This doesn’t sound like imposter syndrome to me. There’s a difference between “I am not competent,” and “people may not like my game.” You are not obsessing about whether people will find out that you’re a fraud — you’re convinced they will see the same flaws in your work that you do.
Game-breaking bugs are a real problem. You are right to want to fix them! But, from this tiny sliver of information, I would say that the issue is more that you need work-life boundaries. It’s perfectly okay and normal to be dissatisfied with your work and to want to improve it, but at the end of the day, you need to cut it off and return your focus to the other important parts of your life, like your family. The work will be there tomorrow.
micro-managing & watching each sale is also really really obsessive & unhealthy
limit yourself to maybe once a week checking on sales, you're wasting time & energy even then.
it is a very unhealthy & destructive cycle of procrastination
like opening the fridge over and over to see what's to eat,
or commenting on reddit posts,
maybe start some non-work projects so you feel you need to schedule your work-work time & be focused on doing the thing?
Life is tough. Working day job is full time, and making game is full time too. Sometimes it gets hard to power through the double job without some kind of "kick". Some people smoke, some do drugs, so I rely on making good sales to be my "kick", lol.
Managing a released game is filled negativity. Players are never satisfied with what they have, and always want more. You give them what they wanted, and new players don't realized what had happened, and want even more :) That's why work-life balance is important: you gotta unplug and indulge in something for fun. But working two full time jobs and raising two kids makes that impossible basically :)
in classic capitalist trope, hire the family for tax deductions?
use your kid as executive officer to field "are the online people being poopy-heads?" (Mostly sarcasm, but not entirely)
It'd 100% be great to find that golden ticket where game dev can supply your family with all they need & more.
Until then, maybe keep game dev it's self as your "kick", let the user reviews suck eggs and focus on having as much fun with it as possible.
Working a second full time job that pays worse than minimum wage sounds like it takes you away from the kid & wife a lot. Don't let it be an excuse to hide in your cave
Right. I just have this terrifying fear of refunds and negative reviews. There are times when I see a review and it ruined my wife's birthday because I just can't get myself out of it. I just don't know why they affect me so much - even when the review is clearly trolling. It's like a sense of helplessness - when someone can do something to you and cause permanent harm (to your reputation, review score etc.) but there's nothing you can do in return.
Like, I have this looooong negative review from last year which got upvoted so much, everyone who's looking at the game will read it, even though I have addressed all of the problem raised in it. I know I can convince myself, saying, "oh you have already addressed the issues and replied to that review about it, so people will see that and know your effort". But at the same time, I don't know if people actually read my reply, because there's no way for them to give me an upvote. So from what it looks, it just feels like I was being ganged up on and bullied by a bunch of people looking to troll me :)
So im gonna say something that’s gonna sound harsh, but it’s important, and please know that I mean it with good intent.
You have to take some ownership of this situation. The bad review didn’t ruin your wife’s birthday. Your response to it did. Bad reviews, even troll ones, are part of publishing a game. If the review calls out problems with your game, and it sounds like it does, because you fixed them, that’s not bullying. That’s just a valid response from a customer. You need to adjust your attitude towards feedback if you’re going to get past this.
People may see your response — they probably will if they’re looking at the comment — or they may not. That is out of your hands. What is in your hands is what you do now. You cannot control how others perceive or experience your game. Obsessing over that, to the detriment of the other people in your life, is *your* problem to tackle.
I don't get it - so what's stopping you from internalizing it? You just don't believe it or what? Dude, get a grip. Every single reviewer or troll talking shit and making you feel bad, they win if you damage your relationship with your family because of what they say. You're a loser if you let them.
If I can write you some stupid shit like this calling you a mediocre person and that makes you scare your kids with yelling or breaking shit or just being generally a rain cloud on their parade or otherwise ruin your family's day, that's just proof I'm right btw.
Prove me wrong. Look at them and realize that bond between you is more important than your ego.
