Ah, motivation.
There’s definitely a point in many projects where things don’t work right (like, say, you get locked out of your kitchen), you can see just enough of the shape of the game to also see its myriad holes, bugs drag you down from every side, and your mental calculation of (time to deadline) - (time to implement your vision) = (some large negative number).
And you find a way to press on anyway. Pressing on–resilience–is a deeply personal phenomenon, and yet absolutely recognizable. Familial support can be huge, as Onno’s story about his artist/daughter’s concept art. Laughing at your bugs instead of letting them get you down. Switching up your creativity target. Discarding player expectations and just reveling in doing what you need to do (cf Max’s 'I really tried to avoid any sort of NPC, so I, uh, did something that may massively annoy any players.’ That’s exactly the right attitude, sometimes!)
Finding those moments of joy pushed me through a lot: seeing the blank parts of the canvas and being excited about what I was going to produce to fill them in. A sense of obligation for the massive gift everyone was giving me by letting me compete was another.
But so many projects don’t have that, to the point where just seeing the acronym ‘WIP’ feels wistful. The way this competition forces you through and past moments that would otherwise block you with walls of discouragement is yet another gift: you get to see where your resilience could lie, outside the confines of this stadium.
So it’s been really fun to see our competitors find their resilience. Go chefs!