Getting burnt out?

[Dan Potter]

Hopefully this is the right place for this... :)

Do you guys ever get burnt out on all this, and if so, what do you do to get past it? I think my main problem is that I have a day job that involves a lot of coding (and it's all on Windows, too, so that's a real brain drain). By the time I get home I don't really feel like coding anymore. :wacko: But sometimes I do feel like coding, and each of my projects I could work on just makes me want to shudder and go grab a good book to read instead of working on it. Often as not, something I'm working on will need some sort of creativity, too, and I feel like I've got the game maker's equivalent to writer's block.

[kelvin]

Last time I had coder's block, I ended up moving away from games. I surveyed all the knowledge I had gained and crafted a few non-game apps that could leverage it. I'm moving back towards games now, and I think I'm better for it.

[jessimko]

Sometimes when I get sick of programming, I realize that there's so much else to do; make artwork, write the user's manual, make the web site to promote the game, start a company to sell the game! lol Even the mundane stuff is fun if you're in the mood for something different.
If I'm burnt out I might surf the web but I try not to because I can never get re-energized in front of a screen. It's better to eat a healthy snack and take a walk:)
I used to have a desk job, and even though I only worked 4 days a week I found it impossible to come home with a clear head and start coding.

[BeyondCloister]

Well I began to burn out last December and never really recovered.

For a couple of weeks in January I did not touch my Mac for anything development related but by then end of the first week back I had burnt out again.

I've been doing lots of software design work at the day job instead of coding recently and for some reason I've been less inclined to do coding in my own time.

The burnt has been so bad that since I got my new G5 20" iMac in February I've probably only done no more than 4 hours development on it.

Various things causing a lack of motivation does not help to break out of the burn out situation either. Getting past the 'Is it all worth the hassle' point is the key I think.

[OneSadCookie]

I have great trouble doing anything but starting projects. Not sure I'd call it "burnout", but it's a substantial motivational barrier. For me, the key is for new and interesting things to be happening. Nothing demotivates me faster than a partiuclarly tricky piece of code to write or a particularly nasty bug to squash.

At the moment, I've got one game project and one application development project, and I'm spending roughly half my "personal programming" time on each. It seems to be going OK, in that I'm not completely unmotivated towards either yet :D

As usual, I'm bursting with new ideas to try, but I'm learning to sit on them and prioritize them.

[ThemsAllTook]

Sometimes it's necessary to take an extended break. I've just come back after such a break - a few weeks when I really didn't do any development on my own time at all. It's very refreshing, and can give you a whole new perspective on things.

- Alex Diener

[AnotherJake]

I used to suffer from burnout a few times a year. I'd just walk away from the whole thing for a couple weeks at a time. I always had to force myself to sit down and get something done at the end of the break though. It was usually a real struggle to get back into it, and questions about it's worth definitely rattled around in my head. Those episodes seriously cut into forward momentum, so I learned some tricks to keep me going. So far I've been rolling straight for over a year and a half without any problems.

For me, the trick has been to cut all of my projects into much smaller chunks which can be worked on for two or three weeks at a time. It keeps things mixed up enough that I keep finding interest in new stuff on a regular basis. Sometimes I'll just study rendering theory or AI for two weeks as a sub-project. The key to all of this is that it's much easier to have satisfaction in a handful of working pieces over the course of a year than it is to struggle with one giant program that can't be used with anything else but itself.

[Dan Potter]

Wow, everything you guys are writing sounds reaaaally familiar. :D I did have something to take breaks with -- my lovely bicycle -- and then I sprained a foot muscle pretty badly. I'll be back to that before too terribly long but it's been really boring in between :)

My burning out really got momentum several years ago actually, when I was doing something like 6-8 hours a day of "day job" work, and another 6-8 hours a day of game work. This was during the finishing weeks of Feet of Fury, our DC game. I do business management, coding, manuals, and a lot of graphics, so trying to move among all those things gets old after a while too :)

I discovered, too, that I enjoy doing the game work a lot more when it involves something new and challenging. Once it gets down to well known, well trod paths, it gets pretty boring. I think that's what kept me on the DC stuff for so long, I got to spend 4 years writing an OS for it as well as the games. The Mac is just so easy to code for that once I get a game prototype done it's a lot of busy-work.

