I turned 34 today. I've been assuming I'd be writing a moody post reflecting on how my life's hardly where I expected it to be at this unpleasantly ancient age, but I didn't expect I'd be talking about the threat of nuclear war! What a gift all THAT news has been!!
I was going to write separate game dev and personal posts, but I'm not working today because it's my birthday, and I spent all yesterday consumed by anxiety about the impending apocalypse, so I can summarise this week's progress very quickly. For one thing, I composed some 'Dynamusic' for the battle against Pierce, which is the last bit of music I had to add for what I intend to use as a demo for the next alpha, Kickstarter, etc. I also added a new figmon, a kind of signature/'starter' figmon of the Beyond Ponderers rather pleasingly called Dreamon, which I ∞ wrote about in more detail on my Patreon earlier in the week ∞:
I wanted to do some other stuff, but, well, distractions!
I can't say that I understand the subtleties of geopolitics enough to get why Russia is invading (∞ the? ∞) Ukraine. I tried reading about it, bit I saw a lot of conflicting theories and a lot of stuff that just went over my head.
I was more concerned about the posts I saw in the anxiety-related communities I'm subscribed to, from people saying they were having non-stop crying fits and panic attacks over the fear of Putin going mad and triggering World War III, or maybe more like a brief nuclear Armageddon thanks to Mutually Assured Destruction. I wasn't as anxious as those people seemed to be, but I was still unsettled enough to spend much of the day fidgettingly refreshing news feeds over and over to see whether the world's final chapter had begun.
I've calmed down a lot since then, mostly from distracting myself. There's nothing I can do about it either way anyway, so all I really can do is distract myself.
On a somewhat silly note, though, recently I was reading a lot about UFOs and such - or UAPs as they're apparently called now to escape the connotations - and one of the claims about those is that they're often seen around nuclear missile bases, and on a number of occasions they've actually disabled them, preventing them from being fired. So the 'aliens' (seems imagining them as little green men from the planet Zog is likely far from the reality of what they actually are) will save us even if things escalate, right?? But then there are other accounts about how whoever controls the UFOs is also controlling humanity, deliberately cultivating conflict and starting wars so then they can harvest and/or feed off our negative energy, in which case they're hardly going to be our saviours.
Not the sort of thing I'd expect any of you to take seriously or anything, but it's... amusing, I suppose, how my mind drifts to that from all this, or something! I'm rather detached from reality.
But yes. I'm 34. Mid-thirties now, still living at home, single, never had a 'normal' job. I always assumed I'd have just magically figured everything out by age 25, but apparently not. Lots of feelings of shame and fear about the future that I've written about many times before.
The loneliness is probably the hardest part. I always fantasised about finding some ideal ~soulmate~ who'd walk the journey with me, because everything would be easier with a kindred spirit to tackle challenges with hand-in-hand. But I've long since realised that for one thing, I'm not exactly a catch myself so it's not like anyone's going to want to be that for me, and that even if they were, it wouldn't be a magic cure to all my many problems. It'd probably introduce more than it'd remedy, most likely. It'd still be nice if I'd found a partner, like many people are lucky to have done, but I feel like I'm too old now anyway. Missed my chance, at least for the kind of relationship I wanted. People in their thirties are experienced, settled and/or jaded, often the women at this age have children, and all our bodies are more beaten-down than they were a decade ago, which shouldn't matter but it does at least a bit. I don't feel like an adult, certainly not one on the doorstep of middle-agedom, and women who feel the same way - they do exist - seem to go for men who'll make up for their inadequacies rather than compound them. Oh well.
I feel like getting my first job at this age would be weird and embarrassing, but the longer I put it off, the worse that'll get. I'd like to finish Atonal Dreams first, though. But maybe that'll take years?
Apparently a cartoon based on Cuphead - an indie game that achieved such renown that likely all of you are familiar with it - was put on Netflix this week. I've been watching it. It's fine, I suppose. Not life-changing or anything. But I find it interesting because, well, it's an animated series based on an indie game. How often does THAT happen? Is this the first time??
I've never actually played Cuphead - I don't like that kind of gameplay - though I did watch a full longplay a few years back. I never knew much about its development, other than something vague about it being done 'by two guys' or something. The algorithm must have read my mind, though, and recommended this video (produced earlier this month) to me the other day:
One of the two guys who first started on the idea is apparently a literal Chad - that's even his name - with a wife who looks like she could be a model, which was amusing to see. Maybe it seems shallow or petty to mention that as if it matters, but the opportunities afforded to someone like that lead to a very different life than for someone less physically blessed. It's not really different to reading about some super successful billionaire who says their 'humble beginnings' involved being given 10 million dollars by their oil tycoon father or something (I think Elon Musk's backstory is something like that?).
Someone with good looks would have a lot of positive treatment that'd produce confidence - because confidence is the result of success rather than a precursor to it, generally - which would lead to a lot of social connections, to being favoured by mentors, encouraged at skills, chosen for opportunities like being featured at E3 or whatever, which it seems happened with Cuphead. Seems it was basically adopted by Microsoft, who handled all the marketing, and the two initial creators were able to leverage that plus some local social connections to build a team of 30 people by the end. Still took them all 4 years to finish the thing though!
None of that's meant to disparage the genuine impressiveness of their achievements though! The brother who did the art (or at least it sounded like it was all him, at least at first?) had never done animation before, so that's astounding; I always assumed it was by someone who'd had a long-time passion for it. Chad's hot wife did a lot of outlining despite no previous experience with visual art, which I found surprising. And both the brothers basically learned Unity as they went along?
I found it all very interesting, anyway, though I suppose it's at least somewhat sobering knowing that the games that do manage to rise to such lofty heights aren't just the product of one weirdo in their mum's basement. They have a lot of good fortune behind them beyond just a lucky dice roll of Steam's algorithm.
I wouldn't want to sell millions of copies myself, anyway! I'm just hoping for an amount that's enough to live on, but not enough to attract too much attention to myself.
What else...? Feels like there was something else I wanted to mention, but I can't think what it was... Hopefully it wasn't important!
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