My love/hate relationship with creating games

When you have an idea for a game, no matter how simple it is, you always underestimate how much you actually need to do and how long it will take, especially when you're doing it alone. Every single thing in the game has to be made (more often that not) from scratch. And that alone is quite daunting and time consuming.

But when you have all the visual assets done, and it's time to actually start putting stuff together.

This is the exciting part, and also the most irritating. It's like trying to create a Lego model but one piece isn't quite right and you spend way too long trying to fix it/find another piece.

If everything I did went smoothly, I could make something in probably 3 days. But all of those tiny unexpected problems just jump out of nowhere, the one thing that seems to be the most simple turns into a total nightmare. And sometimes, it means you have to find a new solution to something, which comes with 100 more problems. It's like that joke you might have heard amongst programmers:

99 little bugs in the code.
99 little bugs in the code.
Take one down, patch it around,
127 little bug in the code...

It's sad how true it is. Some people think making games is like being God. When in fact, it's more like Tom Hanks in Castaway trying to make fire. Making games is all about those little victories. Finally figuring out a problem that seems so insignificant, yet if it wasn't fixed, the game just wouldn't work/run.

An object finally spawns in the right location instead of 2 inches to the left? Arms are thrown in the air in celebration.

A sprite animation with perfect timing and fluidity? Champagne for everyone.

It's almost character building, it shows persistence, resilience and patience. If you gave up after the first error that you had been tackling for an hour, you wouldn't get anywhere. And then at the end, when you look back on the hours and days and nights you spent on this silly little game that really isn't going to get you any money or recognition, you'll think to yourself, "what the hell was the point in all of that?". But sometimes it's not about the money or fame, but it's about all the knowledge and skills you developed along the way

That sounds so damn cheesy...

sorry...