Ah well... perhaps the taking a few months away from it is really what I need, though that probably won't make the rest of my team too happy ;)

[funkboy]

I got burnt out after last semester - it was too much class, coupled with my environment. Having people around you who are supportive and interested in your work is a real plus... not only of your work, but hopefully you're surrounded by people with a positive attitude in life. I have been surrounded by many negative thinking people who are constantly negative and complaining about anything and everything... I do not believe that has helped me feel like being more productive.

Also, not seeing results from work (both in school, on the job, and in your programming) can result in lack of desire to create. Right now my homework in classes is simply staggeringly difficult - not that it takes a lot of work, but it seems to require sleight of hand in math manipulation and reading the mind of the person who wrote the problem to even have an idea where to begin. When I put hard work into these and end up essentially where I started even after an hour of work, it is very frustrating and helps me just want to sit in front of the TV.

Wasting time certainly does not help, either - I have a bad habit of surfing the web when there's nothing else to do. I should stop that; I need to get out more, do stuff away from programming. The best programming I've done (in my opinion, anyway) was done either during difficulty in my life (trying to escape the difficulty by doing coding, something I can control and know well) or after some break time.

I also very much have the "you should be doing something" guilt trip running through my mind. Does anyone else have the bad feeling whenever taking some time off (or even while doing homework, working at a job, etc.) that you should be working on something else? I have that quite often, and it's a horrendous feeling. One must be able to separate tasks well though - be like Bill Clinton, one of the world's best compartmentalizers. I've read that he was very good at setting aside all other projects and devoting his full attention to one thing, then moving onto something else. Wish I was better like that...

I used to have a desk job, and even though I only worked 4 days a week I found it impossible to come home with a clear head and start coding.

Welcome to the forum, jessimko (haven't seen you before). Have you quit your day job to go full time? If so, how is it going?

[JustinFic]

If I'm not on a deadline, best thing to do is take a week off. Rip Xcode out of the dock. Walks on campus are good (maybe even start going to lectures again...) Another thing that works real good is to buy a new game or two and spend time on those. When I burned out working on KDC for uDevGames I was able to find a used copy of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Bliss.

If I AM on a deadline (like for uDG) I instead focused on non-coding responsibilities. (For me, web pages still count as coding.) Making the music was fun, and helped break up the code all-nighters.

Motivationally, it helps a lot if you can really get behind your game. If you really love your project it makes it easier to get back in the computer chair. Releasing a prototype or alpha that people can play and give you feedback will motivate you too.

[aaronsullivan]

I was seriously burned out after Snowball and uDevGames 2004. I worked hard with a friend to put a site up and put some finishing touches on a new version just before the radio show that I was also prepping for, and then RIGHT after my part on the show was over I got slammed with a seriously bad cold. Knocked me right out of coding.

That sort of negative result to coding the game I think has a subconscious effect, like starting again would bring you to the same result again.

I work best when I'm concentrating on a program daily for hours at a time. I keep it brewing in my mind all day while doing my regular job. When I break from that, and I know it will take some getting into again, it's hard to come back.

I also recommend playing a good console game that has an ending... NOT a MMORPG or GTA or something that goes on for ever. These are NOT motivators. They can be fun, but they are self perpetuating and tend to be a serious distraction as they provide a false sense of accomplishment. Playing really good games, though, can remind you why you want to make them. :D

So, what finally got me back into coding? Not taking on the 200 lb gorilla directly. I've been working on smaller projects that focus on things I will need to add to Snowball. Most of their code will end up being reused and they will be their own tiny games. I might even enter a 21 days later contest if it comes along.

