Mayhaps this goth goober

2: When it does come to the small project, though, you should make sure you feel invested in it. It could be a story you've had on your mind for a while. It could be a small part of the world in the larger game. Or it could be pure dumb fun. Just make sure you like it enough for OC brainrot

1: I'm sorry if I wind up sounding like literally every game dev ever, but I'd recommend finishing up at least one small project before starting work on a large game. Even in RPGMaker, it's really tricky making a large game(TCPC XD), so making something more bite-sized can give you a taste of that.

2: The easy answer would be like 6-8 months. I had RPGMaker for 6-8 months before releasing TCPC, and I was working on stuff for that much time. Thing is that by that point I had a lot of experience with coding logic and OC writing shenanigans