How do you personally avoid burnout in making your hacks? - SMW Hacking Discussion

It has been a dream of mine to make my own Mario game ever since I was a dumb little 90s kid. Over the last year, I've made tremendous progress in making that dream a reality. I currently have 8 levels finished (with 14 exits), added various systems, and have learned SO much. It's been a blast! I'm proud of my work and I'm excited to share the final product when it's ready.
The problem is that I have debilitating perfectionism that can make level design a slog to get through. I'll often play with various ideas, but if something doesn't feel perfect/unique I'll lose the confidence to make it work. I'll waste hours and hours only to leave with nothing, feeling like I'm wasting my time (even though I love this project). How many of you have this problem? What are some ways you work through it?

I'm not necessarily looking for answers, more just curious how other hack creators deal with this.

I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with wanting to tweak levels and make them perfect. It's much better to have 14 finely-tuned levels than 30 barely-tested levels. Once it starts getting in your way of making progress though, that can be a bit of an issue and one that I'm pretty familiar with. I have a few dead projects that could probably cite something similar as their downfall, haha.

This might not be the same for everyone, but I find when I start endlessly tweaking things that I've already mostly completed, it's because I want to create stuff but I'm kind of stuck on where to go next. I know I want to do some ROM hacking, but don't really know where to put my energy, so it goes towards tidying things up that I've already made instead of onto something new.

If I want to do some hacking stuff but I'm not feeling particularly creative, my favourite thing to do is find a YouTuber I like that covers hacks and go watch some of their videos. Seeing other people's level design is a great way to get some inspiration back, and I can say from my experience at least that it often helps me break out of the tweaking loop and move on to a new level idea.

❤Squiggs

I'm also someone with debilitating perfectionism and have yet to finish the overworld to my hack due to frequently scrapping a large chunk of it because I can't fit that chunk into the story in a way that makes sense.

How I keep working, despite mostly taking as many steps back as I take forwards, is that I tell myself that my failure in being satisfied with my work is not me wasting time, but me learning what I need to do better, and that process of elimination will eventually lead me to the destination that I want to reach.

Originally posted by SmashNcrab

It has been a dream of mine to make my own Mario game ever since I was a dumb little 90s kid. Over the last year, I've made tremendous progress in making that dream a reality. I currently have 8 levels finished (with 14 exits), added various systems, and have learned SO much. It's been a blast! I'm proud of my work and I'm excited to share the final product when it's ready.
The problem is that I have debilitating perfectionism that can make level design a slog to get through. I'll often play with various ideas, but if something doesn't feel perfect/unique I'll lose the confidence to make it work. I'll waste hours and hours only to leave with nothing, feeling like I'm wasting my time (even though I love this project). How many of you have this problem? What are some ways you work through it?

I'm not necessarily looking for answers, more just curious how other hack creators deal with this.

We sound like we have similar backstories; I always wanted to make a Mario game when I was a little turd in the 90s, and settled for using paper and pen and scissors. Then I grew up and Lunar Magic and this great community helped me realize that dream. I've been working on my hack for almost ten years and I've really never taken more than a few weeks off from doing it. I'm also super perfectionist, preparing to let others try it out involves weeks of long days making it just the way I like.

It has never gone cold for me at all, the entire time. I have a vision I intend to see through to the end, no matter how long it takes.

Here are a couple of thoughts on the matter which may help:

1. If you haven't, set up the Internal Emulator on Lunar Magic. This will let you test your level with the press of a button right there in Lunar Magic, and it changed everything for me. You can even edit the level while the emulator is running, which means that you can make changes and test them in real time. The perfectionist in you will love all the time and annoyance you'll save not having to fire up the whole game every time you want to test something, which can instead be spent making all the small but important little edits necessary to make it all flow just the way you want it. I can't stress enough how great this function is. I feel it may be help you a lot with the frustrations you describe.

2. Don't beat your head against the wall. If the level you're working on is blocking you, but you still feel the motivation to work, put that level aside for the time being. I like to use these moments to peep through other levels I've done or am working on. Sometimes, it's just the level itself that is being ornery, and later on, you'll come back to it with a fresh head and see if it doesn't go better.

GANYMEDE

Chapter Two: Land of No Shame

Right there with all of you who experience the negative side effects of being a perfectionist. It takes me a great deal of effort to get things where I want them without overworking them.

The real challenge for me is not getting frustrated and giving up for a period of time when I can't get something really technical to work. ASM, custom assets, and whatnot. Don't give up because of these hurdles.