Finding Inspiration to Keep on Working

Damian Manning , 10/04/2026

The Issue - Discovering Motivation for Personal Projects

Throughout my 3 plus years of game development I have fairly often struggled with finding motivation to work on projects. I often find myself having lots of ideas that I am excited to work on, but struggle to begin or continue actually working. This is something that I have struggled with for a very long time. Typically I will get a good idea in my head and then never actually get around to working on it because I don’t make time for it, or I get so intimidated by starting a project that I just kick it down the line forever. This has led to a large backlog of projects that I will probably never get to finish or even start most of.

What can be done to alleviate this? I have gotten some projects done. I’ve pretty consistently done game jams throughout college, and I believe a lot of the projects that have come out of my classes have been quite good. The problem with this is that most of these projects are things that I have worked on with larger groups of people where my opinion was one of a larger collective. Many of these projects also weren’t my ideas. There isn’t a problem with either of these things. However a lot of these projects were very quick or more so focused on the grade rather than just trying to create something. I think that this has ultimately led to me feeling creatively unfulfilled. There are so many ideas that I have, and that I have been wanting to work on. If I keep going the way I have, none of these projects will ever see the light of day and I think I will continue to feel this way as a developer.

The Inspiration - Professional Environments Create Professionals

Having just joined Echoes, it feels as though I have only just now dipped my toes into the overarching environment, but it has definitely had a considerable impact on my work. Echoes is a much more professional environment than any I have ever worked in before. It has been a very interesting change of pace, and has already taught me a lot. Having a more structured workflow with taskboards, sprints, and consistent check-ins and meetings has definitely inspired new ways that I would like to organize and structure my workflow going forward. I think working in this more professional environment has also lent a lot more confidence to me in my own skills, particularly in my technical skills which has always been an area that I have felt somewhat unconfident in.

These new techniques and confidence have led me to ideating on past ideas in my free time more often. Going back through my journals and notes and thinking about how I would implement certain mechanics, which people I would like to add to my team, and how I would manage the project to get it done by a certain deadline. It has been really invigorating, and has made me really excited to be a game developer again. I think so much of my work being attached to classes or other people’s projects led to me feeling a little bored and worn out by the process. Now it feels like I want nothing more than to sit down and code for hours on end to see my own end results like how I have been envisioning most of these ideas in my head for years.

The Future - Let’s Get to Work

Going forward with this newfound confidence and inspiration, I am hoping to get a lot more done. So far this semester I have numerous project plans that I am hoping to see through. To start I have a game called Undergrowth being worked on for a class that feels very promising. I like the team we have, and we are already talking about working on taking the project further past the class. Beyond that I am in discussions with my friends to start an LLC and start making smaller projects to generate some passive revenue through mobile apps and the like. With that income we have a few larger games that we are quite excited to start working on that we have been ideating on together for quite a while. I think these projects will be even more successful than my previous projects because I have newfound insider knowledge and I will have lots more professional experience thanks to Echoes. I will finally be able to start working on projects that I have been wanting to work on, and I am hoping that by the end of them I will finally be able to feel more creatively fulfilled and confident in my abilities as a game developer. It has taken a long time to get to this point, but I think that all of the work and effort and all of the projects that I have worked on until this point are finally going to start paying off.