Picking Up Where Others Left Off

Noah Fehrenbach , 10/20/2026

What Does it Mean to Pick Up an Idea

During my time here at RIT, as I’ve grown as a developer, I’ve found myself more often than not picking up the development of an idea long after its creation. On a personal level, it’s often difficult for me to fully get behind an idea or mission that I had no hand in designing. Because of this, the passion I have for development feels somewhat stunted, as though I’m working on something I don’t necessarily believe in. My time working on Smoke and Mirrors this semester has further highlighted this struggle, as have my experiences with Changeling and other projects I joined partway through development. Although I struggle making the connection between developer and idea, I find that this process allows me to not only grow not only personally, but professionally.

Smoke and Mirrors, like many other games I’ve worked on, wasn’t my idea, and honestly, it isn’t the kind of project I naturally connect with or wholeheartedly believe in. I’d much rather work on a game that I feel confident in, one where I can see the potential for success and feel that the work I’m putting in is leading somewhere. Part of me looks forward to eventually working on a AAA game, where I might have a stronger sense of that direction and purpose. But I also recognize that I’m still a student, and that learning to develop games means working on ideas that I wouldn’t necessarily choose for myself.

Maybe the challenge isn’t simply finding work that uses my skills or gives me a sense of satisfaction. Instead, it might be learning how to contribute to an idea without needing to be personally attached to it. If I’m going to work in a collaborative industry, I need to learn how to support a project’s vision, even when it isn’t my own, and do my best to help it succeed. I’m still learning to connect with ideas that aren’t my favorites, but I think part of growing as a developer is learning to give those ideas a fair chance.

The Reality of Picking Up Where Others Left Off

One of the more difficult aspects of picking up an existing project is learning to work within the boundaries of someone else’s vision. When I start working on a game, I’m not just learning its systems and mechanics, but also the reasoning behind decisions I might not necessarily agree with. It can be difficult to distinguish between something that genuinely needs to change and something that simply doesn’t align with how I would have approached the project myself.

With Smoke and Mirrors, I’ve personally found it difficult to make sense of the work left behind by the previous team. It feels as though their focus was on quickly implementing a wide variety of features, without necessarily stopping to polish and refine the player experience along the way. The result, at least from my perspective, is a gameplay experience that can feel unintentionally frustrating. Being so early in this project’s current development cycle has only added to my disorientation. The idea and its design were already conceptualized and brought to life during the previous cycle, but now that I’m here, trying to figure out where to take it next, I often feel like I’m treading water. I’m making changes, but I’m not always sure whether they’re moving the project toward something better or simply keeping it afloat.

With Changeling, I picked up where many student developers and designers had left off, inheriting an unusual amalgamation of creative visions rather than one cohesive direction. Strangely, this made me more comfortable making changes. I felt like I was simply another voice among many, able to leave my own mark on a game that had already been shaped by so many others. At the same time, this more hands-off experience came with its own frustrations. Without a clear sense of direction or consistent feedback, it was difficult to know whether my contributions were actually making a difference. I felt as though I was expected to receive criticism and refine my work, yet my changes sometimes felt like writing on a wall that had already been written on by countless others. It became difficult to tell where my contributions ended and the work of previous developers began.

Learning to Let Go of Ownership

I think what I’ve come to realize through these experiences is that picking up where someone else left off requires a different kind of investment than starting something of my own. When I create something myself, I have a personal connection to its direction and purpose, and that connection makes it easier to justify the work I put into it. When I inherit a project, that connection isn’t necessarily there, and I have to find other reasons to care about what I’m doing. Maybe that’s part of what it means to work in a collaborative industry: learning to take pride in the work itself, rather than needing to be personally attached to the idea behind it.

I don’t think I’ve entirely figured this out yet. I still want to work on projects that excite me, and I still want to feel like the work I’m doing is contributing to something meaningful. But I also recognize that I can’t expect every project to align with my own interests or creative vision. Sometimes, the work is about understanding what came before me, figuring out what can be improved, and doing my best to leave the project in a better place than I found it. Maybe learning to do that is just as important to my growth as a developer as learning to build something from scratch.