When to Abandon an Idea

So for five years, I have been chasing this goal, this thing I wanted to do: finish the game I designed for the 2007 Game Chef competition; Autumn War.  I have learned a lot since then about game design, graphic design, storytelling, horticulture, art, my own internalized privileges... So many more subjects than I ever thought possible.  It's been rewarding, in its way, but it has never, ever gotten off the ground.  I keep coming up with rule sets that I know are solid (could use some refinement, even still, better melding, better terms of implementation, etc. etc.)  and then I keep walking away from them, abandoning them, dropping them.  My playtests fall flat every time, and these last two weeks have been no exception.  Players are dying off at my table, and I cannot get any air into the stuff I am doing.  I figured out why, finally; one player asked for hooks after I *thought* I had built as many as I could into as little space as I could manage.  One player mentioned something about playing The Road and not finding that a lot of fun.  I realized something - 

I don't want to run or play The Road either.  It's not fun.

So the Autumn War, Winter Sorrow, Thorns or whatever... I'm not sure what to do.  I'm not junking it or walking away, but I realized I'm making the game I think I *should* be making and not the one I want to be playing, though I have made rules that I think I want to play with, and I have designed things that I definitely want to use in a game.  But Grim Meat Hook Fantasy... well, shit, it's me.  I'll write that, but making people game it is... It's pretty fucking awful.  

What I need is a new plan.  I have a solid rule set, I have great character design, but it could be better.  I'm going to think about this, see if I can switch the spine out on an animal that I've made crawl around a little to see if it walks.  

I will do something with these rules.  I will have the Strength to Insight economy for advancement, I will keep the Natures, I will probably continue using Peril.  Suffering, who knows.  

There will be Shokkals and Kacias.  There will be Oaks and Pines and ... A third, Beech/Apple/Sycamore?  Masked Bandits!

There may be Dahan Nen and her Ugly Birds, but I think they may come to mean differently.  

This is not going to be a game about desperate refugees trying to escape the aftermath of supernatural invasion.  It's a good story, and a gamable one, but I can't run that game.  That said, there will be a little desperation, sometimes.  I have a lot to think about.

Last night I had a dream about human sized, dark brown birds who hopped around on one foot, carrying katana in the other, I guess like tengu or kenku, but they told me they had come to kill the ugly birds, and I think they can.  

They draw the swords with their beaks.