Learning When to Stop

*Text improved with ia
Breakdash — Learning When to Stop

Starting point

After finishing three small game projects, I reached an important realization: the problem was no longer a lack of ideas.

It was the opposite.

Every project generated an endless list of “this could be better”. More polish, more systems, more features. And that list carried a real risk: never finishing.

For this project, I decided to change my priority. Instead of improving endlessly, I wanted to move faster, accept imperfection, and focus on immediate fun.

The idea

Breakdash started from two simple concepts:

• A single-level Breakout-style game
• A chaotic dash movement, more physical than precise

The goal wasn’t innovation. It was experimentation: collisions, game feel, and rhythm, under a very clear constraint:

A very simple game with a single main interaction.

Conscious restrictions

From the beginning, I imposed strict limits:

• One level only
• No complex systems (score, progression, currency)
• Zero or at most one power-up
• Focus only on:
  • Movement
  • Collision
  • Visual feedback
  • Sound

The guiding question was simple:

How much can you achieve with the bare minimum?

The process

As development progressed, many extra ideas appeared:

• Power-ups
• A timer
• More levels
• More complex particle systems
• Better art
• A polished UI (Or any UI at all)

This time, I stopped on purpose.

Once the core gameplay loop was working, I made a conscious decision:

“This is enough for now.”

It was an exercise in slowing down the instinct to polish endlessly and respecting the original scope.

The result

The result is Breakdash:

• An extremely simple game
• Basic mechanics with a good sense of rhythm
• Collisions, bounces, and effects that feel satisfying for a few minutes of play

It’s not a deep game, and it doesn’t try to be. But it works.

And that already means a lot.

As I wrote in the game description:

“For this project I wanted to experiment with very simple mechanics and the restriction of only one interaction… the result is better than I expected. Still, I can barely say this is a game.”

Key takeaways

This project left me with some very clear lessons:

• Simple things can still be fun
• Not everything needs to be fully polished to be valid
• Publishing small games is uncomfortable — and that discomfort is part of the process
• Learning when to stop improving is a skill that needs training
• Finishing small projects builds more confidence than dreaming about big ones

Closing

Breakdash is not a great game. But it is a solid step forward.

One more finished project. More speed. Less mental weight.

And most importantly, a practical reminder of something I’m trying to internalize:

Moving forward imperfectly is better than not moving at all.

*Text improved with ia