Alora Fane

I've got a few things I want talk about in this post: the hospital appointment wasn't as anxiety-inducing as usual; I'm wondering (not for the first time) whether to make a virtual pet mobile app; I'm wondering how to restructure my days to get more done; and a note about computer stuff!

Hospital and Anxiety

I went to the cancer hospital for another scan yesterday. I was surprised by how low my anxiety levels were for the whole thing! I'd even describe myself as feeling and acting 'confident'? I had no problem talking with the staff about anything at all, though I felt so familiar with the place after being there so many times that I felt like an old regular, or something like that. Usually I'll get a surge of anxiety that I have to control while in the scanner, but I didn't even get that this time, and the whole ordeal was over very subjectively quickly. So that's good!

Though it's not as if I've magically recovered from social anxiety. The worst bit was afterwards, when my mind was doing the involuntary and frustrating review of every little detail of my physical and verbal behaviour. Was this little thing I said off-puttingly weird??

Apparently I laugh a lot - or giggle, maybe - which is likely a subconscious submissive behaviour, a way of 'not being a bother' or attempting to be easy to deal with, or something. It's not something I normally notice or think about, and I definitely don't do it consciously, but for whatever reason my mind latched onto it this time as a sure sign I'm weird and everyone I interacted with knew it.

It made me think though about how maybe my behaviour was distinctly odd, but would that actually even matter if I wasn't actively feeling ashamed about that? Many people are 'odd', and I expect the people in a brain cancer hospital deal with a lot of them, but I suppose the difference between people with social anxiety and other oddballs is that the former group turn a critical eye inwards at their own oddness and believe it to be shamefully unacceptable in some way. I suppose a lot of people are just unabashedly odd.

Many people on r/socialanxiety talk about being paralysed by shyness, never speaking, but I suppose my issue has always been that I do talk, I just say odd things which seem to bring about discomfort in others. It's harder to do anything about that because the issue isn't about 'opening up' or 'developing confidence' or 'just getting out there'. Hmm.

One of the nurses who saw to me - did my canula and asked me a series of medical questions they have to ask you twice (like "do you have metal fragments in your eyes?"), etc - seemed awkward. A guy around my age, maybe? That was nice to see, in a way, since I felt like I wasn't the most awkward one in the room, and it also made me aware that awkward people do get jobs. Not something I didn't 'know' already, but seeing something in the realm of real experience is always so much more potent than just contemplating it in the abstract. Or something.

Also, I felt distinctly better overall just from going out for a handful of hours and interacting with people, even if it was just doing hospital procedures and having a talk with my step-dad in the car on the way there and back. Like a pall lifted, or I woke up from a months-long stupor. I need to get out more. I'll be thinking about exactly how; it's easier to say than it is to make actual steps. I was planning to at the very least go out for a walk today, but it was pouring with rain at the time I intended to! Pfft!

Figmon VPet?

As I said, I talked with my step-dad on the way there and back. He usually asks me about how my games are going, since he still clearly hopes I'll earn a ton of cash and he won't have to keep working anymore (he's the sort of person who sees others as pawns who can provide him with things). He's at least ostensibly supportive of me taking time with it and trying to make it work though; he chose the 'risk it all' path over a secure one in the past, and is apparently happy to be here for me as I do the same.

I feel like a disappointment that Atonal Dreams is taking as long as it is, though, and said as much. I also mentioned the severe burnout I've been experiencing. We got talking about shorter things I could make either alongside my main project or as a brief break from it, which is something I've been thinking about myself for a while anyway.

Atonal Dreams is a linear narrative, so I need to finish all of it before releasing it. But for a while I've been wanting to make something that you can sit down and 'just play', something you could do runs of which aren't always the same, or something persistent you'd chip away at over weeks or months, where I could just build the 'gameplay loop', release it, and then continue to update it with new content over time. On the surface it seems like a solution to a lot of the blocks I'm facing... though past experience - and snooping of dev communities - suggests it wouldn't actually play out that way in practice. Still, I'm curious.

I've played around with a few different ideas over the past few months, but one I got talking about with him this time was a return to something I've talked about many times over the years, and loved during my youth: virtual pets!

I used to have several Digimon, these things:

I've written about them a bunch of times, and probably just as many times I've tried to imagine how I'd make something similar myself, without getting anywhere at all with it.

