On average, how long do you think you spend on a game before you release it, or before you think it's good enough?

I'm rather curious. I myself usually take an hour or two to make really simple games, but I never release those. I'm working on one right now that's my first big project and I'm in my second week already.

It depends on the game. I just work on it until I think it's well polished.

I work until it's done. That usually depends if it's a mini-game or a full commercial-length/quality game. Weeks, months...

I've been working on mine for about a year now, and still have months to go. This is my first game as well.

My WIP has steadily shaped up the last four years. Still working on it, as actively as ever.

Hmm, usually a month for the first complete-ish version, and then another month per large update. For example: the game in my sig, Elements Of Escape, is currently on version 3. I started it in October last year, finished it in November, made V2 during January/February, made V3 during February/March.

The other game in my sig was conceptualized in July 2005, and still ain't finished. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with it.

Yet another game, not in my sig, had its engine created over two weeks in December, and its content created over the last two weeks.

So, it varies, but I'd say about a month or two.

a week or so for my first games (infection, winter woes see below)
more for my bigger projects such as Infection 2: Disease and GMLink 0.3 (see my sig for links) which are currently Works in Progress.

I have yet to release a game that I think is "good".

I have yet to finish a game completely. I always get bored near the end/middle/beginning/thinking of the programming .
My most complete game is about 5 months old, and it's on standby (that's the longest that I've worked on a game so far). Most of my games, however, are worked on for 2 or 3 weeks (sometimes 1 week) before it's sent to gather dust.

I can spend ages on a game. I spent up to a year (which i know may no be much) on one game and still developing it right now.

My main problem is i have no confidence in my games, which means they never get put into the GMC. I guess i am afraid of what other people will say. They only way to improve is by releasing it to people who can give you ideas and critiscm on what your game is like. I would hate to people say that they all hated the game. I need to get over it i suppose

So to sum it up i pretty much just said the same as Revel in a more boring speech

I second that

a one year game is a small project if you do it yourself,a game will not be good without the right music or graphics according to the story,but if you spend 12 hrs+ a day for 1 year your game is gonna be good, but NOT if it lacks graphics.

Oh? My game is fairly good. It took me a week to make. The sounds where original, and I did all the coding by myself. If I did graphics by myself, it would have taken another 2 days.

I agree with Revel and mme

generaly i can get a good platformer done in 3 months.. but sometimes its drags on. my first realeased game, ninjavity, took like... 3 months maybe, ninjavity 2 has been put off several time but in all its taken like 5 months

What I've seen for the really good GM games is about a year. Sometimes it gets released after like 4 months, but then they keep building on.

~DtD

Well, my game Senseless War, has taken me over a year to make, and I'm still not done, but I am close. A lot of games take me months to make, most of the time I work on them on and off though.

Right now I worked almost 4 weeks on the game for competition02 and i must admit that I wanted to do more, but times was short, even with the delay.
On my other games I was working around 1-2 weeks, but I never finished a game 100%.

it always takes longer then you expect =P.

But for me, I've never releaced a full game but I have worked on a project more then a year!

At least five months, but I've been working on a few games for at least three years!

Skyfire waited a month or two before releasing World in War. As an individual, I usually jump the gun, eager to show off my stuff before anything is really developed. But World in War was different, since I was working on a team, and almost scared to release it because then we'd have deadlines. Ouch.

Sokota

How long do I work on my games, -to long... Not to be sounding negative, I am just frustrated with my current project's progress speed. I often work well over a year. Why? Crippling perfectionism combined with lack of reason. I fail to understand the ''good enough'' point. When a project is looking fine, to me I see failure. What others think I should release, I throw back to tweak it more.

It kinda depends. Right now I'm working on a game that's going to be a level long. And I've been working on it a couple weeks. But my Procrastination is forcing me to get done right now as I need to be done by May 2nd. Giving yourself a date to get a version out will help you.

Years and years and years. =D

Thats a pretty large project actually. No one should spend 12+ hours a day for a whole year using gamemaker

What he said sounds like a large C++ project.

