PERSONAL

5

2,355

WU 2020-7P - Depression, The Grapevine

5 years ago662 words

Depression's reared its heavy, leaden head these past few days. I've got stuff done despite it, but it's still annoying! Also, the attention my posts get is reducing over time rather than increasing. How do people - including YOU, dear, beloved reader - actually hear about games and keep up about their releases?

Depression's nothing new. It's essentially a constant background presence in my life, though there are periods where it flares up and I end up spending more time than I'd like staring into space, feeling like my head's encased in lead, wishing I was dead. So that's fun!!

...I'd originally written a lot more about all that - the probable causes, how it feels - but I'm actually feeling better now, so I think I'll just leave it at this rather than dwelling on it in depth. It's like the weather, mostly; it comes and goes (speaking of which, the weather's terrible here at the moment; the power actually cut out because of it when I was typing this earlier).

I'm still not sure what to do about Patreon, after writing about it last week. I wrote a 'blurb' thing of text I could include if I did restart mine, but I'm reluctant for all the same reasons as usual, and I've not really had the time to devote thought to it.

I've not played any new games either, though I've been meaning to start Octopath Traveler. I was going to do that today, but ended up playing Pokemon Sword for hours on a whim instead. Whoops!! I finished ages ago, but I was just adding to my Pokedex (and getting frustrated at the "Max Raid Battles" that aren't exactly fun if you're given weak AI allies because you don't have friends to play with). I'll probably start that tomorrow instead.

I've been noticing that the attention these posts and my tweets get has been dwindling over time rather than gradually building, which is a bit of a concern. I mean, I hoped that as more and more people became aware of the project, the numbers would grow to reflect that.

I suppose though that interest in the final game and interest in the actual tedious production process aren't the same thing. There are some games that I've been looking forward to for years (Oddworld Soulstorm and Ori and the Will of the Wisps), but the developers wouldn't have a clue about that because it's not like I keep up with their social media or anything. I'm not even aware of it; I only realised that the Ori one has a clear, soon release date because I just looked it up! And I only saw that on Google, so my interest wouldn't register numerically to them at all.

Most of you reading this are more savvy about this kind of stuff, and I'm curious about how exactly you keep up with the games world. Is it all about being exposed on social media? Do you follow a bunch of developers who you like on things like Twitter? Communities who talk about this stuff? Does a lot of it just come from direct conversations with friends?

I can't remember how I used to find out about games back in the day, before the internet and before I went and hid in a hole for years. Maybe just talking with friends every (other) day really is the most important thing? I don't know!

I wonder if there'll ever come a day where I'm less socially isolated online. It feels like something that needs to happen if I've any hope of success, but at this point it feels like trying to integrate into society after spending a decade alone on a desert island. Daunting.

I'll definitely devote specific mental energy to this when there's a demo ready, but maybe it'd also be a good idea to at least take some baby steps out of my bubble in the weeks leading up to that...