This time, though, I wondered whether I could make something that was essentially a spin-off of Atonal Dreams. That is, a virtual pet where you look after the figmon I've designed for that. I could even reuse the models!

The appeal of Digimon for me was that how you raised it determined which form you ended up with after several days. I loved looking at the growth charts, like this:

Or here's another I found while googling for that, which sheds some light on something I wondered about endlessly as a child:

I don't know what's going on with it since it has stages beyond Ultimate that weren't a part of the original VPet - maybe some fan project or a re-release or something, I'm not curious enough to check - but it shows the criteria for actually getting each form, and they seem so simple. I usually got the ones on the left (other than Airdramon, which was both my favourite and completely elusive to me), and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to consistently get the ones on the right... because overfeeding never occurred to me. I vaguely remember a guy at school asking me to look after his (since apparently I was regarded as an authority on them, or the starter of a fad? Weird memories), which was a Tyrannomon, and wondering how on Earth he managed to evolve it in the first place. (Ah, the days before you could just instantly google these things!)

If I were to make a virtual pet of my own, making it for mobile would be the only sensible course of action. I checked the app store, and there are a bunch of virtual pet apps already - obviously - with some being varyingly-accurate reproductions of the original Digimon or Tamagotchi, or novel attempts at the same retro style, while essentially all the others have very similar cutesy styles and seem so focused on this kind of... how would I describe it... 'mainstream' appeal? The sort of thing that feels like something designed as a lure to manipulate rather than a work of personal passion. Hard to put into words, but maybe you know what I mean? They usually seemed to involve looking after one singular cutesy animal or blob or whatever that didn't appear to change forms over time (or die).

So I don't know if I'd have any hope of getting anything out of attempting one myself. Maybe it'd be too different to what people looking for such things want?

I have no ideas for specifics beyond using Alora Fane figmon, reusing designs from Atonal Dreams, using it as a kind of spin-off. A thing where you can raise a monster over several days, checking on it for moments a day to feed it or whatever, and how you raise it determines what form it evolves into. And there'd be an in-app encyclopedia thing listing which forms you'd ever earned - something the extremely primitive Digimon obviously didn't have - so there was something to gradually aim for. Probably interactive features like ∞ Pokemon-Amie ∞. Just vague ideas at this point, unrefined.

It'd probably be a quick distraction, making something like this, and maybe people would enjoy it? Or maybe people who didn't grow up with VPets wouldn't. And maybe if it or Atonal Dreams earned a little bit of success, it'd also help the other, so it'd be like I'd have two shots at my work taking off?

Or maybe not. I'm just brainstorming.

Would you be remotely interested in a virtual pet mobile app where you look after figmon??

(EDIT: I actually did look it up, and it seems there's a 20th Anniversary re-release version which contains forms from five of the previous versions and has various updated features etc. I wonder whether to get one purely for the sake of satisfying some old childhood desires and to inspire something I'd make myself - they're not hugely expensive - but I also wonder whether I'd even care enough about it! HMM.)

(EDIT 2: Never mind; the 'not prohibitively expensive' one I was looking at was a different version - they're still pumping out new ones, apparently, though I wonder how many people buy them; maybe they're still popular in Japan? - and I can only find the 20th Anniversary one for almost 200 pounds. Oh well!)

Timetable stuff

I think I mentioned recently something about my time-management woes? What I was doing was trying to get in 5 or 6 hours of focused work every day, and I was spending a lot of time exhausted - and burned out recently, of course - and usually failing to achieve those 5 or 6 hours anyway. I wanted to do other stuff like replying to comments, posting on Reddit, or writing blog posts, but never had the time.

So, after talking with other people including my step-dad, I've decided to devote my mornings to doing just 3 focused hours of work on Atonal Dreams, then... that's it for the day. No more.

I know that Western culture stresses that we should all work ourselves to the bone constantly, and if we don't, we're slacking and should be resented for it. Working 15-hour days is a mark of pride, that kind of thing. But it sounds like a whole lot of people just can't manage it, and even if they're 'at work' for 8 hours a day, it doesn't mean they're doing work for that whole duration. I've talked about this a bunch of times.

