Has it really been four years since the last one?
Today it’s been four years since I released Splinter Zone on Steam. Today is also the day that I published the Steam page for my next commercial game, GB Rober (please go and wishlist it!) . It’s weird how this stuff sometimes falls into place. I didn’t intend to have both of these days fall on the same date, but then again, not much of the last few years went the way I intended.
I remember four years ago how exhausted and happy I was after having released Splinter Zone. How I walked through the streets thinking “look at these people, I bet none of them have just finished a videogame.” Not only did I finish a game, I finished it while starting out with almost no real experience and next to no resources. Yet I still managed to make something I was tremendously proud of.
It felt like the start of something new and exciting, after a few years of fumbling around without any real idea about where I should take my life next.
I remember getting sick shortly after the game’s release and staying sick for basically the rest of June, as my body tried to tell me as clearly as possible that I definitely overdid it this time around
I remember starting to get a creeping sense of dread, as I slowly realized that whatever low goals I picked in terms of Splinter Zone’s commercial performance, were still way too optimistic.
In the months after that, whatever optimism I had made room for an even deeper sense of despair, as I understood that basically I’m right where I was back when I graduated University. Stuck in a dehumanizing welfare system, with no clear path out, but three years older, and with Panic Attacks and the deep feeling that I basically wasted decades of my life without much to show for it.
How my life collapsed even further after the sudden passing of my Mother on New Year’s Eve of 2017/2018.
I honestly have no idea where the time went after that. I know that I tried to make games, but some smaller stuff aside, the bigger stuff never got anywhere. Until sometime in mid 2019, while playing Splinter Zone again, I caught myself wondering how I ever had the energy to actually make something that extensive.
I tried to get help and it took over two years from my first attempts at finding a Therapist, until I finally found one, because mental health care in this country is terrible.
Things slowly started to turn around by the end of 2019. I changed my diet, I started taking Antidepressants, I started going to Therapy. I still had panic attacks, especially in early 2020, but things started to look better.
Then in October of last year I got diagnosed with ADHD. I was suspecting that I have it for quite some time already, but having the confirmation really helped me with putting my life into perspective. So many things that I always assumed were personal failing of mine, my impulsiveness, my tendency to forget stuff, my inability to work on something that I find boring and uninteresting, weren’t really the result of me being lazy, or me being inconsiderate. It was the result of a fundamental incompatibility between the way I process the world and what the world in turn expects of me. And how this incompatibility was the main driving force behind all these other mental health issues I developed over the years. It still sounds strange, because blaming yourself for everything bad that happens to you is so ingrained in our culture, but it actually wasn’t my fault that I got depression and panic attacks. It was me trying to live in a world that’s not fully compatible with me, that made me sick.
I remember, on my way back after getting the diagnosis, how I kept telling myself “none of this was your fault.”
On a strictly material level, my life hasn’t changed in the last few years. I’m still getting welfare, I still have a strange assortment of degrees and skills that might make it hard for me to find stable employment (I also refuse to work for a pittance just to appease the welfare lords), but right now, my perspective is different.
All things considered, it’s not surprising that I finished GB Rober at this point and not earlier. I just wasn’t able to make something this big for a long time. But now I can do this again and this time (at least so far) I did not overwork myself to do so.
I have a lot of problems with the games industry, but then again I have a lot of problems with capitalism. Both, in my eyes, need to go, but that’s not something that can happen over night. I still want to make games, I still would like to very much earn a living with this and I believe that I’m good enough at what I do, to deserve this.
Anyway, GB Rober now has a steam page! Please wishlist it and tell your friends to do the same!