Another days-late post! Depression slump continues. Some thoughts about a CBC port or remake and rambling about computer crashes and cutscene 'games' I enjoy making for myself but doubt would appeal to others.
Ugh, in the past I've enjoyed keeping these weekly updates, though for the umpteenth week in a row I'm writing it late because I'm still stuck in some damn depressive episode. Hardly the first time I've been through such a thing - as the blog archive embarrassingly makes clear - though it's frustrating how it becomes self-sustaining by wrecking my sleeping with insomnia so I'm tired all the time and... ugh.
Anyway, I'll start again by talking about some stuff I have done... sort of.
I've been thinking more about porting Clarence's Big Chance to Steam. I've thought about this for years, but I've never really been sure for a few reasons.
Why make a new image when I have this gif I've used several times?!
The main one is that unlike MARDEK, few people have ever mentioned it to me or said they'd like to see more, or a port, or it made their childhood, or whatever... which is fair enough since it's quick, silly, and crude and as such unlikely to really stick in the memory like an RPG you've spent dozens of hours in might. Or maybe it just doesn't motivate people to reach out even if they do remember it? I don't know.
(Though I got an email recently (which is annoyingly in the queue of 'things I really should reply to' alongside several months-old messages) from someone who said they liked both MARDEK and CBC when they were younger but never realised they were from the same dev. They are very different, after all!)
I also feel like a lot of the writing is crude, not just in the sense that it's inappropriate, moreso now than it was back then (where so many Flash things reveled in humour we'd hopefully all scowl at these days), but very... first-drafty, in a way that I suppose MARDEK's is too but which bothers me a lot these days. Some bits are just clunky and really could use a rewrite!
But would any kind of rewriting feel 'wrong' in some sense, because it's changed from the original? Hmm.
Despite its flaws, I've replayed it a couple of times over the past few weeks, and I enjoyed the experience at least as much as some other old games from my childhood that I've been replaying. I still find the absurdity of the level layouts hilarious - and frequently giggled to myself when I took a moment to think about what was actually happening on screen (eg Clarence swimming through the sewer pipes beneath his several dozen swimming-pool-sized baths then jumping on a rubber duck and eating its beating heart) - and I feel the duration isn't overwhelming and the multiple endings add replayability.
The main barriers in the way of a port are technical, though.
When I was looking into porting my old Flash games a while back - at least a couple of years ago, I think? - I thought getting Adobe Animate - which is what Flash became - would be the best course of action. It couldn't open old AS2 projects like MARDEK, so I had to take a different path for that, but it was able to run and export Clarence's Big Chance, and apparently I already have an exe file of the game - built with Adobe AIR so it should run standalone, I think - so maybe I could just use that for a port...
(I think that gif's from that period actually, though my memories are hazy; I think I also wrote a blog post about my feelings about the game, but never posted it? I can't recall!)
Though I don't think I'd be able to get it working with Steam's Achievements system, plus the aforementioned rewrites would require getting Animate again anyway so... I might have to do that.
I think last time I got a 30 day trial, but it expired before I'd finished what I wanted to, so I had to pay the subscription fee for a month... Annoying, if I have to do that again. Makes me think I should do as much old game porting as I can during that time, before the 30 days (trial or month of subscription) run out... which is a big reason I've put off even starting on it.
That'd only work with the few AS3 projects I have though; most of my old games that people mention to me (Deliverance, Beast Signer, etc) were made in AS2 and would require exporting them from older versions of Flash, but last time I tried that the files just wouldn't open. So I don't know what to do there.
I started work on a '3D' remake of CBC - or basis for a sequel or something - in Unity...
...but I barely did anything on it because I couldn't concentrate. Or was indecisive about whether I should even work on such a thing at all. Something like that.
