#wanting to procrastinate vs feeling physically sick every time i actually push something off: a biography by me

[pixel-pumpkins]

6 games this year alone - post mortem

At the beginning of this year I made a plan to make 6 games in 2019, one being released every two months. My initial idea was that I use the first month to plan everything, and then use the second month to make everything, with the release happening on the last day of the second month.

I released two games this year under varying levels of success of hitting those deadlines: Saltwater Shells and Reach Out (and grab a hold of your goals). I was beginning to work on a Yume Nikki fangame for YNFG Jam, but I never finished it beyond a few early areas and messing with the tile design and minor animations.

The goal of this plan was to release more games than I had released in 2018, which was a grand ol total of 3. I was hoping, with giving myself deadlines that were not just like a week long jam, having 2 months would let me create something that was a little bit more thought out and well articulated.

Such is the nature of game design that I don’t think I really hit my goals all that much. I’m still happy with what I made to a certain extent, but the extraneous issues with the games and their release are what I think I need to work on.

Going chronologically, Saltwater Shells really tested my metal in the best of ways, and I’m pretty happy with a lot of it. I think I was overly ambitious but almost everything I set out to do is in that game. The only things that got cut was additional NPCs that you would’ve been able to interact with and give a little bit more narrative to the action of collecting sea shells. I think the game works without it, but that’s mostly everything I cut out from that game.

The release of Saltwater Shells was delayed by 10 days. A large bulk of the asset work for Saltwater Shells was done before then actually, it was just the final code that I was working on that needed to be in place so, you know, the game was actually playable. Also around that time was when I left my previous job and started at my new one. I had initially planned to be done with the game earlier since I was going to have a week off between jobs, but then it turned into just a weekend between jobs. I had to travel to Wisconsin, got a really terrible cold the day I traveled, and then travel back over the course of 3 days. I was still sick at my new job when I started it too and it was a lot of things to juggle really quickly and I still wasn’t done with the game.

Saltwater Shells still released though. I’m really happy about that. But the deadlines ended up being something that I kept having problems with. This ends up being a recurring issue, if you could believe it.

The second game was Reach Out (and grab ahold of your goals). I planned it from the start to be a crane game style game, and maybe a little bit more depressing in terms of your inability to accomplish life necessary things due to executive dysfunction or what have you. I also tried using Construct3 for the first time. So it was a learning curve of getting used to a new engine, as well as trying to pull off my plan. I used Construct3 because I really hate coding guys. Like I really hate it. I will code because I have to and I have the skills to do it, but if there’s one thing I would love to not do for the rest of my life, it would be coding. I experimented with trying to use a couple of other engines for this game, but what appeals to me about Construct was it’s pretty painless 2D physics, something that really trips me up in Unity constantly.

Being able to make a crane game was really rewarding, but really difficult turns out. This game ended up being delayed by 10 days from its original April 30th planned release date. I was really hoping to be able to get the game out on time this time, but I got sick again, and the physics method I was using was literally breaking everything or made the game unplayable.

The way Reach Out looks now is cut down significantly from where it originally stood. There was going to be at least 5 more levels and different goals per level of the crane game. There was also going to be a better method of gamifying your energy score vs. what it exists as now. I just ran out of time again.

I didn’t make any other games after that. My Yume Nikki fangame was going somewhere, but I got occupied with playing a lot of dungeons and dragons, and even wrote my own campaign. I didn’t get very far, but I liked what I had made but my energy to make games was waning after Reach Out.

I don’t like Reach Out as a game. I like the crane game part of it, because I love crane games. But it just serves as a grim reminder of my own inability to take care of myself, ironically, something the game tries to promote. My mental health went to hell before Reach Out came out and I don’t know if I’ve really recovered from the headspace I put myself in trying to finish that game. I really hurt myself mentally and physically trying to produce something that I knew was the antithesis of the product I was creating. I hate lying and dishonesty more than anything and I was being entirely dishonest with myself and my audience putting it out there under the conditions it was created in.

Promises and deadlines are the enemy to my success I think in a lot of ways. I really hate putting deadlines on things, for some reason time sensitive activities have always driven my anxiety up a wall that paralyze me. “How did you survive school?” a lot of procrastination and likewise bad mental health places. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I think self-imposed deadlines hurt me much more than those others assign to me.

Knowing myself and my limits, I don’t want to think that this project was some kind of self flagellation, trying to push myself into a bad crunch corner that games so often perpetuate just to meet a deadline. I did QA for games, and crunch fucking sucks. I do QA for a photography company now, and crunch still fucking sucks.

The worst part about all of this is that I've been trying to write more scripts for games, I’ve been trying to learn how to use ren’py and some other game engines I’ve come across. I want to make games because I still really love them, but there’s like some kind of negative spike in the back of my head that doesn’t want me to make another game right now.

I’ve been taking a break the past couple of months from feeling pressured to create something, I have been chilling, drawing stuff for dnd, reading sherlock holmes stories, and watching a lot of youtube videos. I’m trying not to think about it and let myself recover from… some kind of hell I created for myself.

This post-mortem kind of sucks because all it really shows is that I learned I can’t beat myself and should try to work within my limits. I think that’s valuable but I really want to make a game right now. Anyway, I’m writing it also as a way to explain what’s been going on in my head lately surrounding making games. Games are fun and I’m glad you guys all like the weird ones I’ve made. I hope when I post a new one you all will enjoy it.

thanks for being here. I’ll be back when I’m ready.

#feel free to read this #its kind of an update but also a post mortem on the first part of this year for me #6 games this year alone plan