I'm hoping that if I just try to cram in a lot of work in the mornings and then forget about it entirely after that, I'll actually get more done in the long run than if I tried to work 5+ hours a day on it, and my wellbeing might improve too.

I can't know until I try, but I'm certainly interested in trying because I'm been feeling so terrible lately. So hopefully it'll work out okay!

And if I'm doing that, I've freed up the afternoons for other stuff. I've assigned a block on my timetable just called 'Social', which I'll use to push through things like Reddit reluctance, reply to messages (which I often take ages to do), or eventually maybe go in my Discord and stuff. I'm using it today to write this; I'm not going to dive in the deep end right away. Hopefully in the long run that might have benefits, too.

Then I'll spend some time playing games, and the evenings working on creative stuff, which is currently the highlight of my days that I consistently look forward to.

Oh! I just remembered! Before yesterday's appointment when there was no hope of doing any real work, I organised and made cover art for another music album, the OST for Taming Dreams (which I thought I'd already put up, but apparently not). Hopefully I'll be able to finalise that now that I have time, and the handful of other albums too. Even if nobody's really interested, there'll be a sense of personal satisfaction and release about that for sure.

PC Stuff

I don't have much to say here yet, but I just wanted to say thank you to those of you who left long and detailed comments about what PC I could get! I haven't replied yet, partly because of the lack of time, partly because I wanted to make a decision before doing so but haven't had the chance with the hospital and other stuff in the way, but hopefully I'll have a chance to look into my options in more detail soon and can reply then. It's a big decision which I shouldn't take too lightly, I suppose!

I wish there were far fewer choices - too many can be paralysing - but, well, hopefully I can come to a decision anyway. I'm eager to see the back of all the lag!

13 COMMENTS

AdmiralLara49~3Y

Do you think you're ever going to evolve beyond just switching between the same few concepts (Pokemon, Digimon, Final Fantasy) from your 90s childhood? It seems to be this hurdle that you struggle to get over. Whoops, feel burnt-out on my oldschool RPG with monster-taming elements (or was it my oldschool monster-taming game with RPG-elements?) - time to get working on Tamagochi 2.0! Finally something easy and uncomplicated that I'll have done in no time at all, just like Sindrel Song, and (if I'm lucky) can even get players in the double digits!

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with that other than for a mere diversion, but not as a serious project. A lot of stuff can get away with being purely nostalgic due to name recognition (Pokemon, Digimon, Final Fantasy) but anything beyond that is going to need either novelty, marketing, or massive luck. So I don't think you can get away with creating (or trying to, at least) the same few games over and over again. I would prioritize the social over the work aspect, at least until you're able to come up with genuinely interesting stuff.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with that other than for a mere diversion, but not as a serious project. A lot of stuff can get away with being purely nostalgic due to name recognition (Pokemon, Digimon, Final Fantasy) but anything beyond that is going to need either novelty, marketing, or massive luck. So I don't think you can get away with creating (or trying to, at least) the same few games over and over again. I would prioritize the social over the work aspect, at least until you're able to come up with genuinely interesting stuff.

Tobias 1115~3Y

And what would you find 'genuinely interesting'?

AdmiralLara49~3Y

You're not actually looking for game making advice from me, I hope. Though, obviously, I have to go with Sindrel Song 2 for that one. That's what we're all waiting for over here.

Really, though when I say to prioritize the social over the work aspect, I mean developing your own interests and getting a feel for what people like in ways other than lurking forums. Some people are lucky enough to have their work immediately find an audience and connect with people, you've lost that connection over the years. Think about it, even if you had AD done and marketed it for a month or so, would you get anywhere near the sales than even the MARDEK re-release got?

The time for M4 has passed, clearly, so I'm not going to mention that. But if you can somehow get more eyes on you through some smaller projects that try to catch people's interest, then you have something to stand on to start working on a larger project like AD. You've had interesting ideas in the past, like your RPG-making thing, and you had like a tribe evolution thing at some point? You keep talking about other stuff you work on that you're too anxious to show people, so there's probably something there too. Hey, maybe there is an interesting take you can do on Digimon, I don't know! But that's what I mean when I say you need to go out and connect with others in this space. Not just to connect with an audience, but to connect with other creators as well and expand your horizons again. As you say, you're clearly not incapable. That's gotta to be your priority. If you take any advice, take that.

