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Belated Weekly Update - Website Changes, Presenting Oneself, Pokemon

2 years ago3,011 words

I've finally implemented the revisions to this website that have taken far longer than they really should have done! Am I presenting my game and myself in an appropriate way, though? Also, Pokemon Violet.

It's still the weekend, right?? I meant to post this on Sunday at the latest... but now it's Tuesday! I suppose this is just a continuation of the slump that's plagued me for weeks now, though. Ugh.

Anyway, this website looks a bit different now, finally! Gasp. The first time I've revised it in ages. Here's how it looks on my PC in Chrome, so how it's supposed to look:



If yours looks entirely different, please let me know! And also what you're using to view it. You may just need to do a hard refresh (or normal refresh a couple of times or something) to reload some cached files, though, so try that first.

Sometimes the YouTube video previews don't seem to load properly and it says 'video unavailable' or something; going forward a page (of the info, by clicking the glowing sides of the text box thing; is that obvious or not?) and back should magically fix that. I'll need to look into it though (I think it has something to do with the video trying to load while the container hasn't finished loading or something).

I also took some time getting it to look acceptable (if not ideal) on mobile:



But let me know if it doesn't look right for you; it's harder to test for mobile resolutions because it's not as if I have multiple devices, and they all have such widely different dimensions.

The most notable changes are to the main page, which I suspect most regular viewers of this site don't even look at, but which is the first thing newcomers would see when visiting the basic alorafane.com url. I've cleaned up a lot of clutter that was there before, and now the focus is on my games, which is what most people would be here to see.

While I don't expect many people to ever even see this site at all - do indie games' websites influence their performance in the slightest, I wonder? - I definitely need to prepare some 'promotional material' like descriptive blurbs and images that I'd post on Reddit etc in order to raise awareness about Atonal Dreams as the next step in the process, and preparing such things for this quiet little main page was good practice for that.

So I'd greatly appreciate hearing what you think about how I've presented the game there, especially if you've been a tester! Based on the descriptions and images, does the game interest you? Would you buy or recommend it? Is it clear what it even is? Have I focused too much on story too soon and not enough on things that'd appeal more to players? What would you mention? What do other games focus on in their promotional info and images? What do you actually want to know when reading about a new game? Things like that!

While there's a link to Atonal Dreams' Steam page to add it to your wishlist (indie devs apparently use wishlist counts to gauge games' potential), I've yet to update the info on there so it's all from a version a year or two old. It seemed wise to at least ask for opinions on this 'practice version' of the info first so then I didn't have to update everything in two different places if any updates are necessary. I'll update the Steam page soon.



That's the most important part of this update, though there are some other changes to the site too.

The main page has info for Memody: Sindrel Song and MARDEK as well, though I don't suppose there's much to say about them here. The descriptions took time to write and the images took time to find and prepare, but I doubt they'll inspire sales or anything. Thinking about how to present MARDEK felt strange because I feel so detached from the mind that made it these days. And it's a shame I only have three games to include there after all this time.

I've also updated the blog page - it's now much easier to look through old posts, or posts with a certain tag - and ∞ the About page ∞.



I finished most of the technical coding- and design-related aspects of this website change in like a day or two, weeks ago, but I've been dragging my feet since then about actually switching over to it, and it's mostly because of that About page.

Originally it was six or so shortish little paragraphs about how I made MARDEK, gave up games dev, found out I had brain cancer, and now I'm making Atonal Dreams - basically the same as the old version of the page - but I kept thinking "maybe I should also include this thing between those two", revising, rereading, revising again... and I got carried away just sorting through my memories trying to figure out what fit where and now it's basically my whole life story! (At least as presented mostly in terms of game dev projects.)

Do you obsess about your personal narrative at all? The major events that have led you to where you are? I don't know if it's universal, but I've got the impression from the various books I've read and therapy groups I've attended to try to quell my inner demons that neurotic people - or perhaps people with anxiety disorders specifically - do tend to spend a lot of time thinking about this. Trying to figure out where it all went wrong, maybe? I know I do. Or maybe it's a symptom of solitude? Or not being too focused on a fulfilling career and growing family?

