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The Amazing Digital Circus; Inspiration from Depression

1 year ago1,327 words

While lying in bed depressed, I had some ideas for creative stuff, and also saw this thing called The Amazing Digital Circus that you may also have seen!

Thankfully the miserable nadir I fell into over the weekend was short-lived. I'm not absolutely better or anything - I'm still very mentally ill - but I'm at least not quite as bad as I was the other day, after having talked about things with some people.

(I don't like being so vague, as I'm usually not, but this time I just can't be bothered going into the weird ways my mind is bothered by things others would be fine with. It's over now, anyway. Probably.)


Have you seen this? It's got 76 million views at the time of writing, several youtubers I follow have made videos about it, and I've seen characters and shots from it used in some memes in unrelated communities, so maybe you have. At first I assumed it was some new indie game, but when I saw that it was an animation freely available on YouTube, I...

Well, honestly, I was reluctant to watch it for reasons similar to those that put me off playing Undertale at first. Creative envy, essentially. I suppose the depressive slump weirdly numbed the reluctance or something though? Whatever; I watched it, anyway.

And I liked it! I admire the character designs, the novel ideas, the artistry behind it all. I like that the main creator both draws and composes music, and her music has an idiosyncratic quality to it that I don't hear in slicker, more 'professional' fare.

Something that stood out in particular to me was that the... animation ('episode'? 'show'? 'project'? 'creative work'? unsure how to refer to the thing as a whole!) is obviously driven by female minds. I've always found it odd that more women than men tend to be into art, and the online art communities like deviantART, Tumblr, etc seemed to be dominated by them, but pretty much all the TV cartoons we grew up with were made by male creators. PATRIARCHY!!! and all that, you could say. Steven Universe was the first one I saw that wasn't - it was notable at the time for actually being made by a woman!! - and I really appreciated the different perspective. I think there are more women-led cartoons now, though my experience with them is limited so it's always something I find interesting when I do see them.

I particularly like that the main character, Pomni, isn't some damn tough, independent woman who don't need no man!! as an obnoxious proportion of stories seem to have these days. Her body language and mannerisms are neurotic, vulnerable, hurt, weak. She makes a selfish mistake when heroism might have been more typical. Nor is she sexualised; you wouldn't even know the character was female from an image alone. No curves or hair bow or lipstick. Gasp.

I notice these sorts of things with curiosity, and wonder whether they register at all as remarkable to others, or whether I'm just weirdly cut-off and other people just accept it without noticing, so to speak. I was surprised when I realised Pomni was a she, but was that just me? Maybe. I may have a different attitude towards gender than is currently culturally common. Or not. I don't know.

Another thing I noticed that's likely different from what saner people got out of this is that... well, like with Undertale, I can see why it's been so popular. The themes it explores and the general vibe of it all seem congruent with a lot of recent trends I've noticed, especially the backrooms/mystery element (and I suppose the simulation/VR thing is a part of the Zeitgeist too). I found out it was on YouTube via this Film Theory video, for example:



The whole art direction feels trendy to me, too. Maybe you'd know what I mean if I were to say that sometimes you can come across drawings that look like they came from Tumblr or deviantART, as if that whole community is reflected in them; this felt kind of like that. There's a rabbit character whose name I can't recall or be bothered looking up (Jax?), whose visual design and personality seemed to give this impression quite strongly for me. (I also wondered whether these 'appealing (male) jerk' characters are more common in women's art for the same reason they're ostensibly inclined to be attracted to bad boys (it's notable that this character is tall); a lot of female artists I've seen over the years have included such an archetype prominently in their rosters of 'OCs'. There's a bit where he verbally dismisses and pushes over a(n also sad, vulnerable, nonsexualised) female character in a way I can't imagine a male creator getting away with!)

None of this is meant as anything like criticism, to be clear! I suppose they're just things I notice because I see they're popular, and I notice how they're different to the things I make, which my negatively biased mind sees as evidence as how the stuff I make won't appeal to anyone because it's not like the stuff that does. Something like that. Basically the same feelings I had about Undertale.

(Plus I suppose the kinds of comments people have left on my own stuff over the years - eg Collie being inappropriately sexualised - impact how I see things.)

And I suppose those feelings are at the top of my mind because of the other thing I want to talk about...



Or actually, hmm, maybe I'll just be vague about this?

Basically, for years I've wanted to make some specific thing that I can't adequately explain other than that it's not a game. Maybe 'semi-animated webcomic' gives some idea. As much as I like making games, they take so damn long to make, so this thing seemed like a way to use my current skills to make something I could put out maybe weekly episodes of.

I suppose the closest thing I've posted before is this:



Though I've experimented with and refined the format in several side projects over the last few years to the point where that 3-year-old thing looks primitive and very flawed to me now. I'd really like to make something with the new format to show what I mean, but I've never been able to decide on a story or cast of characters that I'd want to use for something I could make public, or which could span a long duration.

While lying miserably in bed, though, inspiration struck, and now I have an idea I really want to explore! Something with a lot of constraints which should make it actually feasible to do quite quickly.

I want to spend the rest of this week playing around with concept art and stuff, though ideally I'd want to get to the point where I have a working proof-of-concept demo I can show off. Don't know how long that'll take, other than that it'd be a tiny fraction of what it'd take to make a game demo. I'll likely post something on Patreon at some point.

Maybe it'll go nowhere and I'll just get back to Dreamons or Atonal Dreams or whatever, though I've been waiting for inspiration for this for years - and I've been feeling lousy lately - so I want to seize it while it's with me.

I know that's annoyingly vague, but I don't want to get discouraged if people take issue with anything before they have a chance to even see what I'd likely do a poor job of trying to explain. And maybe if something comes of it, we can look back at this post to see where the idea sort-of started or something!

(Plus I just wanted to knock the previous pathetic post off the top of the Latest list!)