You're not actually looking for game making advice from me, I hope. Though, obviously, I have to go with Sindrel Song 2 for that one. That's what we're all waiting for over here.

Really, though when I say to prioritize the social over the work aspect, I mean developing your own interests and getting a feel for what people like in ways other than lurking forums. Some people are lucky enough to have their work immediately find an audience and connect with people, you've lost that connection over the years. Think about it, even if you had AD done and marketed it for a month or so, would you get anywhere near the sales than even the MARDEK re-release got?

The time for M4 has passed, clearly, so I'm not going to mention that. But if you can somehow get more eyes on you through some smaller projects that try to catch people's interest, then you have something to stand on to start working on a larger project like AD. You've had interesting ideas in the past, like your RPG-making thing, and you had like a tribe evolution thing at some point? You keep talking about other stuff you work on that you're too anxious to show people, so there's probably something there too. Hey, maybe there is an interesting take you can do on Digimon, I don't know! But that's what I mean when I say you need to go out and connect with others in this space. Not just to connect with an audience, but to connect with other creators as well and expand your horizons again. As you say, you're clearly not incapable. That's gotta to be your priority. If you take any advice, take that.

Dingding32167~3Y

Hello-- again I've been on and off with following the posts-- would love an Alora Fane themed Digimon with your own spin, I keep looking for things like that where I can grow/ cultivate something digitally and explore without needing the upfront investment and commitment of real- life things. Creative jobs always require motivation and inspiration, so yes while it could be a detour, you might as well make it a useful one! Reminds me of the humanoid evolving ones you made earlier, and the many generations of tribespeople I had with that.

Tobias 1115~3Y

Farm sims are surprisingly popular, and I noticed when checking other virtual pet apps that most of the others added features commonly found in those, allowing to essentially do virtual nest-building... though if I were to make a virtual pet, I'm thinking something minimal; Digimon VPets only required that you check up on them for maybe five minutes a day, maximum, spread over several seconds-long sessions, and you could only do like two basic things with them. But I'll need to play around with ideas!

Yden! That was what that thing was called! I'd forgotten all about that... Interesting that you played it a bit! (Now I'm wondering whether to go back to that idea instead...!)

purplerabbits148~3Y

I'm glad that your hospital brain scans have become less anxiety inducing. I would guess that there's a very slow sort of exposure therapy that's helping or it could be the familiarity about how things go that you don't become anxious. I also tend to giggle and smile quite frequently when I am in a new social situation. I thinks it's a self soothing measure.

A vitual figmon would be pretty cool. But I do see an issue that with that type of game, there will be so many graphics and animations to create a satisfying game, even on a mobile game. I've played a few games where its very low in term of game play, but high in terms of graphics. The game Secret Cat Forest is similar to a game called Neko Atsume. It is a game where you spend resources to aquire furniture and food in the hopes that a cat comes. In both games, there a large amount of cats that are animated. I have stopped playing Neko Atsume because I don't check my phone quick enough that the food gets used up completely before I can catch the cat. On the other hand, I still keep playing Secret Cat Garden because the game shows all the cats that can show up right when you check the game again.

Another issue with a game with an easy game loop would be that you would need to make it simple enough that it can easily be grasped, but there needs to be content enough to keep people satisfied. I love the game Tap Dig My Museum because it is a very simple game of finding dinosaur bones and filling out your museum. The reason it has some sustaining power in my mind is that with each update There are a whole host new dinosaurs to dig up and that there is a satisfying amount for me to hold over for a while furthermore the game slowly evolves with each update. For example, they have updated the types of dinos you can find it started out that there are 3 sizes of dinos avaliable to find, then there was the update that introduced Mega sized dinos; in another update they introduced more digging tools that you can use; and another update where you need to find an entire set of pehistoric species, like the Ammonites, instead of just dino bones. So theres always something to look forward to with each update and why I check back with each update.

A benefit of the idea of a virtual figmon game would be that it hase double the nostalgia, you have the fans here that are familiar to your world, and you can easily market to the pet collecting nostalgia.

If you have any struggles with the idea or want an idea on how much work that's involved in making such a game. Matt Rozak, the EBF guy, has a game called Mecha Dress Up that he has been working on putting it up on mobile.