I spend a lot of time explaining this 'life story' to imaginary audiences in my private thoughts, so there's a kind of personal satisfaction in finally having a version of it clearly written out like that even if few other people will see it... Though writing it out in the first place was to some extent a source of distress, because there were a lot of unpleasant memories to revisit along the way, and very few positive, uplifting ones.

Mostly though I've been concerned about how I present myself in it. I mean, it's not any different to how I've presented myself for years - I wrote ∞ these ∞ ∞ three ∞ ∞ posts ∞ years ago with even more elaborated versions of the same content - but I've just been very aware of how different it is to the more ~professional~ way I'm probably 'supposed' to present myself as the adult I only technically am.

I mentioned it briefly to my mum - that I'd pretty much written out my life story rather than the exact content - and she seemed annoyed by the idea, saying that people would see me as a weak, easy victim and just use it as fuel to torment or take advantage of me. I know this is largely because I've complained to her in the past about the stuff I endured back in the Fig Hunter days, and she doesn't want to see me having to go through that again, but I also can't help thinking "no wonder I have social anxiety etc".

I've also been paranoid about switching over to the new version of the site in case I've somehow introduced some new security holes somewhere - even though I've quadruple-checked all the places that might be a risk - which is also a lingering symptom of the trauma of running a community that included people who did constantly pry open my doors and ruffle through my underwear drawers, so to speak.

Just as the Atonal Dreams info on the new main page was practice for stuff I'd include on the Steam store page and post on Reddit or Kickstarter, I also intended the About page rewrite to be practice for how I'd present myself in a Kickstarter campaign. But now I'm wondering, should I be presenting myself this way at all?

I see people on Reddit mocking or being repulsed by indie devs using 'sob stories' to try and manipulate them into caring about their games (this is what I had in mind while writing the first page of this About section), after all.

And I'm very aware that I'm so not-professional because I've never had to even develop that kind of mask, what with never working in a workplace with colleagues who'd judge or reject me for being so openly weird and broken.

But this is who I actually am, so... it's not even like I have any alternative mes to be?

I know that I like seeing into other people's minds and stories like this - and some examples of such have been floating around in my mind while mulling over this - but... I don't know. I'm overthinking it! Probably just because I've been in such a poor mental state in general lately, or something.



Ugh, speaking of the sweet, sensitive souls over at Reddit...

I've spent more time over the past several weeks playing games than I have in probably years. I don't like this - I'd rather do something productive - but I've been so unable to focus on anything due to both external and internal distresses and distractions that it's all I really could do a lot of the time.

I've continued with Horizon Zero Dawn, which I mentioned briefly in some other posts; it was first released five years ago, and looks like this:



I'm about 50 hours in, I've got competent at the gameplay, and for the most part I'd say I don't-not-enjoy it, but at this point it feels like a trudge, a chore, and I'm eager to be done with it but also don't want to just rush to the end. I've got some DLC section (included with the 'complete edition' I got) and the final battle to do and that's it. I haven't touched it in a couple of days though.

I was hoping to get it out of the way sooner because I knew I'd be getting Pokemon Violet on its release day (or rather I preordered it), but now I'm playing both concurrently. Annoying. That game looks like this:



I'm enjoying it, for a lot of reasons - the music's been stuck in my head, for one thing, which I definitely couldn't say about HZD - but I hate how having spent as much time as I have lurking around Reddit, I already know what those people would think about it. They'll be frustrated that that screenshot doesn't more closely resemble the one above it. Or rather, I've already at least got glimpses of posts there about exactly that.

Or they'll complain about certain new Pokemon designs; the hive mind seems especially vitriolic towards Pokemon based around 'objects', for whatever reason.

And it just makes me so... ugh. Why do such hostility and entitlement emerge in communities related to games? Is it because they're more likely to be full of young, disagreeable, less-than-tactful types? Or are all communities like this and I just happen to be more aware of the gaming ones?

Or is it just a result of caring a lot, and the frustration is just the black smoke from that burning passion? I can recognise myself when games aren't perfect, and I understand and share the desire to vent a bit about what doesn't feel right or could be better, because I care. I suppose?

But hearing the poisonous venting of a whole community's frustrations only sours my experiences of any given game, and reminds me of my traumatic past and makes me fearful of a toxic future if I stick with games dev myself, so I try to just avoid it all as completely as I can.

