Game Making Philosophy

[Alpha-Mad]

Greetings,
I've been thinking a lot about personal philosophies and personal habits in general and it wasn't a stretch to take this over to the RM community. I recently just wrote a 4 page paper on my "Personal Teaching Philosophy" where I discussed assessment strategies, lecture ideas, and the overall basics of how I feel about teaching.
I'm in a rambling mood today, so I'll cut to the chase. This is a thread dedicated to posting your own "Philosophy" on game making. Discuss as much as you want or as little. If you're philosophy can be narrowed down to a sentence or two, more power to you. I'll start it out.

Alpha-Mad's Game Making Philosophy:

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Let's keep it real people
Lets face it, we have lives. We can't dedicate hours upon hours to game making, and even if we did, it's almost impossible to create an epic game. I don't mean to pop bubbles, but lets face it, how many good RM games have been made that are 80+ hours and good? If you want to make a game, be real about it. 1 hr of gameplay takes weeks upon weeks to successfully pull off. So, if you wanted to make a game that was 80 hours, you'd have to dedicate a number of years.
This also applies with graphics, scripts, game play, storylines, and other "neat" features. Keep it simple. Tell your story and make it fun. Don't try to see how many scripts you can pack into your game. What? That minimap script looks really epic but will take like, 3 hours to make it compatible? Do you really think someone is going to play or not play a game for one little thing? Sorry. I've thrown a ton of things out the window because it's just not realistic. Yeah, I could have posted a "script request" for some of the things, but probably like 5% of script requests even get someone seriously looking at them. Not worth my time.
Demos
Demos should be very carefully released. All to often, I see people releasing demo after demo after demo. The only problem is, when the final game is released, people will have to replay everything from the demo just to get into the good stuff. Honestly, I hardly play demos that are only a piece of the full game, at least in major detail. I don't want to waste 3 hours of my life on a demo that is only 1/4th of the full game. What a waste of time! Demos should be 10-30 minutes in length, giving the audience the basics of the storyline, introduction to characters, and basic gameplay. As you will notice, I haven't released a demo for my game. Why? Because I want the final product to be new and exciting, not a continuation of demo 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 etc. Get the point?
Episodic vs. Full Release
I'm not going to harp on this. For my personal life, it is much easier to release in Parts rather than a full game. I can't dedicate 5 hours a day developing. I cut down my game into Parts, each a full game in their own respect. This also helps with keeping the motivation going. Pacing is key!
Take your Time!!!
I might be shallow, but I can tell the quality of a game by it's screen shots and thread. If the thread is poorly designed and screenshots horrible, I will simply overlook it. Does this mean that all games with RTP only are bad? Heavens no! But one must attempt to draw their audience in. Take your time with your game, learn how to map a bit, get advice and learn from the various people who are good at mapping, story writing and other things. Don't put up a thread too early and don't post a thread about a game that you aren't 100% dedicated to. Don't waste our times just like you shouldn't waste yours. Take your time!

That's all for now. I may add or edit things later. Just needed to vent a little