Just to say that you are entirely not alone in this.

There is a bit of an overlap with yesterday's Friend With A Scene Of Much Importance so first I will point you towards the practical advice there about keeping on track with writing. In particular breaking what you need to do down into small chunks, planning it out before writing, and trying just five minutes of work may help you.

But motivation for a whole project is a bigger question.

Time to get a nice beverage of your choice - I like iced lemonade - and do some introspection about what brings you joy about your project. Is it immersing yourself in a world? Making characters happy or miserable? Surprising players with twists and turns? Whatever it is, keep it in your mind. Make a post-it. Write it on the side of the bath in bubbles.

If a lot of your joy is about getting feedback and people hyping your work, be cautious! That is a fantastic feeling but it's harder to rely on it than something within you. Chase that intrinsic motivation if you can, friend!

That said! If you're able to share your story with someone you trust, and say "I am feeling down about this and really need some cheerleading, can you tell me what's great about it" that can be a great way to boost motivation and remind you what you love about your work.

I also suggest having a document with notes about each New Shiny Idea that comes up while you're working on a long project. That way your brain will recognise that you've paid attention to the idea and will hopefully not bother you so much about doing THIS ONE NOW.

You may want to consider simplifying your unfinished game, or starting small, especially if you have never finished a game before. I know how exciting it is to find a huge squid and want to eat it all, but sometimes it's just a bit much and a dogfish is more manageable. Check out the beautiful games in the @neo-twiny-jam which have only 500 words or the original Twiny Jam, or the Single Choice Jam from @neointeractives which contain only a single choice. Making a small game is a glorious feeling because you get that dopamine rush of having completed something and it's not such a long process.

Ultimately each story you write is a story only YOU can tell. Your perspective, your experience, your skills, will bring something special and different. Your gay selkie will be different to Sealy McSeal's gay selkie even if you are both writing a similar lighthouse romance. Finishing a game, even a small one, will give you so much more understanding about how interactive stories hang together.

Now. The tricky bit.

Because sometimes despite our efforts a game just doesn't hang together and we leave it behind. If that happens be kind to yourself about it, understand that every project is a learning experience, and let it go.

Because you will have learned something - even if it's as small as "I don't want to try something that complicated again" or "I need a less sandboxy approach" or "this game would work better with storylets" or "I don't actually feel able to tackle merfolk governance in this game". It may be larger, like developing your descriptive skill, or figuring out a particular way of coding, or doing something interesting with UI, or framing choices in a way you haven't before. Either way, it does have value even if it's unfinished.

You might consider putting it in the Bring Out Your Ghosts Jam from @neointeractives so you can show off what you did and formally say goodbye so it's not hanging over you like a sinister-looking clump of seaweed anymore. You might look at it in the future and cannibalise it for other work, or enjoy your turns of phrase or the tricky code you got working; you might never look at it again.

That's all OK. Not everything gets finished.

But I believe that you can finish something. If you've done it before, you can do it again. And if you haven't yet, you've got that in your future. Good luck!