I'm completely overwhelmed...

[mr_chub]

I'm fairly new to the rom hacking scene (have been a lurker for years though) and I just started with Pokemon Unbound. Wtf, it feels like I'm playing an entirely new Game Freak game that's immeasurably better than their current games. But what's worse, there's SO many other great hacks out there that I want to play NOW. Vega, Radical Red, Crystal Clear, Prism, Team Rocket, Adventure Red, Orange Islands... Sheesh! So my two questions to the Rom Hack community are:

• How do you cope with "shiny object syndrome" of wanting to jump around and play them all? Does that work for you? I've been focused on Unbound and am about 5 badges in but I can't help but look at more games as they walk past me (like that one meme).
  
• Do you all play on emulators? I currently play Unbound (and have Vega/Radical Red loaded up) on my 3DS, which is so awesome however I don't have a fast forward option. It seems thats how some of you guys play so many so fast. I love the portable option but which games would be best played on an emulator that can be sped up?

I appreciate anyone who read through this rambling lol. I'm just so excited! I feel like a kid again and it's all thanks to this great community.

 

[Roni]

i believe there's nothing wrong with simultaneously playing 2 or more games at once. just block your time properly so you get to play them all, and pretty soon when that becomes too hard to consistently do anymore, you start sticking to certain games to keep playing. that's how you know overtime which ones are your favorites.

i don't have any handhelds atm, so i'm stuck with playing on emulators on PC. i am indeed one of the guys you mentioned that frequently uses speed up. in fact, i can't play anymore without it nowadays. portability isn't an issue either since i'm at home for 4-5 days a week.

rom hacks really do breathe new life into the pokemon gaming experience, and i'm constantly thankful it has a decently sizeable & strong following (and the fact that everything's free :p). looks like rabid pokemon fans were a good thing after all.

 

[Corveone]

Well, there is a lot of rom hacks and fan games that look great and so promising, but I don't have the time to play them all (I guess nobody does), so although every game deserves giving it a chance, there's so many that you just can't play them all so I just try those that look close enough to what I'm looking for.

There are things that make me want to play, and things that make me want to stay away (personal prefferences). So first of all, I check the project's thread/website and try to gather as much info as possible, because I don't want to start a game, then realize halfway through that it's not for me and end up abandoning it.

If it looks like the game has at least most of those things I do like, and less "Nopes" as possible, I give it a try. I didn't play many rom hacks / fan games so far, and I actually only finished about half of them (those in my signature), the other half I just abandoned them for different reasons (got bored, too much grinding, lack of balance, lack of needed features, fan-made edits I didn't like, etc.)