I got exactly the same issues, and additionally I would add motivation slump on the top. I know how you feel.
I even pushed a bit further this crazyness: I made a very complex, really beautiful, and utterly boring game:
http://www.creatures-of-gaia.com
It was for a contest, so I tried to polish everything: I hired an artist, got some decent music, it was multiplayer and all that fluff ...it was everything except fun. And this fun factor really isn't easy. We all think our "ubber game idea" will be great and loads of fun, but when you actually play it, it can easely feel dull.
What do I want to say with this?
Being able to code a game, and being able to make it fun, are two completely different matters.
After that failure (which costed me money and I didn't earn a single dime), I needed a change of mind since I was down. I decided to make a damn simple game: a space shooter. Nothing easier right? Well, technically not, but again "content wise" it's a bit more tricky. I had to decide what were the enemy ships properties, where and when they appear... And somehow, all this arbitrary stuff collided with my analytical mind. Should I make the ships move faster? Or slower? Or more/fewer of them? And what should be the next wave? ...as silly as it sounds, I wasn't prepared to find difficulty in this. I'm also a bit perfectionist so I think it makes things tougher. In the end, I made a random generator making random looking ships with random properties appearing in random waves. It's nice and all, playable, but again quickly dull and repetitive. Here it is:
In other words, I have no recipy on how to make a game interesting, entertaining and fun. I even think this "fun factor" has no recipy, it's just harder than people expect. It's putting everything in the right mix and with the right twist. What I try to do now is to experiment along with "silly stuff" and if something "appears to be fun", which then, if it is, could be polished. Kind of a trial error process with tweaking on the fly and asking people what they think of it.
Good luck with it!
Well I could call the two posts here "loser stories" at least it is sympathetic to read so i think maybe there is some hope
to ya (to make some good game), I do not know
creatuires of gaia - very fine game, I am playing it now and feel quite good excitement to it - done about 8 stages but i found that I spend first 50 on unlocking large fly and probably this wasnt good choice so I am beginning yet again now
played more in it - about 80 % and become tired, game seem to has to stages - each three should be one or so,
also not to balanced after early game I chose three adzi
and three hedgehogs and it was killer for about whole game - but graphics are very high quality, music is ok, should be shortened and balanced - the good option would be imo make a different routes on the map to chose - short for
hard difficulty and long for easy difficulty
---
then yet I finished it -
it is sad that it is not finished - besides other things it is quite
fine game to me, very good graphics as i said and quite adictive
to though gameplay could be far better
I think it should be revritten to make it more strategic, at the longer stage it is not so hard to thing how to play so I just clicked it automatic like a bot - this is also to long then, It should be rebuilded to expect a strategic playing with also rising difficulty level, the gameplay should be probably then somewhat complicated becouse there many units seem to be close each
other
