Running into Discouraging Feelings After the Latest Work on my Project

[Zaen]

Have you ever added something to a project that you were really excited about, that was going well, and even other people were like, "Hey that's cool," only to be met with a new idea you started implementing that by the end of it, completely makes you feel discouraged about working on it.


So, I decided I wanted to add this thing where, when a die roll is cast to determine an outcome, as is common in my game and influenced by games like D&D, a die roll animation appears on screen to show you what you rolled, rather than just process it and make it happen.


I spent two days working on twenty animations of every possible outcome of a twenty sided die, each with 12 frames. It totally works. There's some kinks I need to work out in it, but it works, and it's there, but... setting up those animations took me a mind numbing two days of depressing work.


And I realized half way into it that... if I knew how much work it was going to be to do it the way I did it -- or at all -- I actually wouldn't have done it. But once I was into it, I couldn't stop. I had to see it through. And I just hated every moment of it. I went from loving working on my game to just like UGH, I JUST NEED TO FINISH THIS.


Well, when I finished it, I knew there wasn't any possibility that I would be satisfied with it. How much work I put into it... There was no world where the outcome would be close to worth it. And, to find that stuff about it still needs kinks worked out, I just... 


I pretty much don't even want to look at RPG Maker right now. I still am definitely going to go back to my project but I need time to recover, to sort of let go of that time, and decide if I want to fix the kinks or just scrap it.


I think if it came out perfect, it would be cool... But if I hate working on it so much, whereas I've loved the game and making it up until this point, is it healthy for me to keep thinking about this part of it, if it genuinely makes me not want to do it?


Do the ideal end results I might come out with that people might think are cool not take importance over that, if I hate doing it so much, I might lose interest in my project? Does that make sense?


I'm going to take a day to not think about it. I tend to be a pretty obsessive person when I Get something in my head. I think that's possibly how I burned myself out, taking on such a work intensive job doing those custom animations. And I probably will naturally just start thinking about it again and be back at it before tonight/tomorrow is done.


The question of the day that I will wonder is, will I go back to the game as if I never had put all that time into the on screen die roll system thingy... Or will I get back to the grind, with the worst of the work behind me, and make it shine like I imagined it would.


Have you ever felt like this before, and what do you do?

 

[Kes]

I have this sort of thing from time to time.  I find myself thinking "Why am I doing this to myself?" as I slowly slog through something, often to a successful conclusion (after repeated attempts) but not always.  A recent example - I decided to do some heavy editing to an animated battler, not something I find easy.  At the end of it I decided that it still didn't blend in with the rest of the battlers, so had to ditch it. 


One way I prevent myself getting burned out on it is to always have more than one task on hand so that if it starts to weigh me down I can switch to something else for a while.  But my experience is that there are always times when working on a game is simply hard work.  I see no way round that.  One just has to keep on keeping on, in the knowledge that the final game will have been worth it.

 

[SimProse]

Having made 13 indie games over the past 20 years or so, i've run into this plenty of times. Burnout is fairly common, especially with really long or involved game projects. I switch to something else entirely for a few days and then come back, and i'm usually fresher and ready to tackle a project again.

 

[Zaen]

Having made 13 indie games over the past 20 years or so, i've run into this plenty of times. Burnout is fairly common, especially with really long or involved game projects. I switch to something else entirely for a few days and then come back, and i'm usually fresher and ready to tackle a project again.

I feel like that's going to be me. Just not thinking about it has already put me in a better mood. I don't know if I'm going to keep tinkering with the work I did recently or scrap it and just go back into the project. I'll decide later. I'm just happy to not think about it right now.


But like, for me, it has a lot to do with that I'm a bit obsessive. So like, that can be really positive, and result in a lot of work getting done, right...  Especially when I'm pleased with all of it, it generated positive feelings, which generate more obsessive working.


But like it has an opposite side of the coin, where I can't stop, even though I'm stressed out. And just like, yeah... the end result took a lot of time and I'm not terribly happy with the result.


I think for a lot of people the bigger concern is staying focused. I don't have a problem with staying focused. I have a problem with taking a break.


And so, even now, as I'm on this board and kind of thinking about it, I'm forcing myself not to open it up and look at it and just relax and watch Netflix. 


It's already got me thinking more positively.


Edit: I should point out, the work in question is a visual more than integral part of the game. So, I could go on with or without it. I'm not sure which.

 

[Dr. Delibird]

Game making, just like any art form, is like this for a lot of people. Unless you are doing commissioned works for somebody (and have gotten past this phase on the commissions side of things) the artwork you are working on is like your baby. Maybe not as important as a real child (whether pet or regular child) but it is certainly way up.


Personal art projects are the worse for me, I do something that I know is good enough to sell to somebody looking for it but I am not selling it, it is mine and I am the one who has tk live with it. Artists often find faults in their work that others do not as you are the one who is closest to it, not just metaphorically but also literally. You saw your piece of work come from nothing, you will almost always see every nook and crany. Some artists know how to get past this feeling even though it will still be naging away at them. Others do not and they struggle with moving on to the next thing because they are stuck trying to make it perfect (fyi, perfect art is a pipe dream).

 

[xanax48]

If it was always easy and fun...ahh life would be good. I'm in a slightly different situation. There're part of my game that I have yet to start because of the troubles that I know will come with working on it. It's at that point that I remind myself that the areas of other games I love the most are often the ones developers had the most trouble with. 


Work through the pain, whether you change tasks or press on, do so because you know the player will love it. Oh but don't go too far attempting to be perfect otherwise the game will never get finished. 

 

[Crabs]

It happens with me about 4 times per month (I work on game developing almost everyday). Interesting topic. I thought it was a personal deficiency before reading the posts above. I have already discarted 12 maps (some of them bigger than 100x100) on my current project and two custom tilesets made for previous project attempt. And I've spent a lot of time, passion and effort on them. It's really frustrating.


But I think everytime I have to deal with this kind of situation, and I overcome, I get stronger. On the past, this phenomenon used to make me give up, but now it just "disables" me for a single day.


I see it as part of the growth process as a developer.

 

[Yoraee]

So, this happened to me just a couple of weeks ago.


I was doing so well on my project that I thought "hey, lemme use my leave balance and take a week off work to continue working on this since I'm on a roll". I did, and on the first day of my vacation lo and behold! I could barely get through a single troop event without feeling awful and pointless about the entire thing.


This actually continued for the entirety of my one week time off. I was forcing myself to work on the project, making negligible progress, loathing myself and questioning everything about my project.


I reported back to work the week after, and decided that I'm not touching RM for that entire week. Come the weekend, and suddenly the inspiration is back and in full force!


Moral of the story: Take a break every now and then!  

 

[HexMozart88]

I've had to restart my battle system three times. I've had to restart my game at least three times. It happens. We're all perfectionists to a degree, but sometimes we just need to learn when to put things down. Or, if you really aren't satisfied, get a second opinion. That's what Early Project Feedback is for. Example, me with my title screen, it looks like garbage to me, I hate it, but I may post it on the forums anyway to see what the heck I did wrong.