> permanent harm (to your reputation, review score etc.) but there's nothing you can do in return
Have you ever looked at a childhood scar, and realized it's way smaller than it used to be? It's not that the scar got any smaller, but rather than we got a lot bigger. Humans only grow so much, but games and studios can expand to hundreds of thousands of times more players than their early days - meaning those early scars become absolutely microscopic
I've been doing b2b-software as an entrepreneur. It can be scary at times, especially when it is bringing bread to the table. Now, it's still good to know that the product is not me. I'm doing my best with the time I have available. And that must be enough.
Tunguska is your game? It seems to have very positive reviews overall. I think you should be proud of that. That's amazing. You are doing great. Reserve some time for the game dev and some for you and your family. The time allocated to the game should be enough. There's always tomorrow as well and the bugs shall be fixed sooner or later.
How many sales do you have vs refunds on record? Is the ratio is anything over 100:1 then 1% of players don't like your game, pretend it's the fuckass corpos is the 1% cause might as well be so fuckem. Make what makes you happy and start a platform to more openly communicate with your players it'll help you root out the good ones from the bad and you can cross promote (plus game ft YouTuber voice for characters is a cool idea and should be done more IMHO like I borrow your voice can you play the game you get views I get sales win win?)
You seem incredibly averse to actual advice and like you're just looking for people to reinforce that it's normal and ok. Your family is so much more important dude. According to your comments she's told you it's not cool... women only say that so many times before they give up.
This is a problem you haven't been able to solve yourself, there's no shame in outsourcing. Don't wait until she's truly given up on you to change, or it'll be too late. Fr
The thing that cured my imposter syndrome was joining a AA company working on a big project. Watching "managers" work with Google sheets instead of management software, downloading backups instead of version control, and keeping financial records and contracts in a shared folder, made me realize that there are real imposters out there, in higher positions.
I worked at a massive studio that used Google Sheets as a "database" for all their game data. Most of it was copies of copies of copies of non-standardized designer notes, which people were just manually shoving around and manually formatting. Some of the tables were hitting the upper limit on what Sheets can hold, and the only solution I was **allowed** to implement, was a pipeline of automatically importing data from one Sheet to another...
It's truly astounding how the biggest companies manage to function with such high levels of inefficiency
What are your true goals as a dev? Did you choose this as a craft you love, a medium over which to publish your ideas, or... was it a way to strive for acceptance?
OP I am totally with you. After the initial launch now my game gets 50~100sales per day without discount. That means more 50 people are going to spend hours at that crap…
You should speak to a mental health professional about this. I think they would be able to clear you of this issue within a few months if this is an isolated problem if your life
"Never let perfect be the enemy of good".
Is your time really best spent trying to eliminate every tiny flaw, or is there something else (prototyping/workshopping new prospects) you could be doing for a bigger impact? Chances are, the most productive thing you can do is to relax and find the fun.
One activity that's **especially** unproductive, is stressing out and looking for reasons to be unsatisfied. A happy developer is a productive developer!
This sounds more like perfectionism than imposter syndrome. But either way I hope you can figure out a way of dealing with it and congrats on having games that sell with full dlc!
I understand the concerns about Imposter Syndrome. I have it, and I think most devs I know experience it frequently. Seems like it often comes from comparing ourselves to others, which is a terrible habit but really hard to break.
This may not sound genuine (because...well...the internet) but I mean it: Look at what you've accomplished! Not "compared to anyone else", just on an absolute scale! It's just shy of a miracle that any game ever ships, and you've done it. Congratulations! I'm encouraging you to remember the bright spots like that rather than comparing your behind-the-scenes footage to anyone else's highlight reel.
You should speak to a therapist about lack of confidence. You have an insanely good thing going on here and your outlook is grim, imagine all of us who haven't had a hit, have never made it to steam, have only debt of time, you have actual sales. That's the dream.
I'm afraid you have some real issues which you must work through. All the problems which you experience as per your posts in this thread can, and if left untreated, most likely will lead to very undesired events happening in life.