Also, as I've said a few times over the years - since this has been the case since generation II first introduced new Pokemon to the franchise - the thing I love most about experiencing new Pokemon games is discovering new Pokemon species in an immersive, personal way. I love wandering about in the wild and running into - or evolving - things I've never seen before - the weirder, the better! - but which slot mostly seamlessly into this intimately familiar framework. In each new generation, I build my party entirely out of new Pokemon and spend a lot of time just trying to evolve them - into forms I've also never seen - before I encounter them in trainer battles or the wild, so then I can experience that feeling of... I suppose it's like opening a wrapped gift, maybe? Surprise, intrigue, also a sense of having earned it that wouldn't be there if I knew what things evolved into before I evolved them.

(Though I don't enjoy the increasingly obscure evolution methods; I'm so very looking forward to training something up to like level 60 only to discover that what I was supposed to do to evolve it was to examine a random, nondescript rock in the middle of nowhere at exactly 3:27am on a Sunday while wildly flailing around my Switch and screaming! But looking up the evolution method runs the risk of spoiling other stuff along the way - even the new form's name would be a spoiler for me - so I put it off as long as I can.)

But obviously this isn't how other - most? - people experience the games. Perhaps far more common seems to be eagerly eating up all the pre-release leaks and learning all the new Pokemon outside the games before ever stepping into their worlds. People begin a new generation knowing exactly what Pokemon they'll train and how to acquire them, or something? Or at least that's the impression I get from afar, though I wonder what proportion of the audience this actually is.

And - especially annoying - people post pictures of these things all over social media (if Reddit and YouTube - the only two I regularly check - even count as such). I've followed a handful of youtubers who do Pokemon-related content (so strange that people can make a whole living out of making content related to a game series), and of course they include pictures of new Pokemon in their damn video thumbnails and... uggghhh.

I wish I could take my time with the game, savour the experience, stretch it out over several weeks... but since I'm going to 'have to' avoid YouTube and Reddit for a while so then I can actually experience this game the way that I want to, I feel the need to rush through it. Frustrating. I spent much of the weekend doing that, which is one of several reasons this post was delayed.

It's interesting what kinds of details are deemed acceptable to share in the eyes of the many. A video thumbnail with text like "ROSEBUD KILLS DUMBLEDORE IN AVENGERS ENDGAME 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOOPS" or whatever would be a big no-no, but showing a picture of Bumblechu next to its evolution, Bumblechu 2: Electric Boogalchu, is fine because apparently nobody sees that as spoiling anything... Bleh.

...I complain, after complaining about people complaining. Also I probably vent about pretty much the same thing every time a new Pokemon generation comes out!



A couple of final things:

I saw this thing on Reddit the other day:



I've written for a few weeks in a row that I have some emails I've been wanting to reply to. They're a variety of things, like heartfelt appreciation for my work, requests for my thoughts, even what I suppose could be called job offers. But I've still not replied to any of them!! It's not because I don't want to, I just... keep putting it off, until I'm 'in a better state of mind'. Avoiding it. At least I'm not alone in that, if this tweet is ~relatable~ enough for it to be both made and shared, but I still feel a lot of guilt about it and wish I didn't do this. I've been doing it for years, too...

Maybe this week I'll actually reply to some things. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I'll actually contact the counselling service too, like I meant to every day last week but kept putting off until 'tomorrow'. I don't think I can today though. I'll do it tomorrow!! (I wrote much of this post on Monday and I'm editing it on Tuseday, which is tomorrow from then... but I don't feel any better today, so I'll do that tomorrooooowwww uggghhh.)

This prolonged slump combined with it being basically the Friday end of the year makes it so easy to just put off making more Atonal Dreams progress until next year... which is likely to be what I end up doing at this point. Maybe I'll just try and take it easy until then, if that's even possible. Clean up some other stuff that's been cluttering up my mind for a while.

I'm still interested in looking into porting a collection of my old Flash games to Steam, so I'll at least try to look into that. Setting up the new main page with just three games listed made me wonder whether I should port Clarence's Big Chance separately - as I've thought and written about before - since it was actually finished; I even replayed it a week or so ago, alongside some other old games I grew up with, and felt it held up well enough (mostly, though some writing bits are just mean-spirited and I'd prefer to rewrite them). Maybe I'll think and write more about that next weekend, though.