STATUS

I cannot watch it all, but I do enjoy bits of pieces of them. I tend to see the lets player totally not get how to play my games and that's a strange mixture of sad that they don't get something I thought would be simple and happy because I thought my game was too simple.

Yes but only at my own poor design decisions. Usually the p-switch part of Lifeline in Moon Base Mario

Depends on the LPer. Also, not much more than if I'm watching an LP of someone else's game.

Sometimes I cringe at my own design choices or parts of the game. Sometimes I cringe at the person playing wrong. And yes, you can play a game wrong. I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it, it can be done.


...maybe wrong is the wrong descriptor. Dumb. You can play a game dumb.

Yesterday I watched someone do a Let's Play of Last King of Hyrule and they died thirteen times on the first enemy in the game by just walking into it over and over.

As long as they're having fun though it's all gravy. Whether they do that by winning, or by struggling, or by screwing around, or by making fun of my terrible game design.

I mean, I run an online game where I hang out in general chat 2/47 and watch people play the game every single day, so clearly I must get some enjoyment out of it.

Cringe? No. I DO get annoyed when people don't follow my favorite story arcs and when they just motor through choices without actually thinking about them.

I mostly cringe at thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong, such as bugs that I didn't find. Watching other people play my game is so weird.

Semi-related: I don't even talk about my games all that much in person either, and when it comes up I'm usually embarrassed to talk about it.

Not at all! I love watching LPs of my games! At best, I'm thrilled that people are having fun with something I made. At worst, I realize that the game just isn't for them. Everywhere in between, I see bugs I can patch, and learn more about game design fundamentals and effective communication techniques for game mechanics I can carry forward to improve future projects.

I'm proud of everything I've made in the past, flaws and all, because they reflect where I was at the time. Now that I'm older and more knowledgeable, it's far easier to just acknowledge and accept the flaws of an inexperienced dev than to cringe over them.

When Strangeluv played Tales from Zilmurik, I died a little inside. I could never play the first part of the game again without hearing his voice. I cringed so hard I never recovered.