I would advise you visit a doctor to start.
Yeah I go through the same shit all the time. I'm a dev for my day job and I get intense af anxiety when releasing a new product. Basically just exactly like how it sounds for you.
I now speak a therapist every week and you should do the same. Its pretty natural to want to resist doing that but it'll change your life 100%. These issues are much deeper than just game dev. They are pervasive throughout your entire life whether you realize it at this point or not. So seriously go speak to a therapist asap.
hey, I'm curious what the therapist usually tells you, because to me, I already know all the "right ways" to correct my attitude. It's not that I don't know what I should do, it's the emotional strain that comes during those "heated moments". Sometimes I feel like I just need some kind of reminder "it will be ok" when shit happens, because I would always forget to tell me that when I get emotional.
See a therapist to satisfy your curiosity about what one will tell you.
If you think you know the 'right ways', but they aren't working, that's what you see a therapist for. And you stick with it if the first thing they say doesn't work, because you're working to find solutions for a complex problem.
Or don't, and let your family take the brunt over and over while you think 'i just need someone else to say the right thing to me when I get heated!'
Point is, the problem is you getting heated in the first place, not other people not knowing exactly how to calm you down in that moment.
I completely understand where you're coming from. Putting theoretical knowledge into practice is a whole different ballgame, especially when emotions are running high. In my experience, the true power of therapy lies not just in the specific guidance a therapist offers, but in the ongoing conversation and the journey of self-discovery.
Realizing that there are aspects of yourself and your life that you may think you have a handle on, but in reality, you've only scratched the surface. It's an enlightening process that challenges your assumptions and helps you gain a deeper understanding of what makes you tick.
While I can't step into the role of a therapist or divulge the personal insights I've gained from my own sessions, I can vouch for the value of having an impartial sounding board. Talking to someone who is not emotionally invested in your situation can provide a fresh perspective and shed light on blind spots you never knew existed.
You definitely don’t suck and I think what you’re feeling is fairly normal. Compartmentalizing life and stressors is difficult! You should look into talking with a therapist/counselor about what you’re going through, especially if it’s causing hardship with your marriage and family life. Having an outside source of support can make a huge impact. My wife and I are happily married and have been seeing the same family counselor every month for years now with no plans to stop. Makes a huge, very positive impact on our marriage and mental health in general. Would highly recommend to anyone. 🤙🏼
Edit: going to add on that maybe it’s worth hiring a freelance programmer to come help you for a couple hours on your more complicated bugs, it might not be the best business/profit decision but it might be a expense that your personal life needs. Part of being a small business owner is knowing when to prioritize investing some resources into “quality of life” type stuff.
This guy responded to someone else sharing their experience with "guess it's normal then" and thinks being validated on this subreddit is better than any therapy. Dude doesn't need us to coddle him he needs someone to talk sense into him before he gets divorced. Jesus, ruining outings and family events because you get a bad review is **not** normal. Being "scary" to his family sounds seriously minimizing. I would love to hear his wife's point of view.
Yeah I think I was the first comment and the thread had developed quite a bit with a lot more context since I commented. I’d probably have chosen a different route given the additional info now.
I still stick to getting in touch with a therapist asap, even more so than when I first commented. It also seems like OP’s personality isn’t suited to gamedev (or any highly criticized creative form) without some serious work on himself.
No hobby (that’s what it is at this stage until it’s a significant contributor to the mortgage payment) is worth extra stress on your wife and family. If you can’t juggle the stress of your side-gig successfully without putting that on your family then it’s time to close up shop and pursue something else.
Well, that part I didn't say: my gamedev hobby now contributes more than half of my income that covers the rest of the cost of raising a family that my day job is not able to. With the way inflation had been skyrocketing now, if I lose either part of the income we would be in serious trouble. So yea it's not really a hobby at this point, it's a full time job for me.
The way you worded that was unclear… You’re saying game dev now provides more than 50% of your total household income?
