An Indie Game Development Blog

Incredibly disillusioned. This is my dedicated tiny gamedev blog.

[mostholygamedev]

On Gaming Literacy | Friday Diary #4

The public still does not quite understand what games are and what we do. As gamedevs, we are in a bubble - a sphere that only overlaps with players during the state of play. Whatever they are exposed to inside of that state that impacts them, they take back into the real world. 

But all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, with the exception of the most intense fans, the public does not care about it because there’s no way for them to really easily walk across and chew on what we do. 

In the short run this poses an interesting problem because it leads to game development being both a blessing and a curse. 

Its a curse because if you are not the person molding the perception of your industry the public fills in the blanks and anything can slip up in there including lowering the value of what you do, a lack of appreciation, or worse an intense fear of manipulation. 

People outside of gaming view game developers as anything from people who refuse to grow up to evil social engineers who make kids addicted to screens and drop out of school.

And that is just simply not an accurate picture at all. 

I say all this because I took a break this week from working on my game to present a paper on game developer communties. It got a nice reception and made it into the top three at the event. The feedback I got afterwards was extremely eye opening and why I am writing this post. 

Next week I dive into the digital world. I’m kind of dreading it because I feel very foolish. Part of me is overthinking how I should just jump in instead of jumping in. One of the reasons why I guess I am so anxious is because I’ve been running into a lot of bad tutorials/a lack of tutorials on stuff I want to do. 

Which indicates that what I want to do might be too advance and I need to cut back - something that gamedevs come across all the time. 

I have a lot on my mind, especially in regards to mental illness and the tech industry and how easy it is for people to be milked to death of their brilliance and that’s getting in the way of me just focusing on finding fun. 

I’m just going to jump into an engine and see what happens. 

[mostholygamedev]

Practicing Awareness and Turning Monsters into Playable Characters... maybe | Friday Dairy #3

I have been experimenting with my focus by attempting to be mindful at the moment I sense my focus drifting. For example I am a tab queen. When other people look at the amount of tabs I have open in my browsers (yes multiple - should out to vivaldi, opera, and chrome - and yes there ARE reasons why I use each one of those on a regularly basis) it gives them a headache and it probably gives my computer a headache too. 

But lately I have been practicing limiting the number of browsers and tabs open so I can really focus and pay attention to something... or rather stay present and aware of something in its whole form instead of catching on to the little spark of ideas that gets triggered. 

It feels like I am developing a different kind of sense that I never noticed before but has always been there.  Being fully aware in a moment is a kind of “sight”. Even if you are the most expert note taker... there are things that you may miss while taking notes because while you are focused on collecting details you are not focused on the context of that specific moment in time. 

Like yes this thingy this person has said/movie as shown/game has done has sparked something that feels important... but what does that actually mean in this specific moment I am experiencing it AND that experience is not yet done? Taking notes takes you away from that. I mean its has its place. I’m just saying I realize there is a cost to it sometimes. 

Which is where my latest gamedev issue rises up. I asked some devs how they handle documentation and the responses I got back were interesting. Basically people keep things minimal. They do not try to capture every single detail in an attempt (or may case a fear) that somehow they may miss the magic and not be able to retract where they went wrong. They tweak, use intuition, draw diagrams and take notes when they feel the need them. But its not an actual ongoing purposeful detailed complex system they have going on. 

Perhaps that works best for larger teams because you can afford to have someone whose only goal is to pay attention and nothing else. But not on the indie level so much? 

As for the actual game progress...

This week I colored my paper prototyping board. Its strange cause I didn’t think it would make that much of a difference but it actually makes a huge difference in terms of just keeping track of information in an easier way. It made so much of a difference that now I’m thinking about the purpose of this prototype and trying to figure out if maybe I want some of the more abstract parts that would have been going on behind the scenes in the digital version of this game to be visible after all. 