Oh yeah! That's the best way to break a motivational barrier! A good old fashioned competition. :D

Wait... there is another better way. You need at least two people, especially for long term projects. The notion of "bouncing ideas off of someone" is not an idle one. It's VERY important and 5x as efficient as working alone, in my experience. Unfortunately, I'm not working on Snowball with a second person at this point... hmm...

[BinarySpike]

My parents let me on the computer 24/7 for my udg game (because I was so late).
after that I was so tired and brain dead I took a break...
Now I got this GREAT team project (game) and get to do the graphics (3D renders)
But, when I do, I just play my GameCube for a couple days.


I got slammed with a seriously bad cold.

That's what you get for playing in the snow... :lol:

[Dan Potter]

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one having these problems. ;) Glad to see too that people are eventually working around them, because I've been coding for something like 20 years now :blink: and I've been worried that I'm just hitting that "got married and don't feel like working on anything anymore" final burn-out I've heard about from so many people...

I also very much have the "you should be doing something" guilt trip running through my mind. Does anyone else have the bad feeling whenever taking some time off (or even while doing homework, working at a job, etc.) that you should be working on something else? I have that quite often, and it's a horrendous feeling.

Yes, I get that all the time. It's probably one of the worst motivators of the burn-out, for me. The more I try to take time off and be completely away from it all, the worse I get this itchy feeling that I need to get back in there and finish stuff. That can be good, but in this case it's not in the good way -- it just pushes me back to the computer and I am back to square one, staring at all my stuff I could work on and not wanting to work on any of it (and resentful at myself for trying to force myself into it.. weird as that sounds :wacko:) So I start web browsing. Ick, what a waste of time.

[kberg]

Yes, I definitely suffer from many of the same problems. I currently have two games, one (large!) application, three small sub-projects (mainly proof of concept work), and one project for a research paper I'm working on ( this one's on a deadline! :sneaky: )

I find that I tend to burn out midway through projects, once I'm over the base implementation of everything. I'll coast right through the portion of the project that I'm very familiar with (stuff I've done before) and then end up getting stuck at parts that were inadequately specified.

I find the best way to address burn-out is to compile a to-do list and add everything to the list that I can think of. I then start picking things off the list one at a time in order of effort required, and I find that this sort of rapid progress really helps to get me motivated again.

Fatal conditions tend to arise when I find that there is a better way to do something, run into a bad bug, come up with some super-cool new feature not consistent with my previous work, or something else that forces me to roll-back and refactor. I usually end up putting projects like this away for several months, and when I'm ready I tend to start over fresh utilizing what I've learned.

[edited out blindingly idiotic insight... :ninja: ]

[flipflop]

Have you seen the Dexterity Software Articles? http://www.dexterity.com/articles/. Also, have a look at Steve's blog (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/), he has several articles which may be of interest. One that comes to mind is the following: rebuilding momentum (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/02/rebuilding-momentum-after-setbacks/)

Good luck!

[MattDiamond]

I'll have to read those dexterity articles. Thanks for the links.

I've been burned out since uDG 2004. Between my job and my family I have very little time left over. The only way I got three uDG entries done at all was by giving up tv, reading, movies, and computer games for the duration of the competition. That hurts, particularly when I'm extremely busy at work.

I've been thinking about my burnout and I think it's because I am growing discontented with what I did for the last 3 years, namely develop a little game for release it for free. Such things are quickly forgotten. I feel like I need to try to develop a more professional game and try to market it. That probably means spending 6-12 months of my free time instead of 3 months. Also I'd need to learn to work with an artist. I just can't face it right now.

