For reasons that will become obvious, I am not cross-posting a version of this particular update to Steam.
This update is about me. Because I am a solo developer, doing literally everything from scripting every single one of the game's mechanics to hand-creating every asset it contains, that makes it about Amadeus.
Amadeus is, in turn, about a lot of things. Mental health is one of them. Our boy is going through it, and in Episode 2, well, there is some heavier shit I've had planned from the very first time I dreamed up this character.
My target audience is the people who have something wrong with them that is in some way parallel to what is wrong with me, in the hopes that by mutually sharing our stories we can find catharsis together.
(My target audience is also gay werewolfheads who like Umineko. This statement is probably redundant to the last one.)
So, let's talk mental health. And I mean really talk. Although fair warning that this is going to get heavy, so mind that before deciding if you want to proceed.
If you'd rather not: just know that I've been doing bad and development has to take a backseat.
I spent one of the weekends of this past Pride Month in a 🌈 mental hospital. 🌈 I hadn't attempted anything, but if that hospital hadn't taken me seriously and admitted me, I would have.
I want to talk about what got me to that point.
...I have had a pretty shit year.
I mean, most of us have, and absolutely nobody benefits from comparing notes and seeing who's been the most miserable. I've actually been helped far more by hearing from friends who are doing WELL, and remembering that things can change for the better.
But, this year has sucked. Last year I left my most recent employer on bad terms for the first time in my life, because I staged a pro-union protest speech in defense of my coworkers who were being exploited. I have ADHD, so I didn't bother navigating the change in health insurance that comes with losing your job, so I have been off my medication ever since. I worked well beyond full-time on shipping Amadeus Episode 1 entirely as a solo developer to make approximately no money at all. I then put my everything in an application to a PhD program that felt like a perfect fit and the only path forward I could visualize. At the end of that, when I was completely burned out and expended of all energy and other options, I found out I didn't get in, spent several months trying and failing to get any Big Boy Job I don't even want, and also found out some personal news that was just the final nail in the almost-literal coffin. I could no longer imagine a future that was worth the effort it would take to just exist in.
For the first time since I started this project, the thought "I need to keep going so I can finish Amadeus" did not spur me to keep going. It just felt like another obligation.
I genuinely didn't care, and that scared me.
I'll spare you the details; long story short, I have got some shit to work on. I need to focus on actually wanting to handle being alive for a little while. I cannot navigate the bureaucracy of healthcare and be actively job hunting and also hold myself to a spartan development schedule of Amadeus Episode 2, because that is not a life that makes me want to stay alive. I need to have some time and energy to write letters to my friends. Did you know that it's actually really nice to sit down and write a letter to somebody? To finally use those Homestuck stickers you've been hoarding since backing that Kickstarter like a decade ago?
The reality is that I have been treating many things in my life—things that I love but that do not pay—like a job, and I am both exhausted and unemployed on account of it. My current options are to either keep doing that somehow while also working full-time, and probably land myself right back in that hospital; or to just... focus on living and paying my damn bills for a little while.
I wanted the PhD because I wanted my "actual paycheck" work to also be something that would be artistically enriching. If I'm learning about music theory & history all the time I will constantly have material to draw inspiration from when making this game. It didn't pan out. You bet your ass I'm trying again next year, but in the meantime, I need to just work some full-time bullshit that pays the rent.
And if I force myself to spend all my spare time on game development again, I will not be able to stay on top of my health (which means falling off of my ADHD meds again, compounding absolutely everything), I will not be able to maintain the relationships that I value, I will lose the meaning in the art forms that have made Amadeus what it is, and I will not want to live. I know this, because I have already ended up there.
So, I don't know when the next update on Amadeus Episode 2 is going to be. It's going to be whenever I happen to have an update. I cannot treat this like a job anymore, because it doesn't pay like one. There's a question in the Steam forum for Episode 1 asking when the later episodes will come out, because these episodic projects never finish. I've wanted so badly to work on this faster to prove that sentiment wrong.
But maybe it would be easier to finish big ambitious things faster if I didn't have to choose between that and wanting to live.
Amadeus will come once I've worked on the latter.
I can't finish a project if I'm dead.
My heart goes out to every kindred soul who reached the end of their rope and couldn't finish theirs.
MASSIVE MILESTONE: Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz has gained a "Positive" rating on Steam with 10 reviews!
This is really huge for a game as small as mine and I appreciate it so much. Everyone who has taken the time to share your thoughts - whether as a review, or just messaging me or letting me know by any other means - thank you!
Fanime Castle will be a short game about a strange apparition and a young bard who find themselves in a collapsing world. Just like this realm, their memories are just as fragmented, and they soon find themselves housed in a castle founded by a bizarre empress. With this and the help of other strangers, they journey to piece their scattered memories together.
The game is going to be a story-based retro role-playing game, heavily inspired by Fanime Quest, which was also another game published in 2017. It is currently being created using the RPG Maker engine.
You will be controlling the phantom-esque character, Specter (left).
