Pick a small topic for your creative project

Whenever I work on a creative project (often), I first remember Gunpei&#x27;s advice:<p>枯れた技術の水平思考<p>or<p>&quot;Lateral thinking with withered technology&quot;<p>Build something unique and innovative using widely available, likely outdated, but understood technology to surprise and delight.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gunpei_Yokoi" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gunpei_Yokoi</a>

Work with the medium.<p>Back when I started programming, I wanted graphics modes that didn&#x27;t exist, higher res, more colors, more cpu power. What I didn&#x27;t realize was that I was creating problems that were largely out of my control. I should have worked with the existing medium and embraced what was possible.

If you have a big project in mind, you can get started by creating a small project focused on an aspect of your bigger project. Since examples were missing from the op&#x27;s article, lets make one up. Suppose you want to create a site about presidents of the United States. Start with a smaller project that focuses on one president or on a group of presidents. For instance, the first three presidents. Or, if you prefer a technical example, suppose you want to create site on networking. Begin by creating a site on HTTP.

I like the topic&#x2F;contribution volume animation, and I think the idea is an important one.<p>When I told her I was starting a PhD, Linda Rising said to remember that &quot;You don&#x27;t have to drain the swamp, you just have to kill one alligator.&quot; I keep the quote on my wall.

Why do we even need to finish it? Finishing a project is in itself a choice. I mean, like the article says, you might end at a ton of research and you might not get far on your new OS per se, but if that&#x27;s what you want to work on, the more power to you. Never underestimate your ability to learn when you&#x27;re trying to actually build something.<p>If there is a deadline, or if there are other requirements, then let size be determined by those. Just sounds like the author is frustrated with his unfinished projects. Personally, I wouldn&#x27;t be. I&#x27;ve got a ton.

Best example on why this advice is useful is probably Mushroom Kingdom Fusion. The fan game was designed to be the &#x27;ultimate&#x27; video game. Hundreds of levels, about 30 playable characters, tens of power ups, tons of different graphics, hundreds of enemies and bosses and a soundtrack to rival Super Smash Bros.<p>Eventually it crashed and burned hard, because the codebase because almost impossible to debug and the game ridiculously unbalanced because it tried to be everything to everyone.<p>I also think this game (Tobias and the Dark Sceptre) is a good example to bring up in regards to giant topics and insane levels of ambition. It finally got finished, but it did spent 13 years in development because of it:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2b0tSu0QDQ0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=2b0tSu0QDQ0</a><p>That said (and I&#x27;m probably going to be seen as insane for saying this)... I&#x27;d prefer more people followed their dreams and tried to be ambitious than that we got a bunch of &#x27;safe&#x27; projects in every area. It may take time. It may sometimes literally take decades. But whether it&#x27;s research, article writing, game development, programming or business, I still have a lot of admiration for the people willing to put everything into a ridiculously overambitious and unlikely project on the off chance it might work out.

Nice visuals, and probably a good suggestion from the article. But it really lacks an example, because it&#x27;s not clear at all what does author mean by &quot;creative project&quot; here.

Consider a project that is small, based on idea that&#x27;s big.<p>Projects often end up being bigger than you plan, and you don&#x27;t want to end up in a big project based on a small idea.

I&#x27;d love to build a creative project that can identify superfluous animated gifs and hide them.

I gave up on reading the article. The gifs are too distracting and annoying.