1. Never test a game in large public venues. You’re just asking to get annihilated. Find five experienced gamers that love to alpha test and provide high quality feedback. Iterate this process until all five are excited about the game. Then test with 20 more. Iterate again. When you have something 100 testers like/live, you’re ready for Reddit.

Learn to read code, deconstruct cool ideas in other games. Plenty of open source code to scour.

Mechanics are often systemic, so think like that. Instead of thinking about one off scenes, think how you can make foundational mechanics that you can build a story from.

Story: try making some story games in Twine or Inform just to learn how to engage the player through strict storytelling. This maps to your use of a base mechanics system.

You should love your own ideas more than anyone else, so only seek validation from yourself.