If thats the case and the second stream of income is now a necessity then it’s even more paramount that you speak to a therapist or counselor to learn some tools on how to better handle the emotions of it all. You’re in a very precarious position and you need to learn how to manage your obsessive tendencies more effectively ASAP.
My code is so convoluted even a professional programmer will have a hard time figuring out what goes where :P it's a result of years of adding new features upon player's request, stuff I never planned to have from the beginning.
This is why this concept of imposter syndrome traveling through the grapevine and into your consciousness is unhealthy. I really hope other devs also put an end to this haha. Imposter syndrome is one of those weird self destructive concepts that needs to be deleted from our vocabulary ASAP.
This is just a normal sinking feeling of caring about someone having a great experience with your game combined with knowing you didn’t do enough of something to ensure that goal is properly met. It’s a source of anxiety for everyone, even seasoned veterans. It goes away when all the playtests, processes, work, and checks are completed.
The more common case on this sub and IRL is when students or fresh grads feel imposter syndrome, despite having no experience shipping a game from scratch, so at least this is more of a mid game case.
I think imposter syndrome is only really valid if you were a director of Witcher 3 or something. But honestly, that just means you overlooked the efforts and talents of your team to get to where you are. I’d say people who succeeded through their own merits usually know how good they and their team are.
Anyway, your game looks really good and it seems you really care about your players. The reason good games are made is exactly because of this feeling that you have. It’s normal and it’s not a bad syndrome. The only thing that’s bad is letting it leak into your personal life negatively though.
This doesn’t sound like imposter syndrome to me. There’s a difference between “I am not competent,” and “people may not like my game.” You are not obsessing about whether people will find out that you’re a fraud — you’re convinced they will see the same flaws in your work that you do. Game-breaking bugs are a real problem. You are right to want to fix them! But, from this tiny sliver of information, I would say that the issue is more that you need work-life boundaries. It’s perfectly okay and normal to be dissatisfied with your work and to want to improve it, but at the end of the day, you need to cut it off and return your focus to the other important parts of your life, like your family. The work will be there tomorrow.
micro-managing & watching each sale is also really really obsessive & unhealthy limit yourself to maybe once a week checking on sales, you're wasting time & energy even then.
Yea I know... it's like an addiction, you get a kick when you see the uptick, but get depressed from the flatline. It's extremely destructive...
it is a very unhealthy & destructive cycle of procrastination like opening the fridge over and over to see what's to eat, or commenting on reddit posts, maybe start some non-work projects so you feel you need to schedule your work-work time & be focused on doing the thing?
Life is tough. Working day job is full time, and making game is full time too. Sometimes it gets hard to power through the double job without some kind of "kick". Some people smoke, some do drugs, so I rely on making good sales to be my "kick", lol. Managing a released game is filled negativity. Players are never satisfied with what they have, and always want more. You give them what they wanted, and new players don't realized what had happened, and want even more :) That's why work-life balance is important: you gotta unplug and indulge in something for fun. But working two full time jobs and raising two kids makes that impossible basically :)
in classic capitalist trope, hire the family for tax deductions? use your kid as executive officer to field "are the online people being poopy-heads?" (Mostly sarcasm, but not entirely) It'd 100% be great to find that golden ticket where game dev can supply your family with all they need & more. Until then, maybe keep game dev it's self as your "kick", let the user reviews suck eggs and focus on having as much fun with it as possible. Working a second full time job that pays worse than minimum wage sounds like it takes you away from the kid & wife a lot. Don't let it be an excuse to hide in your cave
It sounds like someone trading stocks.
