Hello again!
I am super excited to share some details about the upcoming update to Devil's debt, stay tuned! This post was originally going to be just another update log for the release of the Minigame Update. Halfway through I deleted the whole thing and started over here. (Ironic if you keep reading ahead.) With this post I hope to communicate a huge struggle from my brief but ongoing experience as a game dev, specifically one question I could not stop asking myself. 

"Is my game even fun?"

Sure I kept coming back to it day after day, but what was bringing me back? I had no way of separating the joy of creation, my creation, from actual enjoyment of the systems of the game I was playing. Then, the ideas stopped coming so easily. The systems became more complex and fragile. Issues I had not even noticed before snowballed exponentially as the game grew larger. I was stumped.

Then came the truly crushing realization. I booted up the game after taking a few days with just the intention to play it, no adding content or fixing tiny issues, just playing the game. The game was not fun. In fact, it was frustrating! The game I had sunk hundreds of hours into, dull as dogshit.

"What do I do now?"

This was three months into development. As a first time dev I knew I would run into complications and struggle through the learning curve, but I never expected to have to tear down nearly everything I had built. Every core system needed to be reworked to focus on the slivers of enjoyment I got from the game currently. "What did this make me? If I have to rebuild this game, does that mean I have wasted the last three months? Am I truly just a failure that will never learn? Did I really ask my friends to play this shit?" All of these doubts buzzed around my head.

So I faced a decision, give up or start demolition. Let me tell you, I nearly threw in the towel. Days of frustrating null references and miscast arrays later and... the game was stable! Not only stable but it felt new again. Ripping apart my game at the seams and rebuilding it was the best thing I could have done. Suddenly I had inspiration again for new systems, cutscenes, music, and most importantly I finally knew how to make it fun! At least for me.

So, I got back to work.

20 days later and the game is better than I could have ever imagined for my first project. I feel like I am nearing a point of being done and ready to release the project fully. All this to say, I am really glad I did not give up. Before this experience, I held my creation on this untouchable pedestal, thinking I would break it beyond anything I could fix with my limited knowledge. Even though I had built this project, it felt beyond me. Getting over the fear of failure and knocking down that pedestal is something I hope this story inspires others to do. 

Break your game, then make it better!

Expect an update file very soon :)