The outcome is meh, but I celebrate his ability to finish the game.

Still, I can't help but feel the game could've been better if he wasn't as stubborn and managed to re-scope and make it into something slightly smaller and better arranged.

From a marketing standpoint though, he has a story, so it will receive much more exposure than some games that would actually be more fun to play. Bummer.

I commend him for his ability to stick to it so long, but i question how narrow his knowledge on programming and modern api's may have become for never branching out of that click and play software he was using.

My best guess is that he just dug out his old game, polished it up and published it with some marketing around it. I guess many of us here have some decade-old games/hacks using old libraries lurking around somewhere on backups of backups. Because if you think about it the reasons he gives why it took so long don't make any sense:

1. consistent lighting: It would appear plausible if he made an isometric game with 6 walking-frames in every sky direction and a detailed color palette but how can making sprites using a like 10-color palette in a 2d-platformer with 2 shading-patterns be a justification to expand it to 13 years? That's obviously bull. Also "bigger characters means bigger levels". It's just the other way around, bigger characters make smaller levels. A probably valid interpretation would be that starting with making "big" characters resulted in having to turn up resolution and make everything more detailed (to implement a big level) but 1. it really didn't come across this way and 2. the difference in his game is very limited since he uses only a few colors and simple artstyle.

2. albatross: this is no reason why it took long at all. A "psychological burden" that tells you not to give up and follow through because you already spent so much effort into it is actually a reason to finish it faster and/or at all to get rid of it.

3. the points "Ambition" and "Always sticking to the plan" are contradictionary. Once he said he was constantly hopping to a new idea/puzzle and then suddenly he always sticked to a plan?

Also: he said that watching LOTR inspired him to make this game. The premiere was on 19th december 2001. So even if he watched the premiere and started working on it right away it, there were only 12 days in 2001 and in all it were 12 years and 5 months. (also: "a game with story. a game as epic as destruction carnival" - destruction carnival is an arena shooter with zero story).

However disguising advertisment as "educational video" is a pretty smart move.

I dont think theres such thing as "over ambitious"

If you don't rely on it for food, then things are much freer!