Persistence in achieving ideas and solving problems.

Game development is a fun, rewarding, venture into the unknown.  That's what I love about it; finding what can be achieved creatively and technically - to bring some idea to life and see where I can take it.  But, it's also challenging, hard work, often involving periods of frustration and slowed progress.

Game development has taught me a lot in technical and personal ways and one of the biggest personal changes I've seen in myself is the realisation and understanding that whatever problem I encounter, if I'm motivated and persistent (and given enough time) pretty much anything is achievable.  It doesn't sound like a groundbreaking idea and it's something we generally know and tell ourselves all the time, I know I always have but developing a game really puts this into practice.

Game development is absolutely stacked with technical challenges and while I really had no expectation as to how much of my time I'd spend solving these problems I'm pretty sure I'd never have guessed just how often it would be.  I spend way more time solving problems and finding solutions than I do making more immediately 'cool stuff' though the most interesting and gratifying times have been the solving and completion of larger problems. I've spent months on single or combined problems that are very custom to what I want to achieve in my game and I've created lots of my own concepts to try to achieve ideas and have ultimately thrown them away after a whole load of time and effort but the results have made all of that cost worth it. I face constant obstacles and decisions as I move my game forward and what I realised some time ago was that I can overcome anything that comes my way.  Sure there are things you just can't technically achieve given your constraints but you start to get an idea of what is and isn't possible and when you're not sure you do your research and start building models to find out.  My mindset has changed as I've built my game to strongly feel this way this because I've been over the same pattern of realising and understanding problems and finding ways to overcome them over and over.  I feel more confident when facing new challenges because I've overcome so many that I know it's just a matter of time and dedication until I find my solution.  Aside from that I've gained a whole load of knowledge for translating my ideas into game code in the future hopefully making the whole process easier each time.

So while game development can be a hard and challenging discipline and you'll probably face uncertainty in your abilities and your concepts and ideas early on, if you persist and you push yourself then over time, even when things haven't been working out, you may find your solution.  Not only will you be building a game based on your own thoughts that you've crafted out, you'll have learned how to explore your ideas and achieve them in future.  If you believe in your idea - stay persistent.