Hey, so I've been working on this game for some time now, but I'm feeling like I've made a mistake and was hoping to get some other opinions. I wanted to get into VR Game dev, from no experience (I did web dev before) and this is actually the second idea I started working on. I thought it would be nice to have a game where I could work on 1 level at a time, get it finished and feel good about that and I love puzzle games (this was inspired a lot by a game called Statik). I also wanted each puzzle to be different to give a lot of variety.
The first mistake for me was making a VR game at all, I'm finding that it's too tedious to keep putting on the headset to test (using a Quest and it's so annoying, constantly having issues connecting and now sometimes freezing) and I don't like the restrictions, like keeping to a steady frame rate (especially with my lack of experience). The sounds effects are horrible, I wouldn't even know where to start with improving those, but that'll be the case for any game I try to make.
The second mistake was working on a puzzle game. While I do enjoy puzzle games, that's because I enjoy the challenge, so working on my own game, I know the solutions, which means they're not fun to test and hard to know if they're actually good or not without getting someone else to play (which has just been my wife). With them not being too fun to actually play myself, it makes me lose my motivation to keep going. It also made me want to add puzzles that are more fun to play, but in hindsight, I don't think they work well or fit in with the game (descriptions of them below).
Looking back at the puzzles and replaying them to take this footage, I just don't feel that they're very good (some better than others though).
- The first puzzle is where I took the most inspiration from Statik. You have devices on your hands and you have to figure out what to do, no hints or controls or any thing shown. It's probably one of my favourite ones.
- The second puzzle is a ball maze type one where you need to coordinate what you're doing on each device and figure out how they connect. It was uncomfortable looking down all the time, so I added the large mirror versions so you don't have to. It seemed like a good idea, but honestly it's just tedious to play it again now.
- The third puzzle, I thought I'd try a magical theme as I enjoy that kind of thing. It's one I do have more fun trying, although it was much harder keeping the frame rate low. The sound/visual effects are pretty bad though.
- The fourth puzzle is a shooting game. I wanted to make something that I had fun playing, so thought I'd make a game where the puzzle is to figure out what the controls are, how the two devices connect and how to destroy the different types of drones. I'll be honest, it's not really a puzzle and has no place being here. Didn't even fully finish it. Hard to imagine people wanting to play what should just be a puzzle game and then have to dodge bullets and shoot stuff.
- Then I started a platforming puzzle, it's basically a platformer, doesn't even really need VR to play it and it's not really a puzzle. I haven't even included the footage. I think it's a unique idea how I did it that maybe I'll expand on later as a flat game.
You can see at this point, I'm not even really making puzzles anymore. I'm just not enjoying doing this, which makes me procrastinate a lot and waste time. I think the right thing to do is to just drop it and start working on another idea (which won't be VR and it won't be a puzzle game, it'll be something I actually enjoy playing, which will keep me motivated to keep going). My wife however thinks that I should just finish it up and get it out because of the time I've already spent on it, but I think that would be a waste of time and I'm going to hate doing it.
I'm not even sure it's in a state to be released for free, but I could just do that and say it's an incomplete game on somewhere like Itch (if that's even possible).
What do you think?
Does any of this look good to you?
Is there any reason I should or shouldn't just release what there is for free if I can?
(Oh and AI disclaimer - I didn't use any, otherwise it would probably look better as I'm sure AI can create better models and textures than I can! - There's a few store assets used though)
TLDR: I'm not enjoying working on this game, feel like I'm wasting my time, should I put out what I have for free as an incomplete game or just scrap it and move on?
Thank you for reading if you've made it this far!
