the five stages of grief, but it's me going through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance of the fact that without the external impetus of a non-me publisher and the need to make someone else money, I simply do not have the internal willpower to "finish" games.
I have a comfy day job with a steady paycheck and good insurance, so like, I have no motivation to make MYSELF money on this stuff. half the reason The Price of Coal got done was because OTHER PEOPLE had made a financial investment in it that I needed to see through to completion.
so I guess I feel like I have to change how I'm defining "finished" for a game project if it's just going to be a hobby. I'm considering the possibility of just getting to the point where I have playtest docs that are at least readable/usable by other people, posting those somewhere, and making updates if I ever get around to it, but not putting too much pressure on myself about it if I never DO get around to it.
to be frank, I still have enough of an ego here to think that I've come up with some pretty cool tech, in terms of mechanics, and that I am, you know, pretty good at designing games, even if I am good at literally no other part of MAKING games. I think all I'm hoping for at this point is that if I post free ashcan-type games, where it's not super polished but it is presentable, then someone else who IS better at the rest of it can maybe glean something cool and use it themselves.