I have been trying to do game development on and off for several years now. I have started several projects, with nothing really to show for it.

I wrote the beginnings of a Voxel style game in java and decided I really didn't want to write an engine.

I switched to Unity and started learning it and c#.

I wrote an A* path finding engine in c# for a resource management type game I was working on. I put it up on the asset store and made a few dollars on it. Which was pretty cool. ( I gave up on the game it was for)

I started making a 3D zombie FPS type game. I had no plan with it and was just piecing it together a day at a time. At the time I didn't really know much about animation, modeling or art in general. I ultimately gave up on it because (I think) I didn't really like/know where it was going.

I tried making a few other games that I had an idea for but after a few weeks to a month or so I would get frustrated and give up.

I took about a year or so break from doing any game development, and decided to give it a go again this year.

Irritated with my previous failures, this time I decided I wanted to try to focus on programming as little as possible. I read some things about RPG Maker, and Game Maker, and thought that maybe they would allow me to focus on making a game more than programming. I didn't like RPG Maker and decided to go with Game Maker.

Needing to learn about Game Maker, I came across some courses at Udemy. I took some courses there, along with some pixel art courses which were really good. I also took a few game making courses on coursera (which I didn't really like).

I made tic-tac-toe (with no AI), asteroids with 1 level, and the beginning of a gradius clone but lost interest because it isn't something I really want to make.

In summary, I feel like I've learned a lot to date in my game development adventures. But now I feel stuck. Every time I have an idea for a game and try to start working on it I always end up giving up on it. I don't think I have an issue with the programming I think the problem lies more with the game design itself or possibly something else.

Any thoughts of wisdom that could help would be appreciated.

Maybe you would be a good candidate to work in a Team?

Given you seem to have a lot of dedication working on games, but seem lack the focus to stick to a longer project, and you seem to be mostly good at programming, why not look for others that share your passion?

Now, let me warn you, this is quite hard to pull off. Finding others to work with you FOR FREE is almost impossible outside of opensource projects or the modding scene....

But why not try to get into modding? I know there are some larger scale mods where people have cooperated on completing it. That might be a good fit for you? You have an achievable goal (as you just modify an existing game), you are able to work in a team and you might find contacts that could be potentially useful should you once again move into creating original games, be it as teammembers or as publishers (some Indie games started out as successfull mods).

Other than that, just stick to a project longer, and try to sort out problems if you run into them instead of dropping the project altogether. Sometimes dropping aproject makes sense, sometimes you should try a little longer.

I know what you're talking about. This was my problem in the past too. It's easy to start working on the new great idea, but difficult take it to the end. I'm getting easy distracted and if there's another idea coming up, I switch to it abandoning my current work. Since I realized how big problem it was I did lot to actually self-motivate. What helps is anything that shows you an actual progress of your work. You need to manage your project. Break it down into tasks, schedule deadlines and try to stick to them. Also ( this what helped me quite lot, despite it's silly ) commit to the repository very often. It does really work to see the progress through your commits ( especially things like graphs in GitHub ) - one could say your commits show your commitment :D. I simply feel bad when I see there are periods of no activity. So even small tiny commits build up your progress. Seeing you're going forward will make you want do more.

Now, Whether it's going to help you to work with a team it's questionable in my opinion. You may be great focusing on short-term tasks and do your job, but also if it happens you'll have to work on something lasting longer - you'll get bored, distracted. You will find yourself working on "side" things even explaining to yourself that it's needed for your task while it's just waste of time. Many tasks you'll be working on won't even come close to what you want but still you'll have to accomplish them. It will become threat not only for you, but for the whole team if you'll get bored and distracted.

There's no better thing but working on your self-motivation and personality. Start from small things. Make small game, let's say a game you can complete within a week. It is incredibly motivating to see finished product, and the more of them you complete, the less you're going to be giving up if you have own history of accomplishments.

Yep just join an in-house team instead. Making an entire game yourself is crazy amount of work, and I certainly wouldn't recommend going into any toy engines like RPG maker.

You need to stick through it to the end with a project. Joining a team will not do anything for your lack of commitment. All enjoyable things, once turning into a job, are no longer as enjoyable or desirable as you originally thought, it is the fact that you stuck with it and created a finished product that will make you attractive to a prospective employer, not a bunch of half-baked, unfinished snippets of code.

This is just general life advice that happens to apply in this situation.

>> Any thoughts of wisdom that could help would be appreciated.

first, you need to decide why you're doing all all this in the first place....

to explore a cool game idea you have? then you're doing just fine. you're learning things of interest. you're rapid prototyping. you're even developing and selling libraries.

to make a full game? doesn't sound like you're there yet. if this is your goal, you probably need to consider the whole project, not just the cool part, before you begin at all. games are approximately 10% "glory coding" and 90% "glorified word processing". its easy to get bored once you've done all the cool stuff and all that's left is the dull stuff. if you like the cool stuff but can't handle the dull stuff, then building full games probably isn't for you. once the cool stuff is done, its no different than boring biz app development - go down the todo list , implement feature - unit test - integration test - check it off the list, ok, next feature - until its done. right now i'm grinding through unit testing all features added to Caveman since 5-9-2016 (about two dozen features). if you're not into the dull stuff, maybe writing middleware glory code is more your style. stuff like your A* library.

to SELL a full game? its like making a full game, but you also have to take into account market considerations when choosing the title to work on. IE you must be best in category to win, or don't even waste your time trying.