Dev Log #27 - How to Stop Burnout

06/27/2022

Burnout

Burnout is one of the most relatable symptoms of content creation. I'm sure you've seen people complain about it on twitter. It's easy to fall into over-working traps when you work for yourself. One of the reasons why I think Queen's Brothel has been successful is because I don't get burnt out easily. I think making games is really fun, but I'm starting to notice that some things make me extremely tired and some things I can do all day.

What causes burnout?

This devlog is about me and my development for Queen's Brothel. Don't take this as advice for yourself, the following content is about me. When you think of burnout, you think of someone working hard for many many hours in the day and do this repeatedly until they can't anymore. Common in harsh work environments, common in content creators who are trying to appease the ever-growing online communities! But, I personally don't think burnout works how people think it works. I used to work on Queen's Brothel for 16 hours a day, sleep, wake up and do it again. It was the most fun I've ever had. Learning how to program, learning how to make buttons work. I would wake up with new ideas and get to work. I would program, then I would get bored and start drawing, then switch back to programming.

I was having fun creating Queen's Brothel, until one day I noticed that I wasn't able to work as much as I used to. It started with writing. I need to write a new quest for Suki! No problem, I'll knock that out today. And I'd sit and sit and spin around in my chair thinking of ideas and writing stuff down and then start the dialogue and I'd just sit there not knowing what to write. So, I started to stop working after I got stuck. No worries, I'll finish Suki's quest tomorrow! The next day I'll write a little bit and then I couldn't think anymore, I'm just sitting there thinking and thinking, trying to find the right dialogue to write. An hour later, all of my energy is gone and I don't want to do anything at all. But, that's not going to work when you have a game to make. So, I take a quick break and start working on something else.

One morning, after working like this for a while, I woke up and noticed that I just couldn't work. I'm on empty, my brain is out of fuel.

I thought this was weird because I used to work so much and I had so much fun. Is it because now I have to manage contractors? I have to manage my taxes. I have to make sure there's work for other people while I also work. Honestly, that part isn't even that bad! Just an hour or two of my day.

The cause of my burnout

Writing. It is really really hard for me to sit down and write dialogue. It's really fun to write, but it's really hard to figure out what to write. How would Queen say this? How would Suki react to this? Should I make Esxea do something funny here? I used to sit there and finish entire quests in 1-2 days, just pushing through everything. I remember I went to the eye doctor to get my eyes checked because they got blurry when I wrote quests. The doctor told me my eyes are perfect, I was confused. I would sit on my computer and write so much that I wasn't even using my eyes really. I just think what I want the characters to do and type and type and type.

When I spent 100% of my energy on trying to write dialogue, I would stop working half way through the day and go play games. I needed to do something other than work. Because of this, I would get upset the next day because I didn't move forward with game development and I would start to stack so much work on my plate. But, I didn't want to move on until I finished writing the dialogue.

How I solved my burnout

Well, can I? Think about this. If I stop writing quests, the artists have nothing to do. I can do work on gameplay mechanics for a month straight, but that means no one else is doing anything. I need to create quests for them, re-write quest-lines to make them more entertaining and add more pictures to them.

Maybe I can try doing writing for one week and gameplay for another week? Tried it, it's the same thing. One week wasted of me just spinning around in my chair trying to write and write and write.

The solution for me. Every morning, when I'm at my maximum energy level, I write until I get stuck. For example, Ardura's quest. I'm at the part where the girls have to bang all the guys in town. I write some horny shit, I progress the dialogue a little bit, and as soon as I recognize that I'm about to get stuck, I stop. I'm all out of writing juice and I don't bother writing anymore until I have more writing juice.

I hop over to the gameplay stuff. Maybe I don't like Scarlett's skills so I tweak them a bit. Maybe I don't like how this menu looks, so I change that. Go eat some lunch. Come back, and I'm like "hey, I think I can write some more" and so I write a little bit more until I get stuck again.

With this strategy, I'm not piling up extra work for myself. My brain isn't fogged up by deadlines, because I will slowly by surely hit the deadlines if I work on everything everyday. Also, when I get stuck writing the current quest I'm on, sometimes It's fun to go write something else. Can't wrap my head around Ardura's quest dialogue, so I go and start outlining a different quest.

So, what actually causes burnout?

Pushing yourself, when you know you're stuck. When I worked 16 hours a day on Queen's Brothel, I wasn't running into that many problems. I was learning how to program, I was learning the Phaser engine. All of the solutions were online, I just had to do a little research. I wasn't stuck for very long. Remember, I re-wrote my code for Queen's Brothel like 5 times. I was never stuck, I kept learning and improving and wanted to fix my code.

I think a person who is burnt out has been forced to solve a problem that they're having trouble solving. Imagine your boss telling you to do one thing and one thing only, but you're stuck. You'll sit there and try, until you can't. Then you'll daydream, then you'll think about something else, but ultimately you have to go back and try to solve that one problem. It's terrible. It's so easy to get angry and expend all your energy.

Going Forward

I'm going to continue writing every morning and stopping before I push myself too far. I think this is a big discovery for myself and I think it'll lead to better productivity, for me. Like I said, everyone is different and you shouldn't use this devlog as advice. This was simply an obstacle I ran into during game development and it deserves to have a devlog for how I'm trying to solve it.

Thanks for listening to me talk, here have a picture of the girls!