What do I do?

[SpongeBound102]

Things aren’t going very good for me...
Recently, I posted my game on another site to see if people liked it... And... most people liked it but... a lot of people didn’t..
One person said it looked like trash and that it didn’t deserve to be played. Someone else said it was a terrible game. It had terrible mapping and bland gameplay and that if I put more effort into it, it would be a good game. At that point, I took the game down. I was in tears. I had worked for 6 months trying to juggle schoolwork and this game and didn’t expect this to happen.

I’ve been working on the game’s sequel and.. it’s been pretty delayed because of what happened... I’ve had depression lately and didn’t have the motivation to work on the game. And I don’t know what to do!

So, if anyone knows... What do I do? Do I give up? Do I keep going? I don’t know what to do...

 

[Aoi Ninami]

Some people on the internet are just jerks and will say things like that for amusement. I'd say you should post the game here; from what I've seen this community is pretty reasonable and you can get good feedback. I have no idea what your game is actually like, but if there are points to improve then here, you are likely to get honest, constructive feedback that will help you improve the game, not just insults.

Above all, don't give up. Even in the worst case, you've learned a few things by making the game and your next will be better.

 

[Hermoni]

I think you should keep going. I took a look to the video in your post, and honestly... there a lot of problems (mapping (too large and empty maps) and some sprite(we see that some are rtp, other from rip (I suppose), can't say anything about gameplay and story, havnt tested).
Lot of them are classical. You are a beginner, rigth ? (6 month yes, but that not so much ^^ ).

What you should do now ?
1- Just ignore post that only insult you and/or your game.
2 - Keep post that say what's wrong and if they dont really explain why, ask them.
3 - Don't hesitate to look others games and tutorials.

 

[SpongeBound102]

Thanks for the support. I’ll just ignore them and try not to think so hard about it. I’m still working on the sequel so with everything I’ve learned, I think it’ll be better than the first.

 

[hiddenone]

Did you have fun making the game? Do you want to make another game? Those are really the biggest things that should affect whether or not you give up game dev. This is a hobby for you, so it's not an issue if you decide that you don't enjoy it. There's always other things you can do that you find a lot more fun.

If you do want to work on another game, then you'll need to use this to learn and grow. Pretty much everyone's first game isn't good, because we made the game while still learning the engine (I found my first game a little while ago, and want to apologize to anyone who played it because looking back at it now, it wasn't really fun). There was actually a blog post a while back about how to handle criticism on your game, which could be really helpful to read.

Game dev isn't easy, and there's a lot more that goes into making a good game (and even more for a great game) that really is only learned with experience. For your first few game attempts there will probably be negative feedback, no matter how much work you put into it. But I think being able to look at criticism and use it going forward to improve is a great skill for any dev.

 

[bgillisp]

Story time here: I made my first game when I was 12...in one week. Let's just say I'm glad that game only exists in a landfill somewhere now on a 5.25 inch floppy, as all it was was me trying to one up everything I'd ever seen in a game. Oh, your game has 10 bosses? I've got 12! You got one alternate world! I got 2! And so on, but with me not understanding anything about what made the other games fun.

Fast forward to now, I decided to make a game in RPGMaker for the 2014 IGMC. It was...bad. To give you an idea how bad, I had a to hit rate of 75% for everything (miss 1/4th of the time...sound fun?), and one of the houses in my game was 90 x 90 tiles. Oh, and it was mostly empty too. Add that to me mixing outdoor and indoor tiles together, RTP and DS sprites mixed together, and you get the picture. But I got some people who gave constructive suggestions to play the game, and improved it so much that I was told my release in 2015 it looked like a brand new game!

The point is, almost everyone's first game is going to get a lot of negative feedback. There is some honesty to it too though as odds are high most of us are not going to be a great indy dev straight out of the gate. You have to find the parts of the feedback that you can use, while ignoring the trolls, and use the good feedback to improve.

At the same time, just know you will get negative feedback no matter what, as even if you made the next Final Fantasy which is an epic 100+ hour RPG with a deep plot, detailed battle system, great graphics and sound, and it even ordered pizza for you to eat as you played it...someone out there is not going to like it. So you will want to expect it too, and decide how you wish to handle it.

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I think you need to start looking past purely negative comments and focus on constructive ones (hopefully some exist). You could also try to ask them why they think the game is bad, or what they didnt like and so on so that you know exactly what happened.

Some people around the internet just bash and bash stuff as their pasttime. Its hard but you need to persevere if you want to create good stuff. Even the most awesome AAA games have bashers and haters.