[Joseph Duchesne]

Wow, this must be really universal with coders. I believe that this must happen to everyone on a fairly regular basis. I have found that if I take time off, the longer I take, the more drive there is to return. The only downer is that I've coded 3 days in 2 months now, and I can't return for another 3 because of school. There is just no way to keep my grades up and devote time to coding. I find that talking to someone about what I'm going to do, then going on the iDG chat room and bragging about it somehow gives me the drive to actually do it. And if everyone rejects the idea with good cause, thats even better, I save wasting time on something not worthwhile.

[Dan Potter]

Those Dexterity articles are awesome! I've actually read one before in a different context (after looking over them) but the others are really good too.

Wow, this must be really universal with coders. I believe that this must happen to everyone on a fairly regular basis.

The weird thing for me on this whole burnout topic is that I haven't really experienced this so much before (though occasionally for short periods of time)... then for a window of about a month there, I was working on Feet of Fury like, to borrow some words from Weird Al, a pack of starving crazed weasels. I can't insert the sound effects here that go with that, but listen to his some Albuquerque and you can get an idea. :D It was like I was goin' manic, it was harder for me to stop working on it than to keep working until 2AM... Ever since then I've hardly been able to maintain even a normal level of hobby coding. I'm working on figuring out what was driving me and getting back to that a little. Or perhaps cure the now-burned parts of my brain ;)

Heck, maybe I really was on a manic kick :wacko:

[lightbringer]

I am unstoppable.

Surely you all know this by now.

[BeyondCloister]

Releasing a prototype or alpha that people can play and give you feedback will motivate you too.

I actually find the opposite happens. I put the effort in to release a new version and then get back no feedback at all. When I am relying on the feedback to push me into working on it again and nothing appears then burn out sets in.

[MattDiamond]

I actually find the opposite happens. I put the effort in to release a new version and then get back no feedback at all. When I am relying on the feedback to push me into working on it again and nothing appears then burn out sets in.

Maybe us burnouts should make a point of giving feedback to those of us who are not? Then at least we'd still be contributing SOMETHING to the community, and who knows, seeing someone else produce something interesting can itself be a motivator.

For example, every year I'm too busy with my own uDG entry to play many of the others, let alone give feedback. If I sit this year out I could finally participate in that side of the contest.

[BeyondCloister]

And then with no warning it hits you like a bolt of lightning and you are suddenly you are motivated again.

This just happened to me today. For a project we were looking at OpenGL and I happened to have my Viao with me which had some OpenGL stuff on that I worked on years ago. I had tried to get it working again last year when I got the laptop but all the textures were not appearing. After a bit of lunchtime poking around I got it working and it is 100% relevant to work :)

All this means my motivation for this project is back and it may even leak over to me working on a Mac port and looking at Mac OpenGL for the first time in 3 years.

[Dan Potter]

Maybe just talking about burn-out has a catharsis-like effect ;)

Last night I was able to actually get some good work done too, but for a different reason. I set myself some goals -- an hour of non-interrupted working on my game projects each night. Worked for me last night, we'll see if I can keep it up.

[aaronsullivan]

Good plan. I used to not even bother unless I could get 3 hours of solid time... but... that didn't happen too often! So, I've had to adjust to programming in smaller blocks.

Routine can be very good. Sometimes, though, you'll want to just... NOT STOP. At that point a ton of work can get done very quickly :D ... you might lose your job/friends/spouse, though. :blink:

(How are you guys getting the icons to pop up in the subject? edit: Don't know how I missed those! I was even looking for them!)

[BeyondCloister]

(How are you guys getting the icons to pop up in the subject?)

Beneath the reply box is a set of Post Icons. I'm using the red forum so I do not know if it is in the Aqua one. I just hope they stay and do not disappear like stuff has a habit of doing here ;)

[geezusfreeek]

As is obvious from my recent lack of dev-related posts here, I'm in extreme burnout mode right now. It's almost to the point that it seems I have completely lost interest in coding. :-o

[blobbo]

After completing Offender (my first and only complete project) I set out to learn OpenGL, after having been frustrated that my game ran so nicely on hardware 50-100mhz faster than mine. I was frustrated by the fact that I couldn't play my own game - I got frustrated with losing frames. I got completely bogged down in OpenGL, which is a far cry from the friendly Quartz + Cocoa combination. Just the sheer number of options in window managers, et al, in addition to everyone's opinion about paths to take - it's boggling.

