Hi, I’m a scripter with about 2 months of experience. For the past month, I’ve been working on a project that isn’t mine. For a while, everything was going smoothly, no problems at all, I was learning new things an was having fun. Lately, however, a lot of problems have started to pop up, from an overload of work to code that doesn’t work and I have no idea how to fix it, etc. I’ve found myself wondering if it’s really worth continuing to work on this project, especially because it’s starting to make me lose my desire to program, and I don’t think I want to quit yet. I’m the only scripter on the project and, not having much experience, I find it difficult to manage all the logic (and not just that, because I’ve also found myself doing some VFX). Now I’m in a stalemate, and I don’t know what to do, keep going crazy over this project or abandon it and do something else.
I recognize that one of the causes of all this is my lack of experience, and I admit I’m not great, but until now I’ve managed to do a lot with minimal help. And then there’s the fact that there are many things about the project that I think are wrong, here’s a brief list:
Poor organization , this is the second time we’ve had to redo everything because it was too messy and poorly managed
The project owner doesn’t have a real idea of what they want , every day they have a new idea they want to implement and this leads to an overload of work for me if I’m being honest
Very small team , there are 3 of us: me as the scripter, the owner as the modeller, and another person who does the animations. Despite being 3, I’ve found myself doing most of the work this month.
The project is generally too “big” as a first project, I won’t tell you the whole idea because it’s too long, but it’s really big, and it’s updated daily.
You are not alone, I used also experience the same issue and I must say it’s somewhat of a normal process of learning.
I have abandoned countless projects just because I was not able to handle them due to lack of knowledge, but I eventually got the hang of it.
I recommend that you do not touch massive projects with very complex systems and mechanics, since you are not experienced enough you will struggle a lot and will experience extreme burnout. Start with simpler and smaller projects, slowly learn from there, and work your way up to more complex projects.
If you are working with a team, I suggest working with someone with more experience than yourself, working alongside them will not only help you learn a lot quicker but will also get the work done faster.
Do not give up, as you stated, the project that you are working on is too complex for you (especially as your first project), talk to the owner of the project and figure things out, if you continue to work on the project this way and with this much lack of knowledge, you will reach a dead end and you will find yourself stuck with everything.
There is a lot of information out there for you to learn scripting and become better at every day, YouTube, Roblox’s documentation, Devforum, etc… take things easy, and don’t overwork yourself at such an early stage.
Fact is, this project was a small game one month ago, like the idea was rlly simple, a basic rpg with dungeons, nothing else, not it’s evolving to much, i can’t rlly handle it anymore.
plus it’s a zero profit project for now since i get the % of the game, and dont rlly have a payment or stuff like that, and this, even if a bit wrong, demotivates, cuz im spending time on a project that i don’t know if it’s gonna work
idk, i might actually quit this project and start on my own and do commissions for a while. so i gain some experience and do something fun and something i want to do
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to learn however as for your first project, making an RPG game is not a good idea, RPGs are very complex games with many complex mechanics (based on the game itself of course).
If I were you, I would not continue working on it as it’s going to get more and more difficult to deal with, and you are not profiling off it too. You will make progress faster if you start from simpler projects such as a Obby game, and go from there.
if creating something doesn’t make you happy, don’t do it unless you’re gonna be happy with the outcome. it seems like you might be burning yourself out.
also, if you’re doing most of the work as a first project and only being compensated in a percentage, you have no idea if you’ll get profit at all, and you deserve compensation for your time. if you do go ahead, i’d recommend making sure you get paid a certain amount for your work instead of an unpredictable amount that is based on the success of the game and not the quality.
I know it’s not worth working on projects where you only get a percentage, or atleast, on small or new projects. I started this project for fun and to learn something new, since I didn’t know what else to do. I came up with ideas on my own and tried to understand how everything worked, but eventually I ran out of ideas.
welp, i left the project, hope it was the best thing to do, ill mark the solution in a bit, now i need some ideas, i don’t know what to do now. @acrieds@NimaDev
I was exactly in your position with my latest project, so I decided to move on to a new project with a smaller scope of what has to be done, but still a large game, so it feels satisfying to work on. Now with more experience and better methods of learning, it is a lot easier and I’ve come further in less time, while also making a system that I wouldn’t have been able to make at the time of my other project.
I spent some time working on school related projects which helped me, as well as the experience I gathered from all my previous projects.
You also mentioned working with the person brings unexpected work. I realised (for different reasons) that working with others isn’t really ideal for your first project(s), because you’re still learning game development (always learning of course, but a lot more in the first projects). It’s good experience to work with other people, however it’s a lot of extra thoughts and discussion you have to have with that person, and you’re also relying on that person to finish the project and motivate you to finish it. So if the person quits, it’s suddenly a much larger task than it already was.
So because of this I work alone on a large, but not a gigantic game like I was before. Granted I’m only solo on scripting and semi-solo game-designing. After all the scripts and general game design is finished, I can start looking for visual designers for UI, models, bulding, effects, etc.
Since my focus is on mainly 1 thing (scripting). Maybe if you focus on only 1 thing it will be easier to manage. If you do your focus area well, it’s easy for another person (or yourself if you feel like you can do it then) to do the other parts of what makes a game a reality. You’ll have everything set up for people to work with which makes it a lot easier, at least that is my plan. Obviously if you are more experienced, working side by side with other people is probably more effective, however I think this approach is a lot better for me currently.
Yeah as i said in one reply, i think im gonna start a solo project and do some commissions so i can learn something and at the same time get some robux as another motivation (sort of)
