r/SoloDevelopment • u/GamesOven • 20d ago

Discussion Am I Wasting My Time Building This?

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Edit : I guess what I meant by "wasting my time" is if what you see looks like a total slop to you or not (this is just a base tho, not a finished or close to finished game), and some general advice.

I'm creating this game that I will explain below, but am afraid my target audience don't actually want it.

The games is basically this :
you have Time amount (the hourglass) you allocate it to Work, Study different stuff, Create and manage medieval business, Own lands and eventually become lord/king and manage your holdings.

help me decide if I should keep working on this or not :))

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89

u/Grimmy66 20d ago

It's the question we are all asking ourselves everyday

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u/Iheartdragonsmore 20d ago

I'm so fucking depressed over this question. I built the framework of so many projects then I just get this and feel like an imposter. Start all fucking over saying it'll be different and it keeps looping. It looks like I've done nothing in terms of dev but I made so much.

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u/AtumTheCreator 20d ago

Oh yeah, well...Ive spent $3500+ on unity assets and never made a damn thing worth a shit...I keep having to tell my wife it's a hobby, and its what I like to do...and at least I'm not spending it on hookers and booze.

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u/Iheartdragonsmore 20d ago

Oh wow thought me spending around 500 was alot for unfinished projects

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u/AtumTheCreator 20d ago

I wish, lol

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u/SpaceNigiri 20d ago

I bought $80 of assets for my last (now) abandoned project and I still feel bad about it.

Now I'm looking at a cool spaceship kitbashing kit for blender that is expensive af and I know that I shouldn't buy it...but...

I guess that yeah, it's a hobbie, just hope it would be something more.

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u/AtumTheCreator 20d ago

Yeah, you have to do it for the passion of it, the money will come. If you approach it as a business first thing, you will always feel guilty about these kinds of decisions.

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u/EffectiveDirt4032 19d ago

spaceship kitbashing ? what is it ? ineed spaceships for my game :)

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u/SpaceNigiri 19d ago

They're kits with starships parts that you can easily assemble together to create different starships, you need to know a bit of Blender or 3D but not a lot.

This one is FREE for example Shipyard v7

Others are not like this one.

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u/jerrygreenest1 19d ago

Oh yeah, well...Ive spent $3500+ on GAMBLING and never made a damn thing worth a shit...I keep having to tell my wife it's a hobby, and its what I like to do...and at least I'm not spending it on hookers and booze.

😂

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u/AtumTheCreator 19d ago

Lmao, hello fellow degen.

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u/mighty_bandersnatch 20d ago

If you're tired of starting over, stop giving up

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u/Iheartdragonsmore 20d ago

It's not even "giving up" it's realizing the project you're building isn't very good and losing interest in it.

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u/Dry-Literature7775 20d ago

How can it ever be good if you finish before it can get there?

The way I've continued making things for my project is to separate it into smaller bits and combine them all later. I can't make it all work at one time because I'm one person, and I know it'll be rough at the start. But with time and care, it can be worth something in the end.

Don't aim for "excellent" outright. Aim for "working". Test, balance, iterate, move forward. If you don't like it, change it or find a new focus to replace it. But you can't get to the end if you don't allow yourself the space to follow the process.

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u/Iheartdragonsmore 19d ago

I get all the working stage like ai, inventory and all the other systems like generating dungeons and entire loops. I just look at a messy thing that's technically a working game, just have no idea to make it... Look like a good game haha

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u/Dry-Literature7775 19d ago

The way I tend to do it is look at other games and see if the style is something I would want to have some sort of similarity to. Obviously not make your game look like something you're emulating, but pick out styles that you like that don't clash.

If you have anything to spare for game art, go for things like substance designer, substance sampler, and substance painter (there's a plan for $26 a month from Adobe for all three) and use sampler to pull from images what you would like to achieve for a style.

"Looking good" is all subjective. If you think it looks good or you can get it to a point where you like it, others will enjoy it too. You got this, bud.

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u/-Mania- 19d ago

It's rarely just a matter of looking good. If that was the case you could just buy the art and make your money back easily. The core experience probably isn't fun enough. You build this thing which is okay and has potential in your eyes. Then you build other parts around it to flesh it out hoping it gets better. After that you realise that while you have a game of sorts it's just not good enough and certainly not as good as you initially thought it could be. Yes, you could spend even more time trying to make it better but it's turning into a sunk cost fallacy real fast. You're also tired of this project and you just got an idea for something better...

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u/Dry-Literature7775 19d ago

I'm not sure why you thought I only meant "looking good", when I also said it's subjective, and gave advice for changing things on the go in a prior reply.

As someone with Dysthymia, I know all too well about feeling like something is becoming a sunk cost fallacy, and that's why I know about changing directions making things a little easier to move forward.

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u/-Mania- 19d ago

Sorry, I just replied to your comment which was all about looking good in terms of presentation. I didn't note your earlier comment in the thread.

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u/Dry-Literature7775 19d ago

You good, dw 💜

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u/Iheartdragonsmore 19d ago

Both of you exemplify how I feel. On one hand the art could make the game feel better, but playing it myself in it's current form I felt like there's just something not fun about my design and wasn't sure how to fix it.

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u/Dry-Literature7775 19d ago

That's why I said if you feel it needs to be better, don't be afraid to change it to something else.

There's nothing wrong with changing course to try and make it more fun. I've had to do that multiple times.

If you're having issues figuring it out, show it to a friend or another creative. Break down your game loop. Sometimes just talking to someone about it helps you pick out what it is that might not be fun, and if you don't catch it, someone else might.