How do you cope with depression?

[W3Theory || Peter]

Do you have a link to your game? There are people out there who put all their money and time into something and it doesn't get recognition. I mean you need to analyze and sit back, look at your site and look at others. Are you just copying ideas from the same site and placing them onto yours?

[Dominion]

This unfortunately is not uncommon. Are you losing your enthusiasm for the project? If so it may be best to take a small break, if that's starting a new project on the side, or just learning new things that have nothing to do with your current project (e.g. a new programming language...) it's possible that when you come back you will enjoy it more. Not to say ignore it just... not so much time on one thing.

[US Vice]

I have lost enthusiasm a few times in the past of game projects and scrapped them... I have found ths occurs if you have begun to develop a game/website and not planned prior to the beginning of development. If you extensively plan a project then you will have set goals and will be less likely to deviate from your plan.

However, if you did plan your project before starting to develop it and are no longer enthusiastic then I'd suggest you to take a complete break from anything to do with programming... you'll soon miss it. :D

[H4x0r666]

go along with this project but build in more languages so more people can play and understand it^^ and even by making your out-game layout more colorful and more images maybe.. you get more people thinking as; .. damn i wanne try this out etc..

[lucky3809]

I agree you should put more languages maybe add English the majority of players will be English speaking players, unless you only have your game for your country only then keep it as is, but if you want to expand add an English option. Thus could be the reason for less people playing..

As for game colors and layout look into photoshop tuts not hard to create a nice template for your game, but pick wisely and go with something readable, and something that will draw a player to your game. Sometimes you have to step up your game, and code it differently, make the game new and not look old, most players wants new updates and new look, too.

I believe everyone gets dis courage building a game, I have before and left the game un finished, however sometimes its only negative people that brings you into depression, don't think of those people, think about YOU, and what you want game wise, and shoot for YOUR goals, when you fall into another persons goals you fall into depression of what you are doing and lose your ability to concentrate don't do that. Set small goals for yourself,such as tell yourself your going to finish 1 page by night and then move on and tell yourself your going to finish 2 more and then ect...Don't do everything at once, no matter how long it takes to finish them they will eventually get accomplished when you have set small goals like so.

What i find interesting is suggestions from players on other games, even if it's a small suggestion, add it to your game and it'll make those suggesting it like your game, browse the top games, then register and look in the forums under suggestions get an idea what players want, and don't just code for what you want but also what they want too.

Edited July 11, 2011 by lucky3809

[bluegman991]

First thing I saw was it is not in English so i have no idea what its about.

Well google translate detected your site to be in Lithuanian. Is it right?

If so just wanted to let you know that less than 1% of internet users speak Lithuanian. So this could be a contribution to why it is hard to find players. Especially when only 25% of those less than 1% of people play games and when 50% of the people who play games like to play your type of game.

While 28% of internet users speak English and 23% of them speak Chinese.

The 3rd most popular internet language is Spanish with 8% (less than 1/3 of the amount of English users).

So if you want to have a decently popular game... Incorporate a few more languages into it or just change it over to English.

I'm not against you the numbers are. :p

[Dayo]

yea i agree, you are trying to target a niche market this can be realy good or realy bad, and in this outcome it has became worse from what i can see you can speek/type good english so why not add that to your game and maby even have the multi language added so they can choose lithuanian or english.

[Uridium]

Your game should have 8 main elements. You could advertise to the world and still not achieve success few pointers ive learnt whilst helping people create games..

1 = Naming a game is critical it cant be too long that the user gets fed up of typing it into the URL, and not too short that it doesnt drefine what your games all about..

2 = Atmosphere ingame game depth and excellent thought process is a must, Ive seen games where people add new items in under 1 minute without even researching the items.

3 = Game Colour plays a massive part in a game you need to keep the colour of your game to what its all about so the user gets a sense of being inside it..

4 = Use picture boards to understand your games layout from header to menu just because it looks good to you doesnt always mean it looks good to someone else.

5 = I mentioned above about the Thought Process of your game you need to sit back and write down everything that will be in the game from items to text to structure.

6 = Links in your game need to be set out so a user can get to them instantly pointless having a hospital link then half way down the page a jail link group the links that are important.

7 = Just remember even though youve built your game its never really yours cos from the point you open it, it now belongs to the public and how they see things not you.

8 = Game rewards are good but need to be Thought out Exactly so users dont aquire too much of 1 thing leaving the rest of the game to rust...

 

there ya go a few pointers.

And remember the golden rule THE GAME DOENT BELONG TO YOU so dont be thinking of your game as how youd like to see it...

[ChrisRowe]

Hehe, I know what you are thinking :D No, this is not emo suicide plea. However, as game developers I'm sure some of you have faced the situation that I'm facing right now. And the situation is that I've spend 5 months on-and-off developing a browser based game, but despite my work no one seems to care about it.

It seems that the more I develop the game the less people play it. I mean I try to advertise it, I listen to (constructive) feedback, I test it tons of times to make sure there are no bugs, there is no cash shop and I even don't ask for donations, but no one seems to care.

Its just sad that your work is not being recognized, especially when you put tons of sincere work. What do you guys think? Is it time to drop it and move on? Make something new? Or carry on with this game? What would you, fellow developers, do?

Walk away from the project for a week or so, and you will come up with new inspiration.

Also, watch what you say

Especially the bolded bit, people may get offended. (Including me)

People do suffer from clinical depression, it isn't just a "fashion statement" or something cool.

It's a serious disease.

[Sim]

The biggest web gaming market is the chinese ATM. Not US based users.

[Sim]

But, I forgot to answer the main question. I really never found a solution to this problem myself. I always find myself doing the same thing. Even if I get thousands of happy users a week. I still end up getting "depressed" or "bored" as you would say. Sometimes I just try to limit myself to certain times of the day where I use the computer this way it motivates me to get work done. If I sit in front of the computer all day, I tend to do less work as I search the net more, chat on messengers, chat on forums, and just do other things that are unrelated to my projects.

[Gucci Mane]

Turn on you PM bro.

I would like to speak with you about something.