[gravypod]

The problem isn't the idea of doing one thing per month. It's the implementation in my mind. I don't like when people just wander around programming aimlessly. I also don't like when we drop standards to meet deadlines (I've got a looooong history of doing this and I hate it, check my github). I think completeness, reliableness, and also practicality should be king.

You shouldn't be focused on pumping out something 24/7 you should be thinking of how to make the best product that you can possibly make.

These One Game a Month games are.... "creativly different". Now granted I couldn't do a game a month and I don't think I'll be able to finish my game even in my lifetime but I wouldn't feel right lowering the quality of the game I'd like to make to fit it into a month.

[krapp]

One Game a Month projects aren't about producing quality games, so much as learning to complete something within a deadline. If you can finish even a simple game in a month, then you know you can finish a more complex, longer term project. Finishing games is a skill in and of itself, and one most new game developers may not realize they need to develop.

Far from being aimless programming, it's meant to teach you to judge the value of your own initial concepts and estimate the time and effort it would take to pull them off, and to prioritize practical work over bikeshedding and unnecessary iteration. Having the arbitrary deadline is what helps you focus on the end goal - projects with open ended or nonexistent deadlines tend never to be finished.

[pmontra]

I upvoted you because you pinpoint a real problem and I understand why you're afraid of it. Still I don't agree that this problem should necessarily thwart the 1PPM Challege.

A monthly project could be as small as a library you'd have to do for your real job, or a polished generalization of it (chec U. Check the first entry of the hall of fame: https://github.com/ggerhard/parsecal/blob/master/parsecal.rb is a 120 lines Ruby script. It reads and parses "data from a google calendar (or other iCal calendars) and create an Excel Timesheet." It could be the core of a web service but it doesn't have to be a web service when it's posted in 1PPM.

[gravypod]

I do those often too but I do them because I need a library that does X or a service that does Y. Just building this doesn't make sense. Building things for some end goal makes sense.

[coldtea]

>You shouldn't be focused on pumping out something 24/7 you should be thinking of how to make the best product that you can possibly make.

This is a false dichotomy. "Timely delivery" is also an essential feature of any product.

Or, as they say, the better is the enemy of the good.

While you're "thinking of how to make the best product that you can possibly make" others can just go ahead and make something. And that something, even if it's not the best product that one could possibly make, at least it would exist, then and there, and so would be million times more useful than any project that's still designed in someone's mind.

[gravypod]

When the product is contracted work*.

When the work is for yourself, you set the due date. Setting the due date at 1 month is bound to yield unsavory results.

[coldtea]

>When the work is for yourself, you set the due date. Setting the due date at 1 month is bound to yield unsavory results.

People have created profitable side projects in a couple of weeks or even less.

[gravypod]

In software development? Defintely. In art? No.

[coldtea]

If we don't count the time needed to master their skills (which we don't for software development either), artists have often created profitable works in a couple of weeks or less.

Songs that were conceived and recorded in a few days have become big profitable hits (e.g. "Doctoring the Tardis"). And of course a napkin sketch from someone like Picasso can easily fetch like $1000 or $5000.

[icebraining]

Deadlines are set for art all the time, and some of the greatest works were commissioned on a deadline.

[bluedino]

Define a 'game'. You could get the basics of any 8-bit game done in a weekend. Heck even faster than that once you learn a game library or save enough code from previous projects.

[gravypod]

My definition of a game is an interactive story or experiance that is provided through information provided directly and indirectly to the player. However this is acomplished is acceptable but the only measure for it's success is if people enjoy it, just like any other art.

[atmartins]

Man I'm glad you're not making business decisions for my company...