It’s hard to finish stuff.
Since becoming a father, now quite a few years ago, I’ve hadn’t brought a side project to a satisfying state:

  • I created this Blog, that has been lying around with half-finished posts for a long time.
  • I’ve tried to create a linter for Solr configuration… thrice!
  • I’ve tried to create a image shrinking GitHub Action
  • For sure another 5 things I can’t even think of

I’ve been frustrated with this for a while and didn’t really see a way out. Only having time some nights during the week, there was just never enough motivation to finish stuff. At some point, I would always hit a roadblock, that I just couldn’t overcome.

The cult of done

In September of 2023 I saw @NoBuilderplate’s video
🎬 How To Get Started: The Cult of Done.
In this videos he talks about the cult of done manifesto (2009) and what it meant to him. I had not yet heard of it, but these ideas left a lasting impact.

While I do not agree with the all the 13 points, I felt that this “framework” of thinking was much closer to where I wanted to be, then where I was at that moment.

Wordle and StarCraft 2

A few months later, after being sick for a few days, I had suddenly had an Idea for a project.

As a fan of Wordle and the other NYT word games, I was always wondering if I could do something similar. Wordle has so many derivatives like Gamedle or Pokedoku, but all simple derivatives, I could think of, already existed (or so I thought).

Lying in bed and watching a StarCraft2 tournament, an esport I have been following since it’s inception in 2010, I realized that there was no Wordle like game with an SC2 theme.

The idea for GuessTheSc2Pro born and I decided to get it DONE.

GuessTheSc2Pro

Within a weekend, I had a working prototype. It worked, I could show it to friends and let them play it. I improved it and even got some streamers to play it.. and they had fun!
Watching them play, I hadn’t felt such a nervous excitement in years.

What I have learned

I want to publish my projects

I want to publish my projects, even if they are not perfect. If I don’t share my non perfect results, no one will benefit and there is no feedback. Knowing I need to share my project, shall guide me to the things I need to focus on the most before publishing.

If I don’t do it, it might never exist.

Influencer marketing

Getting a streamer to play the game, was like a tutorial for the perfectly targeted audience. I was by far the highest traffic spike for the site. Making clear to me why this is being used so much.

“Done is the engine of more”

GuessTheSc2Pro is not finished, the code is very jank (not a JS dev by day 😅), the game needs a “daily challenge” for people to have a reason to come back etc.
But I have never felt so inspired to do more.