I hate how these depressive episodes happen every so often and plague me for weeks or months at a time and prevent me from doing the work I need to do in order to escape the life circumstances that are the primary reason they happen at all. I wouldn't be able to get away with this if I had an employer! Which is a reason I feel I'd struggle if I did have a normal job. But I am disappointing my boss a lot, since that's me, because I know I can't move on with my life until Atonal Dreams is out of the way, so I should really work on that, which means I have to do promotion stuff, and... ugh.
If all I had to do were the creative aspects, I'd be done by now, I think, but annoyingly the promotion stuff is absolutely necessary to make any money from it. And even that's not guaranteed. So draining to even think about.
But it's not as if I've been languishing in bed messing around on my phone for weeks. Recently, I've been working on one of my many side projects, which bring me great pleasure but which I keep to myself so they're not ruined by the pressure of having to impress other people. I've been doing like 6-9 hours of focused work a day on it, feeling reluctant to sleep and eager to wake because I was so enthusiastic about doing more on it.
This also happens every so often, and gets me wondering whether I have hypomania - the milder form of the mania of bipolar - due to the flow of creative ideas and lack of a need for sleep, which I've written about before. I'm not sure.
I do know that I crashed on Friday or Saturday though and have just felt cripplingly tired and unfocused since. What goes up must come down, I suppose.
Speaking of crashes, I mentioned in my last post that I got this weird error while using Unity - to work on this side project - which shut the program and crippled Windows such that basic things like opening menus or shutting down took 10+ minutes, persisting even after a shut down. I spent several anxious hours worrying about what was going on, running virus scans and built-in integrity tools some googling suggested, and eventually updated my apparently more-than-a-year-old graphics driver and thought I'd seen the end of it.
But I hadn't! And it was so weird. I'd get that error after a random period - sometimes five minutes after opening the project, sometimes five hours - and it'd usually cause those lingering Windows lags that'd require a restart. Or one time I literally couldn't shut down at all and had to force it by holding the power button. Eventually - after changing nothing - they progressed from the error message and lagging to a Blue Screen of Death each time, which was quite alarming!
What I finally did was just remake the project from scratch, which seems to have done away with it, though I imported essentially all the assets into the new one so I'm not sure what was going on there. Very strange. Not something I've ever seen before in the years I've been using Unity, though I did find ∞ threads on the help forum about it ∞ with no clear solution found.
So that cost me a lot of time and frustration.
This is an image of a years-old project which I conveniently have since I included it on the About page. The thing I've been working on recently is in 3D, way more complex and elaborate, but the kind of thing - just essentially cutscenes - is the same.
While I won't talk about this personal project in detail or anything - when I've done that in the past, it often kills my interest in them - it's basically the latest in a long line of 'non-games' I've made where characters just talk. No grand story, no challenging gameplay. Just a bunch of essentially cutscenes I can write and endlessly tweak until I'm pleased with them, of fairly ordinary characters in a real-world setting just talking about stuff friends might maybe talk about. I suppose I use such projects to scratch the itch others use actual friends for, and I'm drawn to them more and more the longer I go without human contact. And they're very alluring because I can make the characters say whatever I want them to instead of having to worry about what another mind thinks of me or get frustrated if they say something more hurtful than helpful. Something like that.
(None of the characters are based directly on me, but I suppose they're all based on people or experiences from my life in a way that resonates a lot with my memories but wouldn't mean as much or anything to other people.)
It gets me wondering - not for the first time - whether to make something like Alora Fane: Creation where people could essentially just make these cutscene-like things with characters they'd created using an editor... but I don't know if there'd be any interest because there'd be no gameplay, just dialogue lines accompanied by looping animations. Even though people didn't really use gameplay in AFC? Or maybe just being able to walk between things is crucial, which this is missing? Eh. I don't know. Having to imagine what minds other than my own think or would want adds an extra layer of exhaustion.
Or I've wondered for years now whether I could make something like this with a story set in the Alora Fane world and post the scenes as videos on YouTube... but I doubt it'd hold any appeal because all the text would be written as I can't do voice acting or be bothered with the process of getting others to do it (nor could I afford it).