Recently I've started programming again, after about a year hiatus. I've started work on a program to manage my citations, and it's going quite nicely. In 1-2wks I hope to show off a tech demo of the basic working technology. I expect this to really motivate me.

In my experience, the open source motto to "release early and often" is the best tack for not losing motivation. Praise and encouragement from your peers beats any other form of motivation, IMHO. If iDevGames had some sort of SourceForge-like system set up for active forum members, I think that would really aid this type of development. That's a bit off-topic, though.

[PowerMacX]

I find that the biggest cause for burn outs for me is simply the nature of my favorite programming "topics". Basically, every project I start is just a wrapper for some technology I got curious about, and that by the time the "core" I actually cared about is done, the remaining tasks to make it a full app or a full game seem really easy by comparison. But, invariably, they are not and take up as much or more time than the "hard" stuff.
Case in point, Okugai, my entry for uDevGames 2004. First 2 1/2 months playing with the engine, refactoring everything every week for no other reason than the pure joy of reducing the line count, increasing readability and sometimes getting a 1% increase in performance. :\
Finally, it was time for the easy stuff... a basic scoring system, a health bar, a menu system, ...

Thanks to the easy stuff I stayed awake every night until 5 AM :wacko:

As anyone on the #idevgames IRC knows, that's been my bed time since then... but until recently, I didn't code anything C++ or OpenGL related :(

After the last build of my game, I took a one month break from programming, but after that, I double clicked that little blue Xcode icon and... 5 seconds later pressed cmd-q.
That break didn't help at all.
What did help was starting a project in a completely new IDE (breve), a completely new language (steve), and running into it's limitations. That caused me to fire up Xcode to write some simple applescripts (again, something new to me) to work around some of those limitations (no urge to "press cmd-q" this time :) ) and later, to download and compile ODE to work around some internal bugs in the app, which uses this lib (again, no urge to "press cmd-q" this time :D ).

What I'm saying is that not doing anything wasn't the solution for me, doing something completely different but still programming related was, and brought me back to my old friends/enemies: Xcode, C++ & OpenGL, with no hard feelings ;)

[skyhawk]

to reinforce something aaron said:

I got burned out in november. I have coded less than 500 lines since then. I picked up World of Warcraft, and it has consumed me (not to mention my total destruction of my relationship status, but that is a more personal and tragic story).

but for those getting burned out, realize: the less you code, the more you forget how to code.

[BeyondCloister]

but for those getting burned out, realize: the less you code, the more you forget how to code.

I have to disagree here. Coding is like riding a bicycle - you never forget how to do it.
You may forget the odd bit of syntax here and there but that is what documentation is there for. If you are any good then you should be able to pick up something years later and continue work with it without any problems.

[kelvin]

I have to disagree here. Coding is like riding a bicycle - you never forget how to do it.
You may forget the odd bit of syntax here and there but that is what documentation is there for. If you are any good then you should be able to pick up something years later and continue work with it without any problems. I dunno... I stopped coding Macromedia Director Lingo a long,long time ago. I very much doubt I could even read the stuff today.

[Dan Potter]

I dunno... I stopped coding Macromedia Director Lingo a long,long time ago. I very much doubt I could even read the stuff today.

I'm with Andrew Sage. I'd consider that to be an example of "bits of syntax" you'd forgotten.

Good coding, and subsequent skills, are a method, a thought process.

On the other hand, forgetting all your class libraries, functions, your own code, etc, can be pretty demoralizing to start back in on even if you still know how to code.

