Guess I'm still young enough to be angsty over a stupid game jam
I was working on a VR experience showing wealth inequality in true scale. By a habby coincidence I discovered a game jam with the rather blatant title Fuck Capitalism Gamejam 2024 which just happened to end in a time span where I'd might be able to finish off my game. So, great, now I have a deadline! I began to plan what I could reasonably expect to finish within that time frame.
But today, I read the game jam page a little more closely. Turns out the deadline is for voting on the submitted games. The game jam had run out a long time ago. So, no deadline. And of course, I became aware that submitting it to said gamejam wouldn't have mattered much anyway.
Guess I just have to keep working on the stupid project. Everything just feels so pointless, because, well, I guess it is. And trying to build up some pretend excitement gets a bit stale.
Anyhow, how are you folks dealing with the good ol' what's-the-point-of-it-all feelies? Is life just a yo-yo movement between hopelessness and semi-engaged pretence of meaning, or are there other roads to travel?
FWIW, I'm sure there would be a ton of people who would be interested in checking out your project once you've got it workable, game jam or no game jam. Me exclusive purely because I have little to no interest in VR.
I've been toying with the idea of making a modern version of PlaySpent leveraging real data, but I have enough half finished projects to not start another.
I think your game idea is ace!
I've used One Pixel Wealth to start a conversation with my parents about wealth inequality. They're well-intentioned, well-meaning people, but they've got that old-school belief that wealth is "earned" and that the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars isn't much (instead of the difference being, well, roughly a billion dollars).
I think something like that in VR, which is so good at conveying size and space, could be a genuinely awesome teaching tool/conversation starter.
I wish I could say the right thing to help you with your motivation, but I know how fickle motivation can be, and I especially know how tough it can be when it feels like the rug's been pulled out from underneath you. Sorry you missed the game jam.
I will say that, should you end up completing and releasing your VR experience, then my Index and I would be very eager to try it out.
Frame challenge: you didn't "discover" a deadline, you finally set one. And you're the only one with the power to, if you're the only one working on a project.
So why stop there? Game jams are usually 48 or 72 hours, so set that time aside (over an upcoming weekend, or take time off of work) and continue planning. Placing any weight on external factors to drive this is simply handing control of your project to people who aren't even stakeholders.
I believe in you! Remember, SMART goals are most successful, and software iteration is best done in small chunks.
Maintaining motivation and focus is far and away the hardest part of a long term solo project. I wish there were a silver bullet.
One thing to remind yourself is that even though others will likely forget about your project after release, you will have gained a lot personally by completing it. You'll have something for your portfolio. Whenever you have future moments of self doubt, you'll be able to look back and say, "But hey, I did that!" You'll have a repository of assets and code and learnings you can look back on if you attempt a similar project in the future.
It's not the worst thing in the world to drop a project that you don't have time for, but if you're like me then you end up with a pile of unfinished things that you feel regret and annoyance that they would have been so cool if only you'd put in a bit more effort.
What works for me is to get an impetus from an external source.
Take songwriting for example. I'll go months without writing anything or even thinking about songwriting. But then I'll get asked or commissioned to write something, and, boom, now there's a deadline, and there are people counting on me to produce, so it gets done. Or: practicing or working on music (performance). If I'm just doing it for fun or for myself, then I just noodle around, start working on a song, put it away, pick up another, etc. etc. randomly. But if I get a gig, well hey, now there's a deadline, and I have to work on stuff at least not to look foolish on stage, but also just to be professional and meet responsibilities and expectations like an adult should. Moreso if I'm playing as part of a band or other ensemble, where, if I don't do a good job, it's not just on me. It would affect others, too.
So, analogously for your case, maybe look for some other contest to join, or even just a little online community (a subreddit, a forum, a Discord -- heck, Tildes) where you can aim to present something by some deadline. At your discretion, you can choose to post about it beforehand, so the soft deadline becomes public, and could give you a stronger push and boost in motivation.
Life's not pointless. I hope things turn up for you.
Itch has about 30 jams going at any given time and if none of those will let you submit your thing you can make more.
If you can find or set a deadline to push you through finishing your thing, that's great! I like making things for game jams because I can start and finish the whole project before I get tired of working on it, and having the deadline makes me feel like doing the thing for the jam instead of anything else.
But if you don't actually like making this game enough to choose to spend time finishing it, maybe just don't? I also have like 30 things I thought were great ideas and started working on and never finished once I had solved some basic interesting problem. Unless you feel like spinning the Wheel of Becoming Rich and Popular professionally, and making this is somehow your job, you can just not do any work you don't feel like doing and do something else instead. Embrace the broken, unfinished, unreleased, incomprehensible, and unplayable.
Also, if you feel like life is "just a yo-yo movement between hopelessness and semi-engaged pretence of meaning", your life-evaluating system is acting up and you should get that looked at. You're not meant to be hopeless, and when you are doing a thing you aren't meant to feel only partly engaged in it or like it isn't for anything. Perhaps comprehending incomprehensible wealth disparities is dangerous?
I recommend cultivating an unsupported and unshakeable belief in your own importance to yourself. Your game can be objectively terrible, but because it's your game it should be lovable to you. Your brain's whole entire job is to run your life, so if something means something to you, like it's your pair of shoes and it means you don't get poked in the feet by rocks, then your brain should be investing it with meaning even if it's kinda bad and there are a million better ones. If you are looking at your shoes and not feeling like they matter you should go to your therapist and complain.
Make me a game that makes you feel like that.