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If you're experiencing burn-out, go do something else for a while. If your creative batteries need recharging, then forcing out work isn't going to be feasible.

Otherwise, I like to put on some good music and just power through it.

If this is something that happens repeatedly, then look at what you are working on and how you feel about it. If you just need a break from it, then piano's jam suggestion may be just what the doctor ordered.

On the other hand, if you're still having the problem even after taking a break and/or working on a jam game, there might be something else going on. I worked on a project on and off for ten years and had to abandon it, because I looked back at the start and my feelings on the project had changed. I no longer felt the game itself was meeting my own standards and had become too bloated for its own good, and I didn't want to spend another ten years fixing it.

author=Blindmind
Yeah, I think you nailed it.

It's a strange mixture of burnout, and also just feeling creatively frustrated in realizing how much content I'd still have to "update" to make the game consistently strong, and up to my newer standards. I have a deep love for the project, obviously, and I've stuck around for a long time to see it through to the end...but I do have moments where I'm not sure if it's still the same type of game I want to be designing any longer.

(I could also have play tested it so many times that my evaluation isn't entirely objective anymore, though. XD)

My prideful side doesn't want to admit I've been in the community for 10+ years (on and off), without having entirely completed anything lol. What was the point you reached where you started to consider moving on?

Like you, I still had (and have) deep love for the game I was making. I was somewhat proud of what I had accomplished, despite the flaws. I woke up one Saturday and couldn't bring myself to work on the project. Anything else seemed better.

To distract myself and cool-off, I started a side-project that I worked on for several months, a silly "collect gems and avoid monsters" arcade-like game with cameos from my friends in it. I came back to the original project, and once again couldn't make myself work on it. I opened a notebook and wrote a bunch of ideas for a new game, then thought "Dummy, you can't start something new until you finish the one you're working on" and stopped.

About a week later, I decided that I needed to deeply analyze the project to see why I wasn't motivated to work on it. Over the course of the next several days, I replayed everything I had made. I tried to be as objective as I could (which, like you said, feels impossible after play-testing it so much), but mainly, I took note of what worked for me, what didn't work for me, and what I would have done differently if I could apply what I know now to the work.

I asked myself "what did I enjoy about making this, and when did it start to become less and less enjoyable?" The best answer I could find was that I started to lose satisfaction over the years as I felt more and more shackled to the project's weaker aspects.

I had started the whole thing as a teenager, and a lot of who I was at the time showed in the project. I had changed. I still loved most of the characters in the game and the story I was telling, but the devil was in the details, and how I had executed many of those details just showed me a mirror of how immature I was at the time and how clunky my mapping, writing and overall developing was.

I went back to early areas and implemented a lot of fixes. I added in an unneeded prologue to try and make the start of the game feel better and more focused. But when I came back to the present, I still wasn't motivated to continue the story.

The RPG Maker 2000 files for the game still sit on my computer, and get copied over whenever I upgrade machines. But at that moment, I gave it up. I haven't touched it since, except about every four years or so I'll play a little bit to remind me.

It sucks. I hadn't shared it online, (I was too scared back then XD;;;) and only a few friends had seen it at various stages of completion. A couple of them really liked it (though I think it was only because we were friends and not because of the merits of the game itself) and were shocked that I abandoned it after all these years. They bugged me about it but I never felt like resuming it.

I don't know if that helps, but that's basically what happened.

a game of hockey.

Make a small jam game maybe and then come back to this. What unity said seems really handy. You might even be able to join a McBacon Jam team late, one that doesn't have 4 members already. Then you can at least put a completed game under your belt, even if it's 10mins long.

Something I like to do is during work or whenever I'm not sitting in front of the computer I try and think about things I'd like to do for X game. Even if it's small stuff so when I do sit down to work I knock out some easy things and then I get in the mood to mess with other stuff. It's all about getting over that first hump for me.

And like unity said, listening to some good music really helps. I apply songs to my game and story and what I want to see happen with some nice or epic music and then ideas and progression can come.

I know this is pretty basic stuff and doesn't always work but usually I can get a few hours in for the day.