Hi everyone. I wanted to type about something that's been bothering me recently about creating games and whatnot.
Since I finished waxweaver, I have been in a bit of a creative slump. Every time I've tried puttin something together, or tried starting a new project, I just can't seem to get the ball rolling. For a lot of people, getting cool new ideas strikes them with lightning motivation, and theyre able to work decently well for a while (of course it eventually fades, but if you've committed hard enough you can work through slog periods). Lately though, even with cool ideas, the motivation just hasn't been hitting me.
I blame this partially on finishing waxweaver. It's hard to go from a consistent year long project to no project at all. Waxweaver was also very challenging to make, so the development managed to tickle me pink most of the way through. Having to solve programming challanges is very fun to me, and I also partially blame the slump on just being "too good" at godot. At this point I've learned enough that most of the ideas I want to make I can do so pretty effortlessly (of course it is still a challenge to actually sit down and work, and not the fun kind of challenge).
I thought maybe trying to go back to smaller projects would help, I participated in a jam and came out the other end with CARD STOCK. Card stock is an okay game. Well, if you want my honest real opinion: I think it sucks. I'm happy I made it, and I think I did a good job under the time contraints! But it leaves a lot to be desired. I would not say I am "proud" of it. I do not think I have made the world any better by making card stock.
This has made me think about why I even aspire to make games, or to make anything really. It's something I've always wanted to do, since I was a kid, and that makes the question multifaceted and hard to answer. I want to try and answer some of it right now. Not for you the reader, but for myself. I am mostly writing to blog to articulate my own thoughts so that I may understand them better.
I sorta hate to admit this, it feels very shallow, but I think part of the reason I wanted to make art as a kid was because I was "the art kid". I was a pretty useless kid, but I could draw better than most kids my age, and I drew a lot. Doing art was my method for garnering approval, something I lacked at the time. I don't mean to vent, I really could go on and on about my PROBLEMS. The point I am making is: although my feelings have changed and I've become more mature and there's a lot more depth to it, that problem persists in a form. I feel like making art is what gives me life, what gives me purpose, and what gives me value. That last part is something I've never been able to shake, always feeling like a useless rag whenever I am unable to create. I tell myself it's okay, you know. But you can understand how feeling like that would put strain on the ability to create. Everything I make must prove my value as a creator. Does card stock prove my value? Not to me it doesn't. Would anything? I have no idea.
Of course, there is more to it than that. That might be why I get all depressed about it, but if I really just wanted to feel existentially valued I would forget art and go work something that actually made a tangible difference in society. No no, there's a specific draw to creation. I want to create, creating is fun!! And games, what's the draw there? I need to ask myself why I got interested in games in the first place...
I liked games a lot as a kid, but never really thought about making them. At some point, around 2011-ish, my friend's older brother showed us a game that he had made using powerpoint on the school computers. It was a point and click type adventure game, using on screen buttons that linked to other slides and animations in order to convey a story. That was just about the limit of what you COULD make in powerpoint, and making more than 2 paths got very tedious and overwhelming. Even my friends brother quit like 30 slides in (he eventually went to harvard and shit he's a smart cookie). But this was one of my first exposures to the idea that games were MADE, and that I could make them too! It was very accessible too, since all the computers had powerpoint already installed, and you could also save the files on a flash drive and put copies on other computers for people to play. I think a few times people got in trouble for playing something I had made.
I'm getting distracted. My first exposure to game development was barely even a game, it was a story. Anytime I dream up a wistful idea that will never get made, its also story first, characters and lore, worldbuilding. I think two games that were also very influential to me on the game dev journey was minecraft and undertale (when I say it like that it makes me feel very young for a change, lol). But both of those games have something in common. They have created worlds, and those worlds and the people in them are real and they exist within the confines of my computer. Minecraft, you must create this world yourself (or with friends!). Undertale, a world has been specifically crafted for you to explore and experience. Something draws me in about that.
The idea of creating a world is so appealing. But games specifically let you create a world for other people to walk around in and interact with. In a sense, the worlds of games are not fictional. They are tangible. You can cheat and no clip and see the outside boundaries of the map, you can't do that with anything else. Imagine you were watching a show and at any point you could zoom the camera out, or turn it around and see the camera crew behind it. Games are real. I want to create worlds.
So what have I actually done so far? Well, I've mostly just made little puzzle games or high score games. They don't really have a "world". Heliox station kind of has one. Waxweaver is like minecraft, in that it does have a world, but it's one where the player is required to create its intricacies. A fun game! But it doesn't scratch the "world" itch that I have a hankerin' for. No, for being so inspired by the worlds of games, I have never really properly made one! And that's a little dissapointing, and naturaly I've started to question why that is, WHAT is stopping me?
It's a couple things probably. It's a big time investment, for one. Especially with my value feelings I talked about earlier, it can be hard to justify sinking that much time into something, worrying that it'll just be crap in the end. There's also a certain amount of fear to it? Fear of the time thing, yeah, but also... fear of looking stupid? Fear of not being able to get my ideas across and looking dumb, or worse looking nasty. I get worried sometimes that what I do or say gives on massive asshole energy (its the autism speaking i think). Worse I get worried that i AM just a massive asshole incapable of making anything with heart or passion (also probably the autism speaking). I think that's the major fear really. I don't care too much about what other people think of me (not to an obsessive degree at least), but being or coming off as assholish just puts bad energy out into the world, I want to make people happy with my work!
Recently though I have decided that I just need to bite the bullet, grind out an idea I've had for quite some time now. It's an rpg. I have tried to make several rpgs in the past, all failed. They're hard man! Honestly the repeated failures from my time learning how to code probably contributed to my fear a bit. But I've realized that I probably won't be happy unless I quit stalling and just ATTEMPT to make something thats meaningful to me. I've even tried to compromise like "ooh I'll just make a shitty rpg when a silly ridiculous shitpost story". NO! I have an idea that it meaningful to me, so I am going to stall it no longer! I must do this!
It's still a bit of a struggle. I've been slowly building together just a battle system for the past couple days. But its hard to sit down and do it. Those feelings that this game will suck anyways, so why bother. They crush me. It's kind of the same experience I have when playing minecraft, if I'm being honest. Sometimes I see a fancy build someone made on the internet and feel a little inspired to boot the game up and create my very own world. Usually though, I quit after getting iron tools. I quit because I realize that this is probably like all the other attempts, where I get bored after so and so, and if I want to be creative I might as well go work on an actual project of mine instead. I did that exact thing today, like literally I did that and then came to write this article and I've only now made the comparison. My reason for quitting minecraft is a stupid one. If I just stuck to it one time it would prove everything wrong. And I'd still have one consistent world to play on! If I got bored I could just come back at a later date!! I'm stupid !!!!
I think this concludes my rant. A lot of what I have been making has been just for practice, or an attempt to appease the nasty words in my head. It is time that I ignored them and followed my heart.
Thanks for reading, if you haven't just skimmed through this (I don't blame you). This thing is probably full of typos and is an awful confusing read. It does seem a little weird to publish something so personal, even if it is on my blog that no one will read. My heads tellin' me "stop!! people will gaze into your soul!!" Um, I kinda want that. Not letting that happen is how we got here in the first place.
bye bye. i need to remember that I have this outlet more often.