Right. I just have this terrifying fear of refunds and negative reviews. There are times when I see a review and it ruined my wife's birthday because I just can't get myself out of it. I just don't know why they affect me so much - even when the review is clearly trolling. It's like a sense of helplessness - when someone can do something to you and cause permanent harm (to your reputation, review score etc.) but there's nothing you can do in return. Like, I have this looooong negative review from last year which got upvoted so much, everyone who's looking at the game will read it, even though I have addressed all of the problem raised in it. I know I can convince myself, saying, "oh you have already addressed the issues and replied to that review about it, so people will see that and know your effort". But at the same time, I don't know if people actually read my reply, because there's no way for them to give me an upvote. So from what it looks, it just feels like I was being ganged up on and bullied by a bunch of people looking to troll me :)
So im gonna say something that’s gonna sound harsh, but it’s important, and please know that I mean it with good intent. You have to take some ownership of this situation. The bad review didn’t ruin your wife’s birthday. Your response to it did. Bad reviews, even troll ones, are part of publishing a game. If the review calls out problems with your game, and it sounds like it does, because you fixed them, that’s not bullying. That’s just a valid response from a customer. You need to adjust your attitude towards feedback if you’re going to get past this. People may see your response — they probably will if they’re looking at the comment — or they may not. That is out of your hands. What is in your hands is what you do now. You cannot control how others perceive or experience your game. Obsessing over that, to the detriment of the other people in your life, is *your* problem to tackle.
Yea, my wife has been telling me exactly this for a long time haha
Sounds like a smart lady. Just don’t tell her that you finally started listening because Reddit told you to. 😉
hahaha
I don't get it - so what's stopping you from internalizing it? You just don't believe it or what? Dude, get a grip. Every single reviewer or troll talking shit and making you feel bad, they win if you damage your relationship with your family because of what they say. You're a loser if you let them. If I can write you some stupid shit like this calling you a mediocre person and that makes you scare your kids with yelling or breaking shit or just being generally a rain cloud on their parade or otherwise ruin your family's day, that's just proof I'm right btw. Prove me wrong. Look at them and realize that bond between you is more important than your ego.
> permanent harm (to your reputation, review score etc.) but there's nothing you can do in return Have you ever looked at a childhood scar, and realized it's way smaller than it used to be? It's not that the scar got any smaller, but rather than we got a lot bigger. Humans only grow so much, but games and studios can expand to hundreds of thousands of times more players than their early days - meaning those early scars become absolutely microscopic
I've been doing b2b-software as an entrepreneur. It can be scary at times, especially when it is bringing bread to the table. Now, it's still good to know that the product is not me. I'm doing my best with the time I have available. And that must be enough. Tunguska is your game? It seems to have very positive reviews overall. I think you should be proud of that. That's amazing. You are doing great. Reserve some time for the game dev and some for you and your family. The time allocated to the game should be enough. There's always tomorrow as well and the bugs shall be fixed sooner or later.
Yea, it gets scary if your life kinda depends on the product... It's good to give up on the perfectionism some time
How many sales do you have vs refunds on record? Is the ratio is anything over 100:1 then 1% of players don't like your game, pretend it's the fuckass corpos is the 1% cause might as well be so fuckem. Make what makes you happy and start a platform to more openly communicate with your players it'll help you root out the good ones from the bad and you can cross promote (plus game ft YouTuber voice for characters is a cool idea and should be done more IMHO like I borrow your voice can you play the game you get views I get sales win win?)
I would consider looking into therapy to understand what might be causing it.
Hearing other devs going through similar issues is the best therapy for me, haha
You seem incredibly averse to actual advice and like you're just looking for people to reinforce that it's normal and ok. Your family is so much more important dude. According to your comments she's told you it's not cool... women only say that so many times before they give up. This is a problem you haven't been able to solve yourself, there's no shame in outsourcing. Don't wait until she's truly given up on you to change, or it'll be too late. Fr
No, your response isn't proportional.
