Everybody wants to be Notch, but nobody wants to write code for years on end.
If you actually have the free time, and the ability, to pursue at least one of your ideas then I think the only way you can answer this question is to force yourself to see one through to the end. I'm kind of the same way - tons of old Game Maker projects that got abandoned because I wasn't capable of executing on the ideas I had, things got too complex or I just stopped being interested in them once I solved what I thought were the interesting problems.
Since i'm taking programming classes now, I've decided to finish one ridiculously simple game (Space Invaders) just to earn the basic mechanics of 2d game design, in C++. Of course now you have Game Maker, Unity, Unreal and various other frameworks to choose from, but my personal interests are a bit lower level. I started in January and haven't finished yet. Just the basics are turning out to be much more complicated than I would have anticipated, and I haven't even bothered with art, sound, or gameplay that's anything beyond the rudamentary. I spent weeks building (from scratch twice) a basic entity/component system to work with SDL, not because I had to, or because that was the most efficient way to build the product, or even because there weren't existing libraries for that, but because that's the problem I was interested in solving. So something that would probably be a weekend hack for a better programmer is turning out to take the better part of a year, because I'm more into the journey right now than the destination.
Having 'vague ideas' doesn't really give you a good sense of the scope of what those ideas might actually represent. I would second the other comments here suggesting you find a simple game and try to clone it, but I would also decide whether what you're interested in is the coding of games, or the authoring of games. In other words, would you feel more satisfied writing C and C++ code, or working through a framework like Unity or Game Maker? Because the latter would probably be faster for just prototyping or getting a feel for an idea, and almost certainly better for making salable games if you're not already a professional low-level game programmer. But personally, I think the former is more fun.
Pick a language, pick a framework, pick a game, accept that the results won't be perfect, and just go for it. That's the only way you'll discover what your passion actually is, or isn't. If you can't commit to that then, yeah, you're probably not going to commit to something real. Which is fine. Plenty of people want to be writers too, who never write. People like that tend to spend a lot of time taking writing classes or hanging out on writing forums and in writing groups, because 'being' for them is more interesting (and easier) than 'doing'. It's not an uncommon phenomeneon.
I think you're right. I've been thinking lots about what exactly it is that I'm averse to doing.
The coding part - yep that's fine - I've worked with game engines before, I'm familiar with Unity and have dabbled in UDK. If someone else gives me something to implement ("go make this character walk") I know where to start and I can get right into it. When it's someone else's game and things are plotted out, it's much easier.
I love working with the technology, I love working with artists. I feel that the scope of challenge in game programming is unmatched. I love how it requires knowledge from so many different fields, from physics to storytelling.
Yet when I'm doing it from scratch, when I have to come up with a game from nothing, that's when I get stuck circling around nothing. Yours and the other comments are right though - I just need to pick something and stick with it. Maybe I'm just putting too much emphasis on trying to have a crystal-clear vision before I start; maybe I should trust the creative process more.
Maybe I'm a fine game programmer, but just not a game designer. Which saddens me in a little way - I want to be independent. If I can't come up with a game on my own, like the Notches of the world, does that mean I'll always be stuck working for someone else? Does that mean I'll never be successful?
Comments
Everybody wants to be Notch, but nobody wants to write code for years on end.
If you actually have the free time, and the ability, to pursue at least one of your ideas then I think the only way you can answer this question is to force yourself to see one through to the end. I'm kind of the same way - tons of old Game Maker projects that got abandoned because I wasn't capable of executing on the ideas I had, things got too complex or I just stopped being interested in them once I solved what I thought were the interesting problems.
Since i'm taking programming classes now, I've decided to finish one ridiculously simple game (Space Invaders) just to earn the basic mechanics of 2d game design, in C++. Of course now you have Game Maker, Unity, Unreal and various other frameworks to choose from, but my personal interests are a bit lower level. I started in January and haven't finished yet. Just the basics are turning out to be much more complicated than I would have anticipated, and I haven't even bothered with art, sound, or gameplay that's anything beyond the rudamentary. I spent weeks building (from scratch twice) a basic entity/component system to work with SDL, not because I had to, or because that was the most efficient way to build the product, or even because there weren't existing libraries for that, but because that's the problem I was interested in solving. So something that would probably be a weekend hack for a better programmer is turning out to take the better part of a year, because I'm more into the journey right now than the destination.
Having 'vague ideas' doesn't really give you a good sense of the scope of what those ideas might actually represent. I would second the other comments here suggesting you find a simple game and try to clone it, but I would also decide whether what you're interested in is the coding of games, or the authoring of games. In other words, would you feel more satisfied writing C and C++ code, or working through a framework like Unity or Game Maker? Because the latter would probably be faster for just prototyping or getting a feel for an idea, and almost certainly better for making salable games if you're not already a professional low-level game programmer. But personally, I think the former is more fun.
Pick a language, pick a framework, pick a game, accept that the results won't be perfect, and just go for it. That's the only way you'll discover what your passion actually is, or isn't. If you can't commit to that then, yeah, you're probably not going to commit to something real. Which is fine. Plenty of people want to be writers too, who never write. People like that tend to spend a lot of time taking writing classes or hanging out on writing forums and in writing groups, because 'being' for them is more interesting (and easier) than 'doing'. It's not an uncommon phenomeneon.
I think you're right. I've been thinking lots about what exactly it is that I'm averse to doing.
The coding part - yep that's fine - I've worked with game engines before, I'm familiar with Unity and have dabbled in UDK. If someone else gives me something to implement ("go make this character walk") I know where to start and I can get right into it. When it's someone else's game and things are plotted out, it's much easier.
I love working with the technology, I love working with artists. I feel that the scope of challenge in game programming is unmatched. I love how it requires knowledge from so many different fields, from physics to storytelling.
Yet when I'm doing it from scratch, when I have to come up with a game from nothing, that's when I get stuck circling around nothing. Yours and the other comments are right though - I just need to pick something and stick with it. Maybe I'm just putting too much emphasis on trying to have a crystal-clear vision before I start; maybe I should trust the creative process more.
Maybe I'm a fine game programmer, but just not a game designer. Which saddens me in a little way - I want to be independent. If I can't come up with a game on my own, like the Notches of the world, does that mean I'll always be stuck working for someone else? Does that mean I'll never be successful?
Hmmmm....
These are the kinds of things I'm thinking.
Maybe. But you sound like you're in an environment where you can learn how to develop those skills.