on the slow recovery from burnout and feeling more motivated, i've been really getting back into the swing of things with this new game i'm working on ("Library Game")
honestly, it's much less intimidating this time around..? for context, BOSSGAME was the first "big" game i've ever released; up until 2020 i had spent 10 years making jam games, with my longest project taking two months total. i just didn't have the focus or energy to stick with one thing for longer, and every time i tried, it didn't work out (until it did)
like, Library Game is going to be another bigger one... it'll take me at least a couple years, it has lots of moving parts, it requires a significant amount of work from every avenue (code, art, music, writing)... but it all feels doable, now.
back when i was working on BOSSGAME, i had fun building all the pieces, making bosses, writing a story, making menus, implementing a save system, adding all of the stuff a game needs, from exciting to boring. but, i couldn't fully picture it becoming a full "game", you know? like, something with a start and finish, an experience that someone could sit down and enjoy on some saturday afternoon, something someone would give me money for. i knew people could make games, right, i knew in the end that a big game is, in some ways, just a bigger little game. and yet.
i don't have that as much this time around. there's a sense of "i did it once! it is indeed possible to make a video game." i still don't have, like, a real process or formula, i'm just slowly chipping away at all the little things that make up a game. but it feels less intimidating now. it's not a matter of "is this possible?" but "it'll happen if i can figure it all out".
in some ways, not having that tempting challenge of "is it possible?" is actually less motivating! i know i can do it already, i have less to prove. but on the other hand, with less anxiety about "is it possible?", i feel more comfortable experimenting, squeezing through tiny weird design cracks to see what's on the other side, while knowing that as long as i can temper my indulgence a little bit, it'll still become a game people can play, someday. that's really motivating in a new way... it's nice :)