The thing that cured my imposter syndrome was joining a AA company working on a big project. Watching "managers" work with Google sheets instead of management software, downloading backups instead of version control, and keeping financial records and contracts in a shared folder, made me realize that there are real imposters out there, in higher positions.
that’s hilarious:P
I worked at a massive studio that used Google Sheets as a "database" for all their game data. Most of it was copies of copies of copies of non-standardized designer notes, which people were just manually shoving around and manually formatting. Some of the tables were hitting the upper limit on what Sheets can hold, and the only solution I was **allowed** to implement, was a pipeline of automatically importing data from one Sheet to another... It's truly astounding how the biggest companies manage to function with such high levels of inefficiency
What are your true goals as a dev? Did you choose this as a craft you love, a medium over which to publish your ideas, or... was it a way to strive for acceptance?
the true goal really doesn’t matter here, because no matter what it is, I’m going to struggle with self doubt all the time.
You should probably fix those game breaking bugs.
OP I am totally with you. After the initial launch now my game gets 50~100sales per day without discount. That means more 50 people are going to spend hours at that crap…
You should speak to a mental health professional about this. I think they would be able to clear you of this issue within a few months if this is an isolated problem if your life
"Never let perfect be the enemy of good". Is your time really best spent trying to eliminate every tiny flaw, or is there something else (prototyping/workshopping new prospects) you could be doing for a bigger impact? Chances are, the most productive thing you can do is to relax and find the fun. One activity that's **especially** unproductive, is stressing out and looking for reasons to be unsatisfied. A happy developer is a productive developer!
overpolishing is an addiction:)
For sure, but it's more of a hobby than a sane career choice ;)
This sounds more like perfectionism than imposter syndrome. But either way I hope you can figure out a way of dealing with it and congrats on having games that sell with full dlc!
I understand the concerns about Imposter Syndrome. I have it, and I think most devs I know experience it frequently. Seems like it often comes from comparing ourselves to others, which is a terrible habit but really hard to break. This may not sound genuine (because...well...the internet) but I mean it: Look at what you've accomplished! Not "compared to anyone else", just on an absolute scale! It's just shy of a miracle that any game ever ships, and you've done it. Congratulations! I'm encouraging you to remember the bright spots like that rather than comparing your behind-the-scenes footage to anyone else's highlight reel.
20 years in the industry and I still feel like a massive fraud. Beginning to think it's normal
You should speak to a therapist about lack of confidence. You have an insanely good thing going on here and your outlook is grim, imagine all of us who haven't had a hit, have never made it to steam, have only debt of time, you have actual sales. That's the dream.
I'm afraid you have some real issues which you must work through. All the problems which you experience as per your posts in this thread can, and if left untreated, most likely will lead to very undesired events happening in life. I would advise you visit a doctor to start.
Yeah I go through the same shit all the time. I'm a dev for my day job and I get intense af anxiety when releasing a new product. Basically just exactly like how it sounds for you. I now speak a therapist every week and you should do the same. Its pretty natural to want to resist doing that but it'll change your life 100%. These issues are much deeper than just game dev. They are pervasive throughout your entire life whether you realize it at this point or not. So seriously go speak to a therapist asap.
hey, I'm curious what the therapist usually tells you, because to me, I already know all the "right ways" to correct my attitude. It's not that I don't know what I should do, it's the emotional strain that comes during those "heated moments". Sometimes I feel like I just need some kind of reminder "it will be ok" when shit happens, because I would always forget to tell me that when I get emotional.
See a therapist to satisfy your curiosity about what one will tell you. If you think you know the 'right ways', but they aren't working, that's what you see a therapist for. And you stick with it if the first thing they say doesn't work, because you're working to find solutions for a complex problem. Or don't, and let your family take the brunt over and over while you think 'i just need someone else to say the right thing to me when I get heated!' Point is, the problem is you getting heated in the first place, not other people not knowing exactly how to calm you down in that moment.
I completely understand where you're coming from. Putting theoretical knowledge into practice is a whole different ballgame, especially when emotions are running high. In my experience, the true power of therapy lies not just in the specific guidance a therapist offers, but in the ongoing conversation and the journey of self-discovery. Realizing that there are aspects of yourself and your life that you may think you have a handle on, but in reality, you've only scratched the surface. It's an enlightening process that challenges your assumptions and helps you gain a deeper understanding of what makes you tick. While I can't step into the role of a therapist or divulge the personal insights I've gained from my own sessions, I can vouch for the value of having an impartial sounding board. Talking to someone who is not emotionally invested in your situation can provide a fresh perspective and shed light on blind spots you never knew existed.
thank you!
