“Why do we keep procrastinating, let ourselves discouraged by the tiniest hurdles and end-up with unfinished projects?”

As you start coding games, you probably have the ambition to create a game either for yourself, your friends or your children. You have probably already defined the scenario, the characters and the gameplay that will fill them with joy and engage them to an extent that they want to spend countless hours playing and completing the game. This is creativity as its best and all of us have it and want to use it. This dream or ambition usually fuels our learning and motivation and helps us to move ahead, to learn more, despite the challenges ahead.

This is because we all dream of doing something meaningful, something that means the world to us, something that we know will make a difference to us to or to others. For some it could be getting to learn to play the guitar to be able to enjoy a live session with some friends. For others it may just be writing a  meaningful and beautiful poem that will bring tears of joy, or coding and creating this great game that would engage many players and get us started on the path to indie game development.

The problem is, there are so many distractions available around us that we tend to postpone doing what actually is  meaningful to us… and we end-up procrastinating what really matters to us instead of putting it first. Ever thought about creating this awesome game on Unity but thought you don’t have enough time/knowledge/skills for it? If this is the case, know that you are not alone as many people really want to use their creativity to design beautiful and interactive environments. However, while many feel so motivated at the very beginning, the motivation seems to fade out along the way, and this exciting project that kept us motivated progressively moved to the back burner….

This can happen for many reasons; for example, you may tell yourself: “I just don’t have enough time”;  “I don’t have the skills”; “Where do I start?”;”who’s going to like my game”. Does this sound familiar to you ?

If this is, then no worries, we all have been there (including myself), and you won’t be the first nor the last one. In fact, it is true that when you create your first game, there are many tiny hurdles along the way; be it assets creation, coding errors, new skills, etc; this can feel so intimidating and disheartening at the same time that we tend to throw in the towel too early and as we run this race, the hurdles look so huge that we decide that we will not be able to pass them, forgetting that people just like us have been there before; we tend to forget that others, with as much or even less skills/knowledge as us have been through the same issues, and that for each hurdle there is also a combo that they have (and that you can) learn in order to get this hurdle out of the way fast and keep focused and progressing; for example for those who think  they just don’t have enough time, you could just block 20 minutes a day to work on your favorite project, early in the morning before anything else. If you think you don’t have the skills, then don’t feel stuck:  reach out and ask for help (including by emailing me);  if you wonder where to start, just take it step by step and start with a simple outline of your game (e.g., goal and rules) and improve it as you go. Finally, if you wonder who’s going to like your game, there is a good chance that if you like your game, other will do too. Besides, as you create your game, you can send early versions to friends who can give you feedback early, even if the game is not completed. yet

So there are many invisible hurdles to starting and completing your first game with unity; however, there are also many simple solutions to these, and as you realize that these are just temporary hurdles, and seek for a simple combo to pass them seamlessly, you are on your way to achieving your goal and ambition, a path where your true inspiration comes first, and where the word procrastination fades away.

So, what will it be for you….? Procrastination or “kick-butt” combo ?