Catomax26 said:
May i ask, what kinds of games have you done?

I have released two mobile games. The games were good, but no marketing, no real success. So it was a learning experience at least.

At some point i realized i can not make the game of my dreams as a single person anymore. Games became too big, had too much content.
So i decided to focus on research instead. I had realtime GI, balancing ragdolls which can walk, and i thought maybe i can sell such technology to the industry, focusing on GI which was far better than anything else at that time.

I started to work on necessary tools so the GI can be integrated into a game engine. I expected it might take 2 years to get something to work.

Now, more than 8 years later, i still work on those tools. Turned out much more difficult than i thought.
Current industry GI solutions are still inferior, so i still have a chance. And i keep working. But likely, til i'm done nobody wants my GI anymore. The time window seems closing right now or pretty soon.

Bad luck. Or maybe not. I'll see.
Ironically, because the GI toolset is also good to generate content procedurally, i might even get back to where i came form, working on the perfect game… :D

Catomax26 said:
@JoeJ Why are you even here then? I have seen you now are isolated from game dev, and you are not actively making any games aside from 2 mobile games you decided they were too much of a burden.

Many people here are not really game devs. Some are programmers in other fields but interested, quite a few enjoy the work on engines more than working on games. I'm more interested in research than on actual production.
That's not really something uncommon. John Carmack for example had no deep interest in games either. He liked the work on engines, and the engineering challenge. But he did not work on levels or content. He only made the technology, and John Romero made the levels for Doom, afaik.

i feel so useless that even with currently being 17 years old,

Good news: You are still young, so you can learn quickly.
That's a huge advantage, if you have the will and stamina.

I was younger, still a kid, can't remember how old i was precisely.
But i remember a case where i became stuck. The programming book gave an example of animating a sprite using a loop. The loop counter has incremented its position, so it moved in a straight line.
But i could not figure out how i could move the sprite in any direction, controlling it with the joystick. I was stuck for a long time.
Idk what happened, but at some point i found a solution. And after that i never became stuck with programming again. It still took years of learning more, ofc. I still have things to learn.

However, my computer died, so no more programming.
I was at young teen age. And i became more interested in playing guitar anyway. I also was drawing comics, so we have some things in common.

With 18 i saw a Doom clone, and this brought me back to programming games. Since then i do it without a break. It's not always a joy. The last years were much more a chore than fun. But finally my stuff works and i shall make faster progress and have more fun in the years ahead.

However, it's a long journey. Rome was not build in a day. Gamedev is hard.
If you feel overwhelmed, make a break. You can always come back.
It's not a serious career plan usually. You need a solid job. Gamedev is spare time, i would say.
Success is unlikely. So if you don't enjoy the way, it's not worth to force yourself, considering you might never reach the goal of success.

Catomax26 said:
“you should start big then go small”

A typo i guess. ; )

Whining does not help, but you can tell what small thing you have tired, and what's your problem with it.

Catomax26 said:
For some reason my brain is telling me to start with my largest project, then go for the smaller ones.

Your brain sucks. :D
Start with Pong.

Catomax26 said:
Paper2D

That's like learning bicycle while sitting in a tank.

https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php​

Fantasy console including tools to draw sprites, create sounds, etc.
You can download the games. It's png images, but the code is included in the image file. So you can see it and play around / learn from it.

Pretty cute. I guess there is some community around for it.
They also work on a bigger fantasy console, emulating some kind of OS, with better tools maybe. But i forgot it's name.

Catomax26 said:
But what can i do with it? I'm not looking for teeny-tiny games…

You can learn how to make games.

And you can put them on itch.io at least. Probably on steam as well, in theory.
First you can show off to the surely existing Pico-8 community.
It's all in, just smaller, taming your brain, which currently does not do you any favor.

One step after another.