are all the ideas that I've come up with in the past 3 years. I know this because 3 years ago I had some computer problems which resulted in a lot of lost data. If that incident never happened, I would probably make the rough estimate of around 40 folders in that Gmaker directory, each attributing to another game I haven't finished.

Technically, I have a total of two finished games under my belt. Two very dated attempts back when I first started using game maker: Adventures of Babybrother (platform action game akin to your typical mario clone) and Keeper of the Crypt (overhead action game where you kill undead as some sort of hero using a sword). Both of these games are over 5 years old. I loved making those games, despite them actually being sucky games now that I look back (no regrets though :D). Two other games that I'm pretty satisfied with are Roxio the Bouncing Ball and Grimoire. Both are in the 64digits database.

4 games out of 40. Not half bad if you think about it. But it doesn't stop me from feeling bad whenever I open up the Gmaker folder.

There are probably three different types of game projects I have in that folder. Here are some of the more recent examples of them:

This is a picture I made in paint corresponding to a game idea I had. The name of the proposed game was System Destroyer, and the genre was supposed to be a mix between shmup and tower defense. The picture was me getting a sense of the theme of the game and how the background of the game would probably look like. However due to the nature of Riding the Brainwave, other ideas came along and ultimately resulted in Grimoire.

This game belongs in category 1: Lost interest.

This is a screenshot of a basic engine I made for a project called Discordia. It was planned to become a top down space adventure game with rpg elements. The engine featured a ship you could move around and an AI drone that would follow you and attempt to shoot you down. It also has a parallax background. Accompanying this .gmk file are a multitude of notepad files, all consisting of notes about the game world, storyline, game mechanics, damage types and calculators, dungeon instances etc. It was fun to plan, but it soon became gigantic, and it honestly intimidated me to work on it and I didn't consider myself to be the best of programmers.

This game belongs in category 2: Too ambitious.

This is a screenshot of the end of an intro sequence I made for a project named This Boss Just Won't Die. The idea was formed when I was playing a game Dungeon Chaos. Throughout the whole thing I was only mildly impressed, but then I reached the final boss, and the boss fight was EPIC. From here sprung the roots of the idea of a game where the entire game was one massive epic boss fight in a platform environment. I've already made the menu, tutorial level and basic engine, so what's left is an epic boss in the making. This game is interesting to me. For one this is my first serious attempt into a platformer boss, and I also have many great ideas for it.

This game belongs in category 3: Might just work.

But amidst all this excitement, there's something I've neglected. A previous project better known as Exodus, the platform adventure game I was so excited to make previously.

As you can tell this has happened quite a few times before already, and worst case scenario what will end up happening is I will try and continue work on Exodus, but as more game ideas emerge and my brain starts revisiting This Boss Just Won't Die, Exodus will inevitably end up in the 1st category mentioned earlier.

I've heard somewhere that making a game can give a person a high, but what I've found out that the high only lasts the beginning stages of development when the idea is still fresh. Sooner or later you lose interest.

I would like to say that I don't have as much time as I would like to work on my projects. I would like to say that workload from university has a factor in this. But I've been suspecting that's just an excuse for me to avoid further heartbreak and give me an enemy I can blame my predicament upon.

I'm probably going to resume progress on Exodus "when I have the time". Hopefully worst case scenario won't happen. I'd really hate to lose another game (or have a new idea for another).

– Rambopvp (ruhtrA that was)

P.S. On a lighter note my birthday is in two days. Yay!