Just Make It Exist First

The vicious cycle that keeps indie devs trapped in their basements for years. You start with this beautiful vision of your dream game, then reality hits and you're building some janky prototype that looks like it was made in MS Paint. But instead of shipping it, perfectionism kicks in and you spend 6 months tweaking the lighting on a tree nobody will notice. Meanwhile, your bank account is sending you increasingly aggressive notifications, but you can't release it yet because "it's not ready." So you loop back to the dream, convincing yourself this time will be different. The phone screen showing "death in poverty - incoming call" with two answer buttons is chef's kiss. Like you have a choice but you're answering either way. That's the indie gamedev life—you know what's coming but you do it anyway because you're in too deep now.

When you thought you were getting into game development but ended up creating glorified slot machines with loot boxes. That awkward moment when your computer science degree leads to implementing psychological manipulation tactics instead of cool physics engines. The door says "PC Gaming" but the industry whispers "just one more microtransaction and you might get that legendary skin!"

When the job posting asks for "clean, maintainable code" but you open the codebase and find a 200+ element global array tracking everything from "Joe's Sunglasses" to "Coffee Temperature" to "Did we say No to Joe?" 😂 That GameMaker project is the digital equivalent of finding a serial killer's wall of string and newspaper clippings. Each variable is initialized to zero, patiently waiting to track some obscure game state that only makes sense to the original developer who's probably moved to a cabin in the woods by now. Pro tip: If your storyline tracking system requires comments longer than the actual code, you might want to consider using, oh I don't know... OBJECTS? ENUMS? Literally anything but a massive global array that screams "I learned programming from a YouTube tutorial in 2003."

Ah, the project graveyard – where dreams go to hibernate indefinitely. That folder structure on the right isn't just storage, it's a memorial to our collective optimism. We all start with "JUST MAKE IT EXIST FIRST" – that beautiful cyan circle of possibility – convinced this time we'll finish what we started. Then reality kicks in. That 3D spaceship model? That game engine experiment? That revolutionary app idea? All neatly tucked away in folders, waiting for the mythical "when I have time" that never arrives. The true skill isn't starting projects – it's finishing one before getting seduced by the next shiny idea. Meanwhile, our hard drives become digital museums of what-could-have-been.

That thin blue sliver of productivity is feeling a bit generous today. Nothing says "I'm totally making progress on my game" like spending 8 hours researching the perfect shade of blue for a button nobody will click. Meanwhile, Twitter scrolling has officially become a "market research" expense on my tax forms. The best part? That character on the right is all of us pretending we're not procrastinating when someone asks how the game development is going. "Oh yeah, just finalizing some... uh... physics calculations."

The circle of life in game development: get your degree, land that dream job making video games, work 80-hour weeks fixing collision detection bugs until your soul leaves your body, then finally find peace growing actual plants that don't have physics engines. It's the classic "touch grass" solution, except you're now literally responsible for the grass. Still better than dealing with that one producer who keeps saying "can we just make it more fun?"