I usually take forever on my projects, mainly because I hardly have any time to actually work on them, and secondly, I want the game to be perfect (Or as perfect as it can be)

I have a game I've been working on for 3 years, and I'm not even half way done

It completely depends on the game. I have been working on one for over a month now (somewhere around a 40 days)

Well my most recent RPG took me 6 months to get Demo 1 finished and it was worth it.!!

Mythical Safari took about 3 weeks.

And my most recent project (not saying) took 3 days but it's not done

So yeh, depends on the game

I have never been able to work for more than 3 months on one single project. I started making a game in mid-December, and am still tweaking a few things, but that is because I interrupted it for the competition.

Collide (my first on yoyo) took about 2 months.
Durham Heights took about 2.5 months.
The Winter Present took about 2 months, thanks to the deadline.
Space Fight hasn't been released yet
Apes Vs. Aztecs took about 2 months, but I hardly touched it during the second month.
My current project. (in conjunction with Space Fight) is moving along swimmingly.

Those are in order. Man, I've improved!

I thought I would be alone in taking months upon months to complete a game, thankfully I'm not!
It depends what kind of game it is and how willing I am to let it go; I am a perfectionist..

It also depends on the genre; a plat former will most likely take less time to make rather then a 3D game (FPS, TPS etc).

I seem to be able to make awesome games in just hours, because im homeschooled and i have more time than most people. But The only problem that hinders my progress is the ever-growing need for sprites and sounds. I dont know how to compose, and my topics in the graphics thread dont get responses, so many of what could be competition winning games are deleted so i can try on a new one. And then it starts all over again.

bout two weeks before losing my drive to finish and then start another.

Well, my projects usually take from 1 to 2 months. (1 if it's some fun side project,
2 if it's serious - like for a deadline or a project I want to finish)

I've got a serious project that's going to be released tomorrow! I'm happy.
That was my happy face. Did you see my happy face? Good. I like my happy face.

The only finished games I have are just small mini-games. They only took a couple days to finish because they were little fun projcets.

The names are:

Mods at Work
Survival Mage

Back when I was a fan game maniac and a less experienced programmer, I made a game called Super Mario Pong. I spent about 8 months on it, then I decided I was done with it.

games don't really have time limits, some people are quick at making good games but i personally think games are better not rushed. i made a game in a week or two it was rejected by the community almost instantly then i made another in 2 months the community didn't love it but they didn't hate it neither now my newest project has taken me 5 months and i haven't got to release stage yet and I'm not releasing it for at least another 3 months im going to spend a year maybe 2 years on it to make it perfect in every way possible.

so it really depends on how quick you can work and how good you want to make it and how much thought you plan on putting into it.

I've been working on one game recently for 4 months solid. Its no where near releasable, and isn't even finished. It depends on the game type. I'm making a 3rd person beat 'em up with little assitance in programming, only in spriting. But if i spent the same amount of time making the game in 2d, it would most likely be finished. It depends on the type of game.

I have given up projects in the past after 3 days, some after months. Just depends.

i spend about a month for my games on average, but judging by your work you must spend a lot more than that

My screensaver took a week to make. but that was an exeption. i don't usually have much time and i also normally make my games a lot bigger (menus, options, storyline, etc.)
it usually ranges in the months/years.
in fact, i haven't finished a game yet, it's really long.

It depends on what type of game it is and how hard it is to make. It takes me a few days/hours to do platformers ans longer to other more complicated types of games,like RPG's and fighting games.

To answer the original name of the topic...

...Four years, and still going.

im currently 25% done with a project thats taken 2 years...

do the math

I'm still working on my game Spacewars. I started it back in November 2006 when I first started using Game Maker.

I always think of a good idea and start on that but then think of another game and start on that etc.
I probubly start 15 games a year and don't finish any of them

Up there in the ranks of Duke Nukem Forever.

Much longer than what's ever necessary, due to my excessive laziness/lack of time.

For a released project, the longest I've ever spent was a year and a half on Throttle 3 and the shortest I've ever spent was thirty minutes on Fly.

I once made an unreleased project that I made in five minutes... And... Well, let's just say it was unreleased for a reason.

-PF

About a minute, sometimes two..

I once spent 3 minutes on a project, but I didn't release it because it was bigger than most peoples hard drives.

That's not very funny.