 

[Prescott]

Listen. There is no shame in admitting that a game you made may not be as good as you thought it was. You really need to take all criticism into account. If you want to be really constructive, ask what you can do better, and then strive to improve on it. Just because you really like your game, doesn't mean that other people will. When I was a kid, I made several games that got routinely hated and it pushed me to become better at working with the engine. A lot of people along the way gave me great tips on how to improve. Even the last game that I made in just a few months wasn't particularly liked by a lot of people that played it, saying it was too hard and mentioning some other things. The one I made before that was for a game jam and although I thought it was a great game, most people thought it was average at best and looking back on the game I can definitely see that with all of my progress since then.

Don't let negative comments get you down. Keep working at it. Use what people say about your games to make your next ones better. A lot of people run into this issue of not being able to take criticism after working really hard on something, and it will happen to you even if you ever get to be the top dog. Not everyone can do it, I'll admit that. When I was a kid I originally had the same feelings you do, as I'm sure a lot of people do.

Also, don't ever take a game down, or delete/get rid of your work. You'll really want to look back on it when you've progressed, trust me.

 

[crimsonkarl]

Keep going, if you've even any urge to. Though there are likely an innumerable amount of things you can learn from this, nothing you make will ever be perfect - there'll always be something new to learn, and another person that doesn't like it.

Just for argument's sake, here are a couple of IMDB's User Reviews on The Shawshank Redemption (currently its highest rated movie). As you can see, yeah, it's not everyone's favourite thing in the world.

Are you making The Shawshank Redemption? Probably not. But don't let a couple of criticisms get you down.

Just keep going, and have some fun. That's what it's all about.

 

[woootbm]

Sorry to pry, OP, but I did some sleuthing and your profile says you are 13. I know that you probably feel like you have a good handle on life, but... you have a lot more to learn. You've probably heard a lot of sentiments like that from adults and are rolling your eyes, but hear us out.

I can remember the type of games I made at around that age (mods, actually) and they were embarrassingly bad. So much so I still get nervous at the idea of people seeing them. But then I reveal that I made them as a teenager, and people generally laugh and say, "Oh! In that case this is actually kinda neat!" Which is not to say they start to think they are of good quality, but they find the effort... adorable, heh.

What you should really take away from this is that you have an extremely valuable opportunity to grow and hone your skills. You probably have a grandpa who says things like "it'll build character!" and that's what'll happen here; having this experience now will better prepare you for later.

Take it from me. I work in the game industry in my day job, and I deal with dev's in their 40's who still can't deal with criticism. They pat each other on the back for every little feature they develop and chant positivity at each other like brainless cultists. When they get hit with a negative review- deserved or not- they break down and hide in their cubicle, do their best to forget the whole thing, and then make the same mistakes the next time because they refuse to listen to other people.

TLDR: if you can expose yourself to criticism, figure out how to deal with it and learn from it, you will become more powerful than you can possibly believe It's hard, we know, but it's something you'll get used to and better at!

 

[cthulhusquid]

Yeah, people can be real jerks sometimes. Some just like getting a rise out of someone, and others are just so savage with their criticism to the point of not being constructive. That being said, everyone's first game is bad, even if you think it is good right now. With more experience, you will understand what needs to be changed, what is good to keep or not keep, etc, and look back on your first project as a stepping stone to greater things.

That doesn't mean you can't like it, though. My first game was beyond horrible, with awful maps and no balance to speak of being the main issues. However, I still like it and play it from time to time, sometimes even finding inspiration for my current projects.

I recently published a demo of one here, but basically it fell though the cracks since it was RTP only and really niche with how it approached combat. Unfortunately, I only got feedback from @hiddenone, but took all of their suggestions into consideration and made the demo much better.

 

[SpongeBound102]

Thanks everyone. You’ve really helped me learn how to accept criticism even when it’s bad or upsetting. You’ve also helped me learn to accept that even if I think my games are good, not everyone will like them or enjoy them.

 

[Silenity]

Thanks everyone. You’ve really helped me learn how to accept criticism even when it’s bad or upsetting. You’ve also helped me learn to accept that even if I think my games are good, not everyone will like them or enjoy them.

I think that's the best outcome. Even some of the best games will always have haters. But if it's a project of passion and something you enjoy doing. Don't let others knock you down. Some people LOVE My Little Pony. I think it's weird. But hey, it makes them happy. So rock on and do your thing. Don't let em stop your shine. You're still pretty young according to your profile. Starting and learning early will help you as you mature and as you grow. Kinda like skateboarding. If ya start young you aren't so scared of getting hurt and falling as you get older. Keep doing your thing.

