I had this big project I was working on for a while and now it seems I might need to do something really extreme to my code to add features as I envisioned. I think I'm going to add something called an abstract base class but that's not the important part. I know by adding this I will increase the time I spend programming the game instead of designing and I feel I've spent too long programming.

So in order to produce games I came up with super mini projects that are made with the current engine of my big project. The big project doesn't really seem to have an end to what I'll include but everything I made for it seems useable. Should I make small games with various updated additions of my big game's engine or would that be a form of procrastinating on the big project?

What is it that you actually want to accomplish with your projects?

I'm also working on a large project where I've had to rip apart large amounts of code and spend a lot of time getting it to work again so I could get something seemingly basic working. The last thing was serialization, before that was collision detection, before that path finding, and before that was the original collision detection that I had. Although slogging through a rewrite isn't really all that fun, I have actually found it rewarding when it's finally done to my satisfaction and am left feeling free to move on to the next feature. Sometimes I almost feel lost as to what's next as the rewrite has been such a major focus for so long.

I could work on smaller projects and get the details of various game elements sorted out better to pull over into my large project but I don't have to because this is my hobby. I'm not looking to make money, I'm not aiming to be an indie studio, I'm not looking for a job in the game industry, and I'm not concerned about creating or maintaining any sort of following. I'm not even trying to build up a reusable code base for future projects. I just want to have fun working on my endless, directionless project. If I felt different about any of these things, I'd tailor my projects (and their size) to what I would expect would reap the best benefits.

The original big project used to have a obtainable goal but almost every feature that I wanted turned into something I needed. I think I already surpassed the original goal a while ago. It's been fun but I don't think I'll actually accomplish anything if I don't make smaller side projects that uses the code of the big project. I don't mind endlessly work on thing game adding new features and seeing it grow into a monster size game but I want to put my name on games.

This might have something to do with me wanting to celebrate my milestones.

I agree with Kseh. Ask yourself what it is you want. I personally spent huge amounts of time working on a project, I did all the physics, the graphics, the AI, added scripting etc etc but I really didn't get a game out of it. I simply enjoyed solving all these problems for the sake of solving them and learning as I go. I have next to no use for the project now and I do feel it's a damn shame to do nothing with it.

Now I am slightly older and wiser I prefer your current idea of making mini projects. I think it's good to actually get something done and finished and if you get to reuse all the work you have done then even better. It also looks better to have a bunch of simple, polished projects rather than one unfinished project.

How many projects do you have under your belt? I think that should factor in your decision as well. If you don't have that many go for the mini projects to get some more experience, otherwise something like this might happen again.

So far the main project is all I have. I feel reassured, I'm going to complete the mini project and then continue adding to the big project.

In general, try to do more of what you want to do, less of what you don't want to do.

You say you want to make a game. That's what you want, so do more of that.

In addition to making a game, do you want to build your game engine? It sounds like that's what your doing, but not enjoying.

If your goal is to make a game AND to make your own engine for it, then follow the path you are on.

If your goal is to make a game, and you don't want to make an engine, then use an existing game engine. Existing engines can knock several work-years off projects, they work out of the box. They have a learning curve since you didn't implement it yourself, but that is true of any technology. Even if you build your own engine you'll have learning curves for graphics libraries, audio libraries, data libraries, physics libraries, etc.

Small games sound more fun than working on your big scaled project.

Do it in parallel.

What you're describing is known as refactoring. It will happen in any project as you develop it, regardless of if you use your own engine or a pre made one.

If you refactor often then usually it's a less massive job and it might not feel so overwhelming.

Good luck!

What you're describing is known as refactoring. It will happen in any project as you develop it, regardless of if you use your own engine or a pre made one.

While I agree with this, I also think it happens to beginners more often unnecessarily. Thats why I think he should tackle at least one mini-project first, especially since he says his big project is his first project.