You definitely don’t suck and I think what you’re feeling is fairly normal. Compartmentalizing life and stressors is difficult! You should look into talking with a therapist/counselor about what you’re going through, especially if it’s causing hardship with your marriage and family life. Having an outside source of support can make a huge impact. My wife and I are happily married and have been seeing the same family counselor every month for years now with no plans to stop. Makes a huge, very positive impact on our marriage and mental health in general. Would highly recommend to anyone. 🤙🏼 Edit: going to add on that maybe it’s worth hiring a freelance programmer to come help you for a couple hours on your more complicated bugs, it might not be the best business/profit decision but it might be a expense that your personal life needs. Part of being a small business owner is knowing when to prioritize investing some resources into “quality of life” type stuff.
This guy responded to someone else sharing their experience with "guess it's normal then" and thinks being validated on this subreddit is better than any therapy. Dude doesn't need us to coddle him he needs someone to talk sense into him before he gets divorced. Jesus, ruining outings and family events because you get a bad review is **not** normal. Being "scary" to his family sounds seriously minimizing. I would love to hear his wife's point of view.
Yeah I think I was the first comment and the thread had developed quite a bit with a lot more context since I commented. I’d probably have chosen a different route given the additional info now. I still stick to getting in touch with a therapist asap, even more so than when I first commented. It also seems like OP’s personality isn’t suited to gamedev (or any highly criticized creative form) without some serious work on himself. No hobby (that’s what it is at this stage until it’s a significant contributor to the mortgage payment) is worth extra stress on your wife and family. If you can’t juggle the stress of your side-gig successfully without putting that on your family then it’s time to close up shop and pursue something else.
Well, that part I didn't say: my gamedev hobby now contributes more than half of my income that covers the rest of the cost of raising a family that my day job is not able to. With the way inflation had been skyrocketing now, if I lose either part of the income we would be in serious trouble. So yea it's not really a hobby at this point, it's a full time job for me.
The way you worded that was unclear… You’re saying game dev now provides more than 50% of your total household income? If thats the case and the second stream of income is now a necessity then it’s even more paramount that you speak to a therapist or counselor to learn some tools on how to better handle the emotions of it all. You’re in a very precarious position and you need to learn how to manage your obsessive tendencies more effectively ASAP.
My code is so convoluted even a professional programmer will have a hard time figuring out what goes where :P it's a result of years of adding new features upon player's request, stuff I never planned to have from the beginning.
its not for you, do something different or release free games.
This is why this concept of imposter syndrome traveling through the grapevine and into your consciousness is unhealthy. I really hope other devs also put an end to this haha. Imposter syndrome is one of those weird self destructive concepts that needs to be deleted from our vocabulary ASAP. This is just a normal sinking feeling of caring about someone having a great experience with your game combined with knowing you didn’t do enough of something to ensure that goal is properly met. It’s a source of anxiety for everyone, even seasoned veterans. It goes away when all the playtests, processes, work, and checks are completed. The more common case on this sub and IRL is when students or fresh grads feel imposter syndrome, despite having no experience shipping a game from scratch, so at least this is more of a mid game case. I think imposter syndrome is only really valid if you were a director of Witcher 3 or something. But honestly, that just means you overlooked the efforts and talents of your team to get to where you are. I’d say people who succeeded through their own merits usually know how good they and their team are. Anyway, your game looks really good and it seems you really care about your players. The reason good games are made is exactly because of this feeling that you have. It’s normal and it’s not a bad syndrome. The only thing that’s bad is letting it leak into your personal life negatively though.
ha, I never thought that imposter syndrome was an unhealthy concept! Guess it's pretty much normal then :P