A vitual figmon would be pretty cool. But I do see an issue that with that type of game, there will be so many graphics and animations to create a satisfying game, even on a mobile game. I've played a few games where its very low in term of game play, but high in terms of graphics. The game Secret Cat Forest is similar to a game called Neko Atsume. It is a game where you spend resources to aquire furniture and food in the hopes that a cat comes. In both games, there a large amount of cats that are animated. I have stopped playing Neko Atsume because I don't check my phone quick enough that the food gets used up completely before I can catch the cat. On the other hand, I still keep playing Secret Cat Garden because the game shows all the cats that can show up right when you check the game again.

Another issue with a game with an easy game loop would be that you would need to make it simple enough that it can easily be grasped, but there needs to be content enough to keep people satisfied. I love the game Tap Dig My Museum because it is a very simple game of finding dinosaur bones and filling out your museum. The reason it has some sustaining power in my mind is that with each update There are a whole host new dinosaurs to dig up and that there is a satisfying amount for me to hold over for a while furthermore the game slowly evolves with each update. For example, they have updated the types of dinos you can find it started out that there are 3 sizes of dinos avaliable to find, then there was the update that introduced Mega sized dinos; in another update they introduced more digging tools that you can use; and another update where you need to find an entire set of pehistoric species, like the Ammonites, instead of just dino bones. So theres always something to look forward to with each update and why I check back with each update.

A benefit of the idea of a virtual figmon game would be that it hase double the nostalgia, you have the fans here that are familiar to your world, and you can easily market to the pet collecting nostalgia.

If you have any struggles with the idea or want an idea on how much work that's involved in making such a game. Matt Rozak, the EBF guy, has a game called Mecha Dress Up that he has been working on putting it up on mobile.

Tobias 1115~3Y

Good to know it's not just me who does the giggling thing!

The games you're describing and comparing to there sound hugely different to what I have in mind! I don't know if you ever had a Tamagotchi or Digimon, but how those worked is that you hatched a single creature from an egg, which would age over the course of around 5-15 days, evolving after certain numbers of days. When its time was up, it died, leaving another egg. Digimon had 'hunger' and 'training' bars which depleted over time, and you could feed them or play an extremely simple training minigame to fill them. You also put them to bed, cleaned up after them, and you could battle, but that was it.

If I were to do something similar as a side thing, I'd want something not much more complicated than that. I've never played those cat things; I remember my friend in uni showing me something I'm assuming was one of those on her phone once for like a second, but that's the extent of my knowledge. Sounds like you collect immortal cats though rather than rearing a single one from birth until death, which seems more impersonal to me? Less like a pet and more like collecting beanie babies or something?

I've been wondering how I could monetise such a thing though (otherwise there's no point making it). I suspect as I think more about that side of things, I'll be led down the path of additional features...

It's all very vague at the moment though, and my desire to work on it might pass by the end of the week for all I know!

Good to know it's not just me who does the giggling thing!

The games you're describing and comparing to there sound hugely different to what I have in mind! I don't know if you ever had a Tamagotchi or Digimon, but how those worked is that you hatched a single creature from an egg, which would age over the course of around 5-15 days, evolving after certain numbers of days. When its time was up, it died, leaving another egg. Digimon had 'hunger' and 'training' bars which depleted over time, and you could feed them or play an extremely simple training minigame to fill them. You also put them to bed, cleaned up after them, and you could battle, but that was it.

If I were to do something similar as a side thing, I'd want something not much more complicated than that. I've never played those cat things; I remember my friend in uni showing me something I'm /assuming/ was one of those on her phone once for like a second, but that's the extent of my knowledge. Sounds like you collect immortal cats though rather than rearing a single one from birth until death, which seems more impersonal to me? Less like a pet and more like collecting beanie babies or something?

I've been wondering how I could monetise such a thing though (otherwise there's no point making it). I suspect as I think more about that side of things, I'll be led down the path of additional features...

It's all very vague at the moment though, and my desire to work on it might pass by the end of the week for all I know!

purplerabbits148~3Y

Ah, I apoligize for the confusion of the games I picked, I mostly picked them because they are games that are simple in mechanics, and are ones that you would check on them as a daily thing.

So the cat games are more akin to Pokemon where you want to see all the different cats. Hmmm actually, it's more like Animal Crossing and obtaining different villagers, but in the mobile games you have more control than the random chance with Animal Crossing.

