If you follow any of the Indie Game development communities in various of places like Reddit, TigSource, or even the forums on game engines a piece of advice you'll see fairly often is "don't make an RPG/MMO for your first project".
Doing so is widely considered a recipe for failure ; there are just too many things you need to learn that adding the complexity of an RPG or an MMO to the mix pretty much guarantees that you will fail, and fail super hard.
I was lucky enough that I didn't fall in to the trap of picking something too big to start with; instead I made a match 3 game, then another, and another. And then I made a few other types of small games. Eventually I made somewhere between 7-11 smallish games in the past 3 years (depending on do game jams count?)!
At the tail end of all those games I created a game that I spent a lot of time and money on ; but the publisher whom I thought was going to take the game - didn't take it. And then I struggled to find anywhere to put it at all.
In the end that game was a gigantic flop - I think it sold a total of 4 copies.
After much introspection I finally decided that it was time to go ahead and do what I had wanted to do from the beginning - which is make an RPG.
I resolved that going forward I need to spend my time on a game that I can say I'm glad that I spent my time creating it - even if not a single person ever buys it. Because in the end I might indeed just be making this game for myself.
So this is the story of what's happened in the year since I started that journey. What I've learned, how far I've come and where I think I have yet to go.
