Fail Faster - A Mantra for Creative Thinkers - Extra Credits

No one creates a perfect game, book, or project on their first try. Don't waste time trying to polish your idea: put yourself out there, create something, and learn quickly to improve upon your failures.
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♪ Intro Music: "Penguin Cap" by CarboHydroM

♪ Outro Music: "Rolling Through Time" by Cursed Lemon

[courtneywoodbury]

"The difference between a master and a novice is that the master has failed more times than the novice has tried."

[ChandlerKeithFlow]

"Sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something"
- Jake the Dog

[gingervampireFTW]

This lesson can pretty much be applied to anything, really.

[neophenxgaming]

Not just in game development, it's a great life lesson that too many kids these days aren't being taught. Learning to identify and correct problems is critical in forward motion, but as a society we're so stuck on telling everybody that they're perfect and can't be criticized. People need to hunger for honest criticism to grow, especially when you're producing something!

[DoomedLich]

In the powerful words of Alexander Bruce in his game Antichamber:
"Failing to succeed does not mean failing to progress."
Actually a lot of the signs in that game a pretty powerful.

[TAWithiam]

Basically the exact opposite of what the school system teaches you

[Robert.Stole.the.Television]

This is the best advice you can give to anybody who writes fiction.

Especially those who have deadlines to keep.

[Blizzic]

No one ever fucking explained this to me.

Thank you.

[JustToSaveYou]

I'm an aspiring writer and this kind of applies to EVERYTHING the slightest bit creative.  It's also emotionally harder to realize something isn't working the longer it takes from conception to the realization.

[wenliang]

Mario is plumber on drugs, that made my day.

[E-Man]

This goes beyond making games. But artists, writers, filmmakers, anything that involves creative processes.

Another related school of thought is never over commit, at least not when you're still in concept phase. You go so in, then run into a huge problem, but you've done so much with it, you can't stop now, you've almost got a whole idea...

You can and probably should start again. But this usually works better when there aren't deadlines and bosses breathing down your neck to get something usable out NOW or ELSE.

[TheCookiezPlz]

I'll never understand why iteration is only ever talked about in computer science. It's one of the most fundamental life lessons you can ever learn. The ability to take criticism is something so many people are lacking in.

[margaretlines]

the "fail faster" strategy is why I bake so well. I failed on every attempt of even the most basic of recipes. these mistakes have led me to iron out and perfect until I can do no wrong with a frying pan. it's a little like leveling up, actually.

[LeetGamingTV]

This channel has helped me so much. Never ever give up. I started game dev about 4 years ago with ridiculously bad and inefficient games and now, 4 years later, I have my own Steam game and make what I used to make in 3 months with my part-time job in 2 days. It's a hard uphill climb and if I could see how much I was going to go through before I started I wouldn't even bother, but it's well worth it. It not only helps you financially, but following your dream gives you confidence and a new zest for life.

[NoshuHyena]

A great philosophy not just in game design, but in any creative process, or any process at all, for that matter.

[Overhazard]

Wow, I was actually raised AGAINST this kind of mindset, because in the country where my parents came from, failures are not forgiven and stick with you for life. Fail once, and your life is over while your family suffers splash consequences. Newspapers with national coverage actually have sections detailing some individuals' and groups' failures so they can be laughed at. An uncle of mine got covered in one such paper, and two of his brothers got demoted because their bosses read that paper.

It's only recently that I'm trying to accustom myself to the western notion that failure is okay and that westerners will forgive failure. I live in the United States, but my parents had beaten it very thoroughly into my head to avoid anything risky so as to avoid having to fail at something.

I must wonder, then if some of these students mentioned at the beginning of the video are similarly afraid of failure because they think the one failure will ruin their lives. I think that if James has to teach that concept, this mindset should be considered, especially if a good number of students come from or have family from such countries where there are harsh punishments for not succeeding.

[km_studios]

1:52 - "And now they'd spent so much time dreaming up that perfect idea that they had no time left to iterate on it"
Sounds like what happened with Sonic '06

[ThePhantomGazz]

One of the Best lines I have ever heard! "Meanwhile, Hey Lets throw birds at Pigs"

[benfinley]

My teacher did not like it when I decided to "fail faster" on my math test

[jamesduncan]

This Video pretty much turned my life around.

I had been out of education for a long time due to illness and had lost faith in learning new things, I kept failing but not learning.

I discovered extra credits because games had become an escape for me.

Once I watched this video everything sort of clicked I started doing better in school learning from my failures.

I made the highest jump in maths class in the school, and in total scored 5 GCSEs when I was originally predicted 0.

When merch came up I instantly bought my fail faster poster which has been on my wall ever since.

I am now studying computer science and graduate in 2020 having been predicted a first.

I thank the entire extra credits team as they helped me gain my passion for education. (Granted I am commenting on a 4/5 year old video so the chance they see it is low)