[skyhawk]

On the other hand, forgetting all your class libraries, functions, your own code, etc, can be pretty demoralizing to start back in on even if you still know how to code.
try "not coding for several month and forgetting lots of standard functions and classes" ;)

THAT is demoralizing

[kelvin]

On the flipside, opening up SubEthaEdit and tag-team coding that one class with you was pretty fun. If I could figure out how to make it a viable development process, I'm sure it'd be a good motivator :)

[JustinFic]

I picked up World of Warcraft, and it has consumed me (not to mention my total destruction of my relationship status, but that is a more personal and tragic story).

MMORPGs are horrible for motivation, and I would discourage anyone from wasting their time with them, burnout or not. I've played a bunch of them, and have been particularly addicted to two. Like Aaron said, they only provide the illusion of accomplishment, and will cause you to waste many precious hours per day of your life by dangling the carrot of status and power in front of you.

Seriously, what fun is spending 5-6 hours a day punching bees in the face? That's not fun-- that's work. Most MMORPG's require next to no skill or practice (except pseudo-practice in the form of experience levels) there's no story (and no, punching bees in the face doesn't count as "player-driven storyline," dammit) and no end. It's no different than a dead-end job, only instead of getting paid minimum wage, you pay THEM $10 per month.

Sorry for ranting, but I've just seen too many people lose jobs or relationships, or neglect major parts of their life just to increase the numbers of "their" character in some database. Don't waste your time with MMORPGs.

[aaronsullivan]

I wouldn't go so far in bashing MMORPG's, personally.
It's just like any other addictive habit. Some people will REALLY get sucked in and it will ruin them. It's good to know what you are getting into, first.

One good thing that World of Warcraft accomplished was breaking many "quests" into small digestible parts that can be taken on an hour to 2 hours at a time. It makes it a bit easier to pull away. Unfortunately, the combat is a bit strategic, especially in groups, and there are skills to learn, AND the art direction is second to none, so all of those factors pull you in for that extra hour, etc. Plus, there is always that monthly-fee feeling of: "I paid for this, I should use it," to really pull you back.

So, don't start one lightly, that's all. I've kept away from all of them seeing family and friends get consumed and then I gave in with WoW. Plus, it's something I do with my wife and I ONLY take on quests when my wife is also playing which naturally keeps me from wasting too much time on it. :D

I could quit at any time... :lol:

To keep this on topic. It's not the type of game you want to use to help motivate you to program, no matter how good it is. Play old classics. Buy some bargain bin retro game and play the old arcade games and atari games, or maybe some original NES games. It's amazing how most modern games just pale in comparison. The old games all really inspire me to make my own and try to capture that magic.

[skyhawk]

but I've just seen too many people lose jobs or relationships
destruction of relationship lead me to play WoW as a form of escapism from life.

[Malarkey]

The old games all really inspire me to make my own and try to capture that magic.

Speaking of which, where's Space Barrage 1.0??? :)

[aaronsullivan]

:blush:
Sadly, there is no 1.0 at this point. It sort of hung out there when Snowball took over. Now both are sort of hanging out while I work out some small stuff to aid in Snowball.

Incidentally, I'd like to make more arcade-like games, but I want to support them with a cross-platform internet high score system, for worldwide competition. That's one thing I need to work out before Snowball can be truly finished, too.
:sneaky:

As for using games like that to escape... well, that is one thing they are "good for"... just don't get lost in there. We need you here. :D

[kodex]

I got sucked into WoW for a few months, and seriously let my code go untouched. I always suffered a rather large hit in sales from the lack of updates and advertising. Although I got to level 40 (ahh shutup). Anyways I find myself wanting to code a lot more again and only find a few hours a week to play when i get bored and need a break from work. Anyways some good some bad. If you handle it well they are good for a short break from work. Just my 2¢'s.

[iefan]

I played in the WoW Beta for a good long time. There were days when I didn't get anything done.

I also played City of Heros for a while, but if there wasn't any of my friends on I wouldn't play. That wasn't nearly so bad since I never played alone.