For monetization, I can only guess stuff like speeding up time to hatch the egg, spend money to get a specific egg species, or spend money to get premium pet food would be sorta in line for how to monetize this type of game?

Aberrsary4~3Y

Honestly, having now had a " "real job" " for a few years, one of the few things I can conclude is that *everyone* is weird. I used to have this perception that adults grow up, pick a career, figure everything out and then just coast until retirement. But it seems like just about everyone I work with is a little unhinged, a little weird, trying every day to keep it together long enough to make it to 4:00 PM. Some people achieve this better than others, but if you look, you can feel the strain everybody makes to pass in everyday society. I'm not saying that everyone is secretly a sociopath or serial killer or whatever, but even the most well put together doctor is putting on a performance to some degree.

So, at least anecdotally, I think you're right in saying that plenty of people are odd, but folks with social anxiety are more self critical of their oddness. Of course I can't just tell you "Don't be self critical about yourself!" because it's not that easy, but human connection is weird and messy, and you're definitely not the only one to have trouble with it

So, at least anecdotally, I think you're right in saying that plenty of people are odd, but folks with social anxiety are more self critical of their oddness. Of course I can't just tell you "Don't be self critical about yourself!" because it's not that easy, but human connection is weird and messy, and you're definitely not the only one to have trouble with it

Maniafig222~3Y

It's good to hear the hospital scan went well! I hope the results come back positive too.

Some of the clients at my place of work are definitely odd, off-putting or awkward, but that hasn't stopped them from being successful business owners or having accomplished careers. I think a lot of it is does come down to just pushing through the oddness and putting oneself out there, or just being that good at what one does.

It's interesting to me that your stepfather takes an interest in your game-making, I think you've mentioned this a few times before. Has anyone you know personally every played one of your games? I don't think I could bear the thought of my family or colleagues playing something I'd made!

I can't imagine there'd be that much interest in a virtual pet app thing. They always just seemed like a passing fad to me, the idea never appealed to me. They certainly existed, but I don't think they were ever a big thing here.

I worry that the scope of a project like this would just be too large, to do something like this well enough to stand out would require a lot of effort, while a product with an efficient time budget would just not stand out. Plus there's the question of how to monetize it in the first place in a saturated market.

Also wow, I forgot how OP the benefits are for doing Pokémon Amie and its variants in later games. I stopped doing them in later runs since they felt like an unfair advantage over the AI, even though I like all the cute and personalized animations they made for interacting with your Pokémon.

It's good to hear the hospital scan went well! I hope the results come back positive too.

Some of the clients at my place of work are definitely odd, off-putting or awkward, but that hasn't stopped them from being successful business owners or having accomplished careers. I think a lot of it is does come down to just pushing through the oddness and putting oneself out there, or just being that good at what one does.

It's interesting to me that your stepfather takes an interest in your game-making, I think you've mentioned this a few times before. Has anyone you know personally every played one of your games? I don't think I could bear the thought of my family or colleagues playing something I'd made!

I can't imagine there'd be that much interest in a virtual pet app thing. They always just seemed like a passing fad to me, the idea never appealed to me. They certainly existed, but I don't think they were ever a big thing here.

I worry that the scope of a project like this would just be too large, to do something like this well enough to stand out would require a lot of effort, while a product with an efficient time budget would just not stand out. Plus there's the question of how to monetize it in the first place in a saturated market.

Also wow, I forgot how OP the benefits are for doing Pokémon Amie and its variants in later games. I stopped doing them in later runs since they felt like an unfair advantage over the AI, even though I like all the cute and personalized animations they made for interacting with your Pokémon.

ElektrikMagenta20~3Y

Very glad to hear that your anxiety's been better!

LightAcolyte22~3Y

So great that you had some positive vibes from getting out! No worries on if you reply to anything I've written or not: you have no obligation to do so. (smile) I think that apps for virtual pet are more intractable for me than they used to be in physical forms unique to them, so I do prefer to care for real life-forms like plants and animals. There is a great sense of fulfillment and reward in having a symbiotic relationship with another being. For people who fear taking care of a plant or animal is just too much responsibility, I think virtual pets make good investments when they have some elements of sharing/competing that tie them back to reality.