I’m still looking for the actual fun. I have the movement systems down. I have a battle system mechanic emerging. I need to work on a armor/weapon spawn mechanic.  I have an idea of how I want the most basic level to be digitally. I just don’t know if I can mimic that in a paper prototype. I also suspect that when I test this out with others I might actually have to make a game master role for myself or figure out a way to play as the monster... Which is interesting because when I started this I didn’t think about the monster being a character that could be played but now.... hmm... it might be something I have to explore. Or this might be a sign I need to calm my ass down. Rethink my idea and reduce it by half. Yo no se yet. After this week I said I would be moving to gamemaker so... whether I am ready for it or not this is going to be interesting. 

[mostholygamedev]

GameDev as a Natural PTSD Coping Mechanism| Friday Dairy #2

I realized after removing and transforming my physical space that a lot of my distraction was to keep me from thinking about very harmful stuff that happened to me a long time ago. 

My childhood and young adult years sucked. When I look at the symptoms of PTSD and related disorders there’s a shit load there that I can tick off but casually dismiss because I think trauma is really common. So common that it just gets brushed off until circumstances are so extreme that a person can no longer perform basic functions. 

My body has an instant reaction to being in certain environments. I just want to run away so much. Run and... I don’t know what. Just run and find some sense of safety that I know is false because I have ran away in the past and I’ve learned the hard way that running just puts things off or makes me miss shit because something feels awful that’s really for my benefit but my body’s physical reaction has a really hard time of telling the difference. 

Anyway... I’ve noticed in private conversations that I know a lot of gamedevs who make games that try to tap into empathy. They want to make experiences that translate their trauma to the otherside world. They are using games as a way to communicate though... I don’t think they always realize this is what they are doing.

And it made me wonder if I am doing the same thing with this current project. I mean its a very light hearted premise but when I sat and thought about it and how much the shadows relate to my life it got dark very very very very fast. 

Current Progress/Where I am At

Right now I am paper prototyping the games current main feature. Its tricky even though the idea seems simple. Perhaps it is not simple enough. What I am trying to pull off is a short range/melee battle system, where the “armor” (its in quotes for a reason... if I stick with this project long enough and you stick with reading this blog long enough you will find out why) also make up weapons that the player and boss can use to attack each other. I think I have something there. I just have to flush it out. I gave myself a month to find the fun in this or let it go. 

At this moment I have instructions for the first prototype, a game board, and have run through it a few times to take some notes. Based on those notes I will have to update and make a new set of instructions. After three rounds I will test it out with people. Or maybe... I might test it out earlier, only because I know I tend to be an overthinker and the faster I get something into a player’s hands the faster I can get real feedback. I just need to figure out what the smallest unit of a complete experience is at this point. Grrrr... 

I was originally going to get lost in writing the story but I will put that on hold for now partly because a) writing comes easy to me, b) research is a kind of distraction for me, c) part of the reason why I got into the PTSD and Game Dev connection analysis is because of the research I was doing. In other words its easy for me to get lost here and not focus on the mechanics. There is a lot of emotional stuff here to handle so for now... the actual gameplay mechanics will come first. 

[mostholygamedev]

M.o.M. | Friday Dairy #1

I felt the need to change my physical pace before starting to work on anything related to gamedev. After spending an intense spring break deep cleaning I went through a whole bunch of emotions. 

I was physically haunted by weird dreams and nightmares, random photos reminding me of the past and the dead, and lots of dust. I got rid of pounds and pounds of crap taking up space in my life and it felt so good. Most of those pounds actually belonged or were given to me by people no longer in my life and probably will never be in my life again. I was dragging other people’s weights they had let go of a long time ago.

As soon as that deep cleaning process was done the electrical sockets in my room stopped working. In an eerie way it almost felt like this strange rebirth. During the day I would work through arranging the stuff I had left, making sure almost everything had a place and nothing was on the floor. 

At night since my room was clean I noticed little things like spiders crawling and the birds that sing outside of my window after 3:00am. I wonder what kind they are. They sing a very pretty song. 

I chose to focus on keeping the things that relate to my present version of myself. So a good half off all the books in my library are gamedev related after the deep cleaning. I’ve skimmed some, but haven’t really dived into any. They were buried under all that stuff. 

