# Finish It > Get a stalled or sprawling game project to ship: diagnose the death loop, cut to the core, set a binary finish line. - Skill: `kyh/finish-it` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add kyh/finish-it` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/kyh/finish-it/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Coding & Dev Tools - Author: kyh (https://skillmd.com/u/kyh) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/kyh/finish-it --- # Finish it Finishing is a separate skill, and a finished mediocre game proves more than a brilliant fragment. Projects die in two loops: the **restart loop** (skills improved mid-project, so the dev remakes early content sideways forever — "your code will always be a mess") and the **polish loop** (near-done, endlessly refining details out of fear of judgment). Diagnose the loop before intervening. And remember: **the last 10% is really 90%** — menus, death states, audio plumbing, deploy are the game too. ## Scoping a new game (so this skill is never needed) - **One core mechanic, one level/arena, one win condition, one lose condition.** Everything else is stretch. - **One-sentence pitch before code.** Features not in the sentence need explicit justification. - **Budget 50/50**: half for the playable loop, half for the unfun tail. If the loop fills the budget, the scope is wrong. - **Prototype-first split** (jam culture): playable ugly loop in the first ~5% of the time; the rest is feel, art, sound, content. - **Use the engine at hand** (Spelunky shipped in Game Maker), reuse and generate assets without shame. - **Tiny finished games grow up**: Celeste began as a 4-day PICO-8 jam game. The jam-sized version is the validation step, not a compromise. ## The cut list - Keep a `NEXT_GAME.md`. Every mid-build idea ("what if it had shops / multiplayer / procgen") goes there, not in the build. Save it for the next one — finish this one first (Yu). - **Default cut order** for browser games: extra levels → extra enemy/item types → meta-progression → settings menus → narrative → leaderboards. - **Never cut**: restart flow, lose/win states, audio toggle. - When behind: cut features. One mechanic deep beats three shallow. - If a project must die, the successor is _smaller_, not bigger. ## When is the core loop enough? Stop adding mechanics when: a new player understands it without instructions in <30s, a session has tension (can lose) and release (can win/score), and a player voluntarily restarts once. From that moment, every proposal to add is scope creep — route it to `NEXT_GAME.md` and switch to finishing mode. ## The intervention (stalled project) 1. **Diagnose the loop.** Check git history / file churn: redoing existing things = restart loop; refining done things = polish loop; new systems with no win state = creep. Name it plainly: "Last 5 sessions added 3 systems and the game still has no win state." 2. **Extract the one-sentence core** — single mechanic + win + lose. If unclear, the smallest already-fun interaction in the build IS the game. 3. **Triage every feature** (built, half-built, planned): KEEP (serves the core loop), CUT (delete now), DEFER (→ `NEXT_GAME.md`). Half-built defaults to CUT — "just finishing it" is the restart loop's bait. 4. **Write the finish line** as the checklist below, agreed explicitly: boxes may be removed, never added. 5. **End-to-end first**: title → play → lose → restart → win reachable with placeholders before any item-level polish. 6. **One juice pass, one tuning pass, timeboxed.** The second polish pass is the polish death-loop. 7. **Ship** (`vg deploy`), cold-load the live URL, play one full session on the deployed build, fix only blockers. 8. **Debrief**: share the link, log deferred ideas, at most one v1.1 scoped to ≤5 checklist items. Ship-then-iterate beats a delayed "complete" v1 — deploys are cheap here. 9. **If the user resists** ("one more feature"): offer to swap it for an existing checklist item. Never silently extend. ## Shipping checklist (binary; all boxes or no ship) - [ ] Title screen: name + how to start + minimal controls hint - [ ] Core loop playable start-to-finish with no dev knowledge - [ ] Lose state reachable, clear, instant one-input restart - [ ] Win/goal state reachable (or endless loop with score + best visible) - [ ] Restart fully resets state — replay 3+ times (no stale timers/listeners) - [ ] No placeholder art/text ("TODO", magenta boxes, template logo) - [ ] Page title + favicon + meta description set - [ ] Mobile viewport meta; page doesn't scroll/zoom under game input; canvas scales to the window - [ ] Touch controls, or an explicit "keyboard required" notice on mobile — actually driven on a touch viewport, not just screenshotted - [ ] Debug UI, FPS meters, `?test=` hooks hidden from players - [ ] SFX exist, start only after user gesture, mute toggle works - [ ] Tab-blur handled: no desync/physics spiral when backgrounded - [ ] No console errors across a full session, verified against THIS game — a non-blank canvas on a port another dev server owns proves nothing - [ ] Frame rate holds; no unbounded entity leaks over a long session - [ ] First-timer survives >15s; a deliberate player can lose - [ ] All assets load on the deployed path (no localhost/absolute refs) - [ ] Deployed URL cold-loads in incognito; one full session played LIVE - [ ] (Multiplayer) host-leave/rejoin tested; solo player not soft-locked Related skills: `game-playbook` (the build order that avoids stalling), `deploy` (the finish line), `design-lenses` (is the core loop enough), `ask-me` (scope the next game properly before starting).