 

[Hyouryuu-Na]

There are various types of people on the internet. There are nice people and there are also people who are waaay too straightforward with their thoughts and may come off as very rude and may hurt someone alot. That's why they were very inconsiderate of your feelings and didn't even take your hardwork into consideration. Yes, giving your opinion is nice and all but not in such a way as to call someone's hard work trash. Don't listen to them. You worked hard. I know how tough it is to study and make games at the same time. And you even finished it! That's very very appreciable. I never got to finish one. Just because that person was a rude af, inconsiderate and blind to see your effort doesn't mean you should give up. Yea, you can try to improve the sequel you're working on but DO NOT GIVE UP! You gotta show those people you can make better games! Keep trying! One day you'll be really successful. Good luck~~

 

[Andar]

One person said it looked like trash and that it didn’t deserve to be played.

At that point, I took the game down. I was in tears.

and didn’t have the motivation to work on the game. And I don’t know what to do!

So, if anyone knows... What do I do? Do I give up? Do I keep going? I don’t know what to do...

I won't repeat what others have said, but there is something else to add here.

1) every creative work will get negatives as soon as it is published. That has a lot of reasons, and not all of them are just because there are trolls out there.
It is also impossible to please everyone, simply because people are different. Some people are adrenaline junkies that can't like a game unless it has action, action and nothing but action - the faster the better. Other people like to think and look for turn-based strategy because too often in real-time strategy the computer uses brute-force to hide its strategic failures.
Give each of those people the game the other praises at highest and they will give it the worst note possible simply because they are interested in different kinds of games.

2) what is YOUR interest in the game making and opinion of others?
That is the question you have to answer first, before deciding how to handle this.

Is your interest casual? That means you want to make a game for fun and aren't really interested in more than having fun while developing your game?
Or do you want to get your games out, shared to others and perhaps even professional success in making money?

If it is the first case, simply ignore those idiots - most of them are just jeaslous because they would never get anything like it out on their own and compare your results to AAA-Companies and so on.

If it is the second case, then you need to learn how to handle critique and how to see the difference between real critique (pointing out things you really did wrong) and trolling (including that some people downvote you to get their own more crappy things up in the ranking).

Anyone successfull in any creative business started low with rejection letters, and you need to learn how to handle them as well as improve your next project. NO ONE ever got better by being cuddled - which also means that never trust any friend or family member that tells you "that is a good game/picture/story/whatever", because very often they don't want to hurt you with their true opinion.
So you need to get your work out on the internet and ask for judgement of it - and you need to learn what a real critique is (there are rules for that) and what is just trolling.
Ignore the trolling, but learn from the real critique telling you what you did wrong to improve your next game.

and you will do things wrong - no one is perfect on first try.

 

[bgillisp]

To add to that, remember a lot of the greats were rejected at one point. J K Rowling was turned down by some publishing companies, and some studios rejected the Beatles.

 

[Marsigne]

What about the positive reviews? Did they adore your game? As they say, it's better to have negative reviews than having no reviews at all (I'm guilty of the latter). It means that, either: your game was influential, attracting trolls; your game appeals a wide array of people but needs work. Both are good potentials for the game.

 

[SpongeBound102]

What about the positive reviews? Did they adore your game? As they say, it's better to have negative reviews than having no reviews at all (I'm guilty of the latter). It means that, either: your game was influential, attracting trolls; your game appeals a wide array of people but needs work. Both are good potentials for the game.

There were a lot of positive reviews. The first positive review had someone tell me that they liked the game and it was better than most other RPG Maker games they played. The second positive review had someone say the game was awesome and that they liked the story and the humor. One of the other positive reviews said that the game was great and they would beat the whole thing. There were a lot of others but the negative reviews really got me down because of how bad they were...

 

[TheoAllen]

If it was an outright insult, forget them. They're people who are not going to help you in your life. If it was a criticism with full detail why it's bad, cling to them. They're people who are going to help you in your life. If some of their criticism doesn't match with your vision, at least you learned a new perspective.

 

[Marsigne]

There were a lot of positive reviews. The first positive review had someone tell me that they liked the game and it was better than most other RPG Maker games they played. The second positive review had someone say the game was awesome and that they liked the story and the humor. One of the other positive reviews said that the game was great and they would beat the whole thing. There were a lot of others but the negative reviews really got me down because of how bad they were...

Sounds like a game that get loved and hated. Undertale was like that, and it's still successful. I rarely hear about people saying that "it's better than any other x" except for famous examples, so your game might be a hidden gem.