This thing comes to mind as something created by a solo animator with the help of voice actors, who releases episodes of a... thing that I don't even know how to describe, which feels like just the tip of some iceberg of community involvement that I'm just not aware of (since I've watched a few over the years and have little to no idea what's going on):
I suppose they're not entirely dissimilar to what I've been doing in that they're short scenes of nothing much happening, just characters talking mostly, though I suspect most of the appeal comes from the impressive stylised animation and voice acting, so maybe comparing them to anything I do is an apples to oranges kind of thing. People in the comments seem to like them a lot, though, and I wonder how many other little communities exist out there around the nichey works of solo creators most people have zero awareness of.
I tend not to stick with these projects of mine for very long anyway - there's an explosion of fiery interest that lasts for a week or two before burning down to a crisp, at which point I just abandon whatever 'story' thread I'd been working with, or the entire project - so... pfff!
It's a shame though because I can make a scene in a day or two, rather than the years it takes to make a game, and I really wish I had something I could put out in more regular small chunks like that.
I suppose it's best to just keep it as an outlet for my creativity without worrying about doing anything with it. I see other creators speak with relief about things like picking up a hobby or doing a personal work that they - gasp! - didn't have to worry about monetising (eg collecting houseplants), and how amazing a feeling it was, since they worried about that for everything else they ever did.
It'd be so much easier to just go into an office, do some tasks, then go home and be done with it all! Probably. Though I've never had that experience so I can only imagine.
Anyway, I got carried away rambling more than I expected to. It is somewhat cathartic to do so, after all, even though I've said much of this before and I'm just going around in circles. I just hope that I'm able to get back into the swing of things again soon.
Maybe at the very least I need to post about Atonal Dreams on Reddit, finally. But then I feel I should play other indies' games first and comment on them so I'm not being entirely selfish, and... bleh, it all just feels like work so I get distracted, put it off...
I still haven't contacted a counsellor/therapist. I know I should, and I'm not reluctant about seeing one or anything, but I just feel so tired when I get like this and need to wait for it to pass. At least it always does, even if it takes time.
7 COMMENTS
ThePretentiousGamer11~2Y
My dear fellow, it is truly a shame that you are dealing with a depressive episode. But fear not, for I am here to support you and offer my encouragement. Your thoughts on porting Clarence's Big Chance are fascinating, and I must say that I concur with your observations on the crude and first-drafty nature of the writing. However, I do believe that a rewrite would not feel "wrong" in any sense, but rather it would bring new life to a beloved piece of work. And as for the technical barriers, I have no doubt that you are more than capable of overcoming them.
I must confess, I too have experienced the all-consuming flow of creative ideas and the lack of need for sleep that you mention. It is a most delightful feeling, is it not? And as for your side project, I am sure it is a masterpiece in the making. Do not let the pressure of impressing others hinder your genius. Keep pushing through, my friend, and never forget that you are worthy of success and happiness.
0
Lordofsea19~2Y
wtf
2
Comment awaiting approval
360K11~2Y
It's hard to tell just based on a description without seeing it, but based on what you say here (and the image you posted) it seems like what you're creating is essentially a comic. You seem to be thinking of it as a video game but without various things--voice acting, gameplay, battles--rather than as a comic that also happens to have some animation in it.
Of course, I'm only saying that based on a few sentences of description, but comics are a thing and they're popular in their own right. There's no reason that something has to be a video game (or some form of one) to find an audience--it just needs characters and writing that people will enjoy.
1
Wolf21~2Y
Visual novels are a really popular genre these days, though the quality of the art is usually a big draw and it's commonly in that heavily over-refined anime style. I'm not sure your style of art would be as well received as the buxom lasses of Definitely Not Explicit Anime Art (TM), but I'd definitely be interested. I've always liked your writing, even the parts you view as unrefined- in fact the aspect of it being unrefined is (in some cases) a stylistic choice and a big draw for me personally.
