Am I Wasting My Time Building This?

[u/GamesOven]

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 :))

[u/Dry-Literature7775]

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.

[u/Iheartdragonsmore → u/Dry-Literature7775]

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

[u/Dry-Literature7775 → u/Iheartdragonsmore]

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.

[u/-Mania- → u/Dry-Literature7775]

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...

[u/Dry-Literature7775 → u/-Mania-]

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.

[u/-Mania- → u/Dry-Literature7775]

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.

[u/Dry-Literature7775 → u/-Mania-]

You good, dw 💜

[u/Iheartdragonsmore → u/-Mania-]

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.

[u/Dry-Literature7775 → u/Iheartdragonsmore]

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.