STATUS

A few days of pride, happiness, and a sense of accomplishment.

Then you have to make a new game.

author=Acra
This is something that honestly terrifies me. It's no exaggeration to say it's the only thing motivating me and keeping me alive. What if, after doing absolutely everything within my power, I still fail completely and totally? That all my efforts haven't even helped a single person? So long as I'm still working on it, I at least have some sort of flimsy excuse to hide behind. That nobody cares, that it's no good because it isn't done yet.

Yeah, I can completely understand. If you've spent weeks, months, or years on something, the prospect of it not making a big splash is pretty scary. So much of our self-worth can be tied up in these things. Amount of effort spent does not translate directly into quality, and quality doesn't even translate directly into popularity a lot of the time, so a lot of how well-received our games are after release feels like its out of our control to a degree no matter what.

When I was 14, I spent a whole year making a game in RPG Maker 2000. It was the first project I ever finished. I only shared the finished game with close friends, and none of them really liked it, and none of them finished it. I was devastated. I never had the guts to put the game online because if even the people closest to me didn't like it, what worth could it possibly have?

But maybe that helped me in the long run. Because, I didn't want to stop, I wanted to make more, and make something people would enjoy playing. While I can't separate completely from the project I'm working on, my mind is always on "what's next, after this game?" I don't get too hung up on any one project being perfect, and always tell myself "lessons learned on this project can always be used in the future" and "the goal is to get this game done and released."

And if a game receives very little attention, it's always hard, and it always hurts. But because I'm always looking forward to whatever's next, it allows me to keep going. "This one didn't do well, but I've learned, and next time, maybe things will be different."

It may be an oddball way to look at it all, probably pretty flawed for placing expectations on future me, but weirdly, it kinda works for me XD;

If you never finish a game then you never have to worry about this.

Can't worry about what happens after you're done making your game if you don't finish it.

Well, I dunno about life after finishing a game. But, there is definitely life after finishing the inevitable fishing mini-game!

I'm the same as calunio. I personally love making games despite it being hard mentally at times. But if no one ever played them it'd just feel lonely. I want to impact people.