I'm not sure if you remember but way, way back in the day, the first thing I found that you'd made were some short stories. They were unrefined, but they were fun and had some cool ideas. I then clicked onto your deviantart page and found the (then) recently released SMECOF2005X. I've never, not for a single minute, regretted clicking through and joining your communities and following your work. While Clarence wasn't my favourite game of yours (I didn't enjoy playing platform games on PC, I much preferred being able to use a controller and I didn't even attempt to play CBC with a controller), I did really enjoy the writing. The whole idea of it and the execution was unique, and it came across as a thoughtful game - even it it presented itself in a crass way. I think it's possible that CBC could be a bit of a cult hit in the vein of Leisure Suit Larry or Johnny Bravo because of that.
In terms of the appeal of an office job, some people do thrive in that sort of environment, and to some it's soul crushing. I think it's highly dependent on the work, the people around you, and management. I'm a technical writer for a software company, and since covid I have the option to work from home but I still go into the office 3 days a week because I feel like I can get more things done, and I can leave work at work when I leave. It works for me, and I'm happy I got to this point, but these things aren't universal and from what I know of you, I imagine you probably wouldn't thrive in that environment unless you found somewhere comfortable with like-minded people, and then I think that's probably not as much the office thing as the people thing.
Having been through some fairly serious depression over my inability to function, to force myself to get things done (to do a fairly easy uni degree at the time) I really empathise with your situation. It wasn't until I got diagnosed with ADHD as an adult that I got the targeted help I needed and could start to feel and function better. The fact that you're still making every effort to push through is admirable. Honestly, I know how hard it can be. You've always had my respect and admiration, as a role-model from my formative years, as a creative, and as a thoughtful and insightful person. I think you might be too hard on yourself, and I know it's hard not to be - when you know your abilities and can envisage what you are capable of and you continue to not achieve what you have set out to, but you need to take it slowly and be proud of the things that you are achieving.
1
Tobias 1115~2Y
I appreciate you seeing value in me, and sticking around for as long as you have; that means a lot to me, especially during times when I'm struggling to see the potential in what I'm doing myself. Thanks for your empathy and understanding about that too; I just hope this current slump will pass soon.
It's great that you were able to get help that really did, well, help! I've tried a bunch of things for years, and nothing's addressed the main issues... but I suppose the brain cancer was the biggest rock in the road regardless of all those efforts anyway. If not for that, maybe I'd be doing something in the psychology field by now.
Though I've worked alone for so long, I'd absolutely prefer to have a work environment I could physically go to where I'd be able to interact amicably and share productivity with a group of like-minded, friendly colleagues! It's such a shame that's not happened, at I don't even know how it possibly could at this point. Joining some other company would be a roll of the dice, and past rolls haven't gone well for me.
It's so frustrating how much of what we're able to achieve or experience in life can come down to who we just happen to share circumstances with, due to no specific choices on our part, and there's little to nothing we can do to control that. A friend from uni is now living with her boyfriend who had a room next to hers in the halls of residence. I lived in halls for three years, and mostly got stuck with Chinese students who formed a clique, talked among one another in Chinese, and excluded me. Things like that.
Earning a decent amount of money for a game seems hugely luck-based too, as so much is down to the whims of algorithms.
I feel stuck on the road I'm on for now, anyway... I'll just have to hope Atonal Dreams isn't a complete flop when it finally does get released, and that I'm able to muster the motivation to stick with it to the end.
0
Falcon64~2Y
A cutscene generator with a somewhat robust character editor would definitely be an interesting tool to me, but I'm not sure how widespread of an appeal it might have. I do know there's similar tools out there already, and there's communities that use them for essentially creating stories with a visual element (though I don't remember any names off the top of my head).
Honestly, while MARDEK is considered your magnum opus, CBC holds particular appeal as a much more tightly-themed and *finished* game; I certainly replayed it several times, while I only ever finished MARDEK 3 once (and didn't 100% it)! The kinds of appeal the two games have are quite different, so there is value in getting CBC out there, I think.
7