LÖVE

I feel the same way. I tried to make a basic platformer for years and didn't really succeed until I finally made one with Flixel...mainly because in The Olden Days of five years ago it was slightly harder to find things that took care of stuff like "double buffering" for you. =P

I agree with all the advice given here (start small, use libraries but only for tasks you really don't want to handle manually, make it smaller, share your works-in-progress with people). About the sharing, maybe it's also not a coincidence that I never finished anything until I got married a couple years ago and have a supportive wife who is tolerant of my alternate bouts of pride and frustration and requests that she playtest my crummy prototypes. =P

Here is what helped me the most (aside from the mere existence of stuff like Flixel and Love2d) -- before starting work on any of the actual game ideas I had in my head, I asked myself "Berzee, what would you need to code in order to PROVE to yourself that you're able to make those other things?"

The answer took the form of a generic basic platformer, but also included things like music and sound and GUI. What really helped, silly as it sounds, was that I named the game and project folder "Proof" and every time I opened it up to work on it I was like "Yeah! I'ma PROVE MAHSELF!"

Now that I type that out loud it's dumb that that's what helped the most, but there it stands. ;D

This is what happens when you type out loud.

yes, I do feel bad for this. Sorry for the OT.

The answer took the form of a generic basic platformer, but also included things like music and sound and GUI. What really helped, silly as it sounds, was that I named the game and project folder "Proof" and every time I opened it up to work on it I was like "Yeah! I'ma PROVE MAHSELF!"

Prototyping is never silly. I have a host of messy little prototypes lying about just to make sure that I'm not jumping into some project that later turns out to be not possible, and I always start with the most challenging parts to make sure I can actually do them. Polishing is easy, it just takes time. Getting a proper engine running is where the challenge lies.