Lava lemmings is one exception, where the story drove the gameplay instead of coming up with a game and trying to generate a story for it. Unfortunately, lava lemmings died the same death so many other mods have faced. I managed to code a bit, make part of a map, a bunch of sounds, and a partial model converted from the Fiend model turned forwards so be on 4 legs. It never got anywhere after that, I think because I was getting too bogged down, didn't make real progress, and got drawn into real life again and finally settled on other projects.
Likewise, Super Smash Quake (which was supposed to have controls like super smash bros, and a side camera), SoldatQuake, QTactics (Final Fantasy Tactics mechanics), and a number of other ambitious mods have all died because I got lost in the mire of limitations, whether they be those of the game engine or my own personal abilities and attention span. I did get fairly far with some of them, and had major breakthroughs that could be used by me or other coders to create other mods, but the projects themselves very certainly died.
I even consider some of my successes to be failures. Conquest, for example, is a source of pride for me, but I can never share it with anyone because few people have ever gotten it. It takes a lot of patience to figure out and get anything out of. It takes considerable explanation before the player knows even how to play, and then when they face their first ogre and can't hurt it, they end up severely confused without coaching.
Conquest lacks some critical features (scan feature to see a monster's shields, hud elements to show your shielding etc better, in-game descriptions of monsters, shields, weapons, and basic gameplay... and so on) that would make it playable. As it stands now, it doesn't even serve as a proper prototype to show off the underlying idea to game companies or anyone else that may be interested in my work. It's just too incomplete.
Tactics Quake got pretty far, if I may say so myself. I had a more or less functioning grid system, which could handle unit movement, terrain height, multiple levels (bridges, caves), multiple unit types, placing units, various attacks and attack ranges, and so on. It needed work, but on a very basic level it worked. Once the infinite looping bug was fixed by switching to darkplaces, I was basically able to do whatever calculations and searches I needed.
I had pages and pages of unit classes, abilities and spells, game mechanics, and technical plans on how to overcome various Quake engine obstacles. No story, but lots of cool mechanics. Unfortunately, the project fell out of sight for years, and when I tried to return I was overwhelmed with work that needed to be done, and confusion over how to do it. Worse, I was severely frustrated with how hard it was to get anything to work properly, and how sharply the quake engine limited me. What's worse, it was just hard to keep working on a project that was based on my poorly written code from years ago, with all kinds of bugs and limitations, and no truly cool features up and running to show off. I could basically have units move around and poke each other with arrows, swords, or jump attacks, and the rest was gonna be hard. Eventually, I just walked away.
The project is not a complete failure, however. It evolved, slowly, into a different game design that I've continued fleshing out ever since (even today I'm adding ideas and refining when I go home each day). I'm considering making an independent video game out of it, or perhaps a pen and paper game based on an hex grid. The sky's the limit there, and planning is a lot less restricting/discouraging than trying to code the thing myself. Who knows what'll come of it.
I suppose nothing is a complete failure. I've done some cool stuff, and taken on some very ambitious projects. Some failed, others flourished. Even some of those that "failed" have produced insights and lessons for future projects. And ultimately, I mod to create things. Some of those creations never get finished, or even started, but I love to plan them. Just creating the plans can be very rewarding for me.
And as long as none of those unfinished projects become sentient and/or vengeful (or needy), I think I'm good.