But now I’ve started to go through them. Right now I know I am very weak in gameplay mechanics. I would say my strongest skill in gamedev at the moment is research and writing followed by art (which is not that strong but it gets the job done). 

Last friday I spent some time with other indiedevs who were just busy working on their own little projects. I didn’t know where to start so I used the time to do a brainstorming session on the next game I am going to make. I had to decide if I wanted to go back into my past gamedev idea journals/dream journals or start something new. Since I had just finished spring cleaning and I was exploring some really obscure French theories on metaphysics, creativity, and multi generational elements in games and storytelling... I ended up brainstorming a game loosely about that. 

The working title is Mouse or Monster (M.o.M.). For now its about looking at shadows and trying to figure out if you are dealing with a mouse or a monster. 

Since I know I am so weak in gameplay mechanics I am going to play around with developing mechanics for a few weeks. I have some good ideas so the next step would be to do rapid prototyping. I already started using twine to prototype story feel. I hope to wrap that up by this weekend. After that I will do some simple paper prototyping. Then transfer whatever I come up with to the best of my abilities into gamemaker or unity in a few weeks from now. Probably gamemaker. I feel like if there is something actually there... and I still want to stick with this project by then, I would try to get someone else on board if it jumps to unity. Else I will let it go and move on to something else.

The purpose of this project is to make a selfish game. I know that sounds crazy. Like most indiedevs when you lift the lid on them only make games they want to play. But I have this really hard thing where I’ve been stuck in pleasing other people that I really don’t think about the shit that makes me happy and that I actually like. I mean its easy to please me on a simple level but to really wow me takes some work.

So can I wow myself? Not by making something ridiculously fancy but just something that I actually love. I’m so good at working for others so this alone is going to be a challenge equally hard if not more on the emotional side as well as the development side. 

[mostholygamedev]

Maybe they were right: I think too much

I am really good at generating ideas and being helpful towards others. I suck at creating things for myself that please myself. 

This is an attempt to get past a block that was put in place a long time ago because I was foolish enough to believe my work did not matter. I was foolish enough to believe a few lies set to distract me from what brought me joy. I was foolish and now I can’t easily forgive myself for that. 

Here is the sick thing. I know how to code. I know how to use all the tools necessary to make shit. I know how to do this almost automatically - for others. 

But for myself there is this huge block. I can see it so clearly in my head. A huge dark shiny block that is smooth like glass and pitch black. It stands between the person I am today and the person I want to be. 

I don’t know where this is going to go but I know in the past I would try to come up with all these little goals and vision statements and affirmations to give myself a false sense of progress because the reality is that I was stuck and have been stuck for a really long time and I just did not want to admit that to myself.

Guidelines and rules give me a false sense of comfort which is bizarre sense this is a gamedev journal right? 

It is easy for me to be creative. It is hard for me to be consistent. I have never known stability in my entire life. Consistency feels dangerous and deceitful even though it should not. There is a part of me addicted to self sabotage and comfortable with a certain kind of failure because in a sick way it feels good to feel like shit and give in to the distractions that I use to take my mind away from my worries. I need a reason to give into them. But if I take away that reason then life gets frightening because it forces me to think about the real reasons behind things.... like this block. 

I get so easily discouraged when things don’t go my way. It is my biggest flaw. Everything has to be perfect or else it is a disgrace. I know better but that doesn't erase the feeling. 

How am I going to get through this? How am I going to solve my own problem? All of the great artists I admire speak of dark periods where they were forced to solve their own problems. This is my challenge. I might fail at it yet again and that feels terrifying. I just need to pick something, stick with it, and see it through. I know I have to do it because there is so much resistance attached to it. What is hiding under there? What is that onyx block really doing? Why am I afraid to be who I desire to be? Questions I can not easily answer. 

I think for this latest attempt at gamedev I will not be so harsh on myself about documentation so much as just being consistent with it. 

So let’s shoot for a weekly blog update every Friday until the end of the year. I think that is something I can handle.