JALEN'S PROFILE

I sit back and reevaluate everything -- myself, my thought processes, my motivations, and what I want to do with the game. This has happened to me on multiple occasions with the same game, even though I have a wonderful and loving partner (who admittedly does like 99% of the work haha) to talk to about my ~feelings~. I have burnt myself out with over-thinking pity-parties about how I'm just not good enough, or how I wish I could do more to help out. I'm still a huge newb when it comes to RPGMaker itself; I mostly write, do art/tiles, and am here to bounce ideas off of, so sometimes what I can do is pretty limited.

During the times where I got so stressed out that I just worked myself up into a stressball frenzy was usually when I was trying to do art. I definitely still need to work on self-esteem in many departments, and I struggled with the game art and struggled with it until finally I kept putting it off more and more. This, understandably, impacted our game, which just made things worse, because then I felt horribly guilty on top of it. These things smashed heads with my work life, as I was just starting out full-time at my job. And then school came into the mix, and really, at the end of the day, the last thing I wanted to look at or talk about was the game or my shitty art.

Granted, as I said, I have a partner to fall back on and talk to when things get rough, and I eventually broke down and had a good cry (I know, it's silly) and she took over for the art part of the project. It was very, very hard for me to let go of that, because it was one of the only things I could offer up for the game -- and this is where I had to start thinking about where all this stress was coming from and why the hell was I getting so worked up over a project, with my girlfriend of all people, who is so understanding and supportive and it was just all so ridiculous. It did me good to step back, unclench, and let go of things for a bit.

Even if you don't have a partner, I definitely recommend stepping away. Let yourself stop loving your project for a little while (though I see you're already well on your way there, just not in a very...neutral way); it helps so much to be able to look at it more objectively, or to look at it not as something you have to do, but something you want to do on occasion when the desire strikes you. You'll only make things worse if you work on it when you're not feeling it, y'know? I know when I'm upset, I play videogames to feel better. I certainly don't make them.

This being said, I am an artist, you are an artist, and as an artist you really need to have to step back from your creation, your baby, and be able to, if not tear it apart, then to at least see that it is not perfect and will probably never ever be perfect, and will be criticized, constructively or not. Accepting it will cause you so much less stress, even if you just grin and take the criticism and thank the person for their time. You don't have to agree with them, you don't even have to like it, but there is merit in almost every piece of criticism (flamebait and such barred, of course). It's easy to forget that people actually spent time playing and recording their feeling on your game, and cared enough to write about it.

I can only speak for myself here, but I'm much more willing to approach someone with an open mind if they're more positive than negative about criticism. Being positive works wonders, but is hard to master, and it hurts for awhile. It took me years to build up myself to this point, especially with aforementioned low self-esteem.

I have never spoken to you before, and didn't know you before this sordid affair (I'm still very new to RMN, haha, I lurk a little and hide under a rock. My partner's much more active), and I almost wrote a review of your game, myself. I ended up not doing so, for what I hope are rather obvious reasons, and I'm glad I didn't. You definitely don't need another one right now; I know you're still cooling off from the first one you got, and I'd rather not restoke the firepit.

All these tangents aside, think about how you're feeling right now -- pretty down, right? Maybe now's the time to do more research for your game. And by that, I mean do things like playing Skyrim or Terraria, look up Minecraft let's plays, fiddle around with mini-game ideas (it's really strange, I know it is, but when I played your game all I could think about was Pokemon Stadium's mini-games). I know you said you weren't interested in making another version of your mini-game, but surely it couldn't hurt to look and see what other games do. I really, really think this would benefit you in the long run.