Devs, what are some things that cause you to burnout when developing your game?

[Alcahest]

The lack of consistent positive feedback can be extraordinarily crushing, especially in the beginning of development. You release update after update hoping to achieve some recognition but any recognition you get can be fleeting and fall flat, and the negative feedback digs deep. Don't really know what to tell you when it comes to handling this well. I've just been telling myself to keep pushing forward. That it'll all be worth the trouble and hard work in the end. Keep moving forward.

Releasing the first version too early in development can get you a lot of negativity. Just keep working on the game and see all negative feedback as possible help to improve the game. Positive feedback can be very nice for morality but if no one tells you what they don't like about the game, you won't know it.

 

[recreation]

The workload, I consider that I made a huge mistake when I decided to create one image per phrase. I create around 200 images per month, but users consumes them in just some minutes, and they feel that the update was too short.

I see some Renpy games out there here using one single images, devs put tons of text, alternating with some good animations, users like it, the cost/benefit is definitely much better, but I can't change the pattern until the game is done.

I wish I could have more time to study new tools that I bought like facegen, anisound, anilips... But the monthly workload just make it impossible

You'd be surprised...
I thought as you at the beginning "Why am I even spending so much time on stuff nobody ever notices", but in the end it's exactly what brought me the most loyal fans and supporters.
Yes most people seem to prefer quick updates and a quick fap, but there are still a lot of people out there who who value consistency and quality over that.

 

[Winterfire]

The workload, I consider that I made a huge mistake when I decided to create one image per phrase. I create around 200 images per month, but users consumes them in just some minutes, and they feel that the update was too short.

I see some Renpy games out there here using one single images, devs put tons of text, alternating with some good animations, users like it, the cost/benefit is definitely much better, but I can't change the pattern until the game is done.

I wish I could have more time to study new tools that I bought like facegen, anisound, anilips... But the monthly workload just make it impossible

That whole design is quite flawed, imho.
Even if you had a team to do all those renders in a reasonable time, should you? Even if you compress your images to hell (which is a bad idea to begin with), once the game gets big, the size will increase to tens of GBs.

I do not know where that idea came from in the western VNs, but when it comes to Japanese VNs, the sprites and background are two separate things for the sake of being able to reuse them throughout the game with no extra costs (Time/Memory), not to mention that you can simply edit the sprites without having to worry about thousand of renders.

Especially when it comes to these type of games, people care mostly about either a good story and/or good sex scenes: You can have a good story without doing a render for every sentence and you can have good sex scenes by investing that much effort and time only on those.



Anyways, enough off-topic, to answer the thread's question:
Just enjoy what you are doing and have some good time with it, this way you'll never burnout.
If you do this as a job or because you want to make money, you are set to burnout eventually (with the latter making you abandon your 0.1 most likely).

Making a game has to be something you have passion for, something that you actively seek to do... Like minimizing a boring episode or hurrying back home in order to do something for your game.
It has to be more like "I am super excited to do this!" rather than "Meh, I guess I need to do this today".

Many people start making these types of games (or games in general) all for the wrong reasons which leads to burning out.
It also depends on one's personality, perhaps you enjoy making games, just different ones.
That is another mistake people do: Making giant projects which will see the end in perhaps... Three years from now? Maybe more?
I love my current project, and I have been doing this for a little over a year now and despite not having a personality which leads me to burning out, there is no way I'd want to keep this project for another year or even more. No way in hell.

TLDR: To avoid burning out, have some good planning beforehand and enjoy what you do as much as you would enjoy reading, watching television or playing a game.

 

[trusk rock]

As someone mentioned already, main constraint is time. Like many others i also have a job that pays for internet bills and the hardware i use to create the game so i obviously cannot quit that job but after working long hours on that job and taking care of other personal stuff , you have very little time left for the game.

However i believe if you love your game enough, you will still find time like i have recently started waking up at 4 to add some extra hours of development. It was difficult at first but my body got used to it now and i dont even need to put alarm for that , i just wake up at 4am by myself lol.

 

[TheHighSpire]

Aside from that, the most demotivating thing is probably lack of feedback. I'd take "lul, ur gaem suks!!!xd" level comments over no feedback at all tbh.

Huh.. there's really no feedback?
Can I ask you, is it because you don't actively ask for it? I know some devs have created a discord channel or other such channels to get feedback. Imo, Patreon is not very feedback oriented, so it is hard to get it there I imagine. Perhaps a pirate plays like this could offer some feedback as well?

I don't know. I'm just throwing ideas around. I also understand those who might not care all too much for feedback. For while it sometimes tries to constructive it is also negative in the eyes of the ones that made it (I guess).

 

[K.T.L.]

I thought as you at the beginning "Why am I even spending so much time on stuff nobody ever notices", but in the end it's exactly what brought me the most loyal fans and supporters.

Having the cutest ginger this side of Cintia Dicker undoubtedly helps...

 

[yihman1]

The balance between quality and speed is one of the most nerve wracking things of all.

On side of you says: "Take your time. Get it right. Double check it. Proofread again. Test it more. Are you sure there are no bugs?"

The other side of you says: "Get it out faster. It's good enough already you can always make a patch if it's not. Taking more time will have diminishing returns.

If you only listen to the one side you will never release for a very long time. If you only listen to the other side then you will likely release with some minor mistakes and need patches more often to fix little bugs.

 

[Laikhent]

The anxiety of putting a lot of time and effort on mechanics that ppl might not like when the game is released.

Also, when I have to give up considerable amounts of work I made before because I notice it's just not worth to continue pursuing that route

To mitigate the 2 points above, I now focus first on stuff that will be present no matter the game I create (like sex animation scripts, character creation and so on)

 

[Endrju]

Workflow is the main reason for burnouts. Just treat it like every other job if u had one. 5-6 days of work with breaks and regular exercises. sleep enough and dont eat junk food. It might look silly at first but sitting in front of a monitor takes huge amount of time that is hard to control.

 

[InCompleteController]

The workload is certainly a major issue. As a single dev you have to fill so many shoes that you'll be forced to slave through at least one field that you have no experience in.

Feature creep is also an issue. I want to be able to release content at a regular pace, which means that I can't just rely on everything being hard coded. The issue then becomes, where do I draw the line? Hard coding something is quick and simple, but you run the risk of having to fix the code in future updates.

Not to mention that playing through your game so many times, minor annoyances start to feel like huge issues, and on the flip side you get used to other mechanics after interacting with them so much.

 

[khumak]

I've only done modding so far but I did put several hundred hours into it so I think I have enough experience to comment. In my case there were usually 2 reasons I would get burned out.

1. It's just a lot of work overall and when you combine that with a dev box that is really low end, those renders each take a long time. So for me it wasn't really the workload but the time commitment that would start to weigh on me.
2. If I'm trying to learn how to do something new that I don't know how to do and I'm failing over and over again it can get really frustrating. I generally get better each time but sometimes it's tempting to just say fuck it I'm just not good at this... Animation is something I've beaten my head against the wall trying many times. Some people may have a knack for it. I don't. I'm determined to eventually figure it out though.