Crushed by myself?

It’s kind of ironic, how after so many things had happened to me, which I more or less managed to get through that it’s something inside myself that crushed me the most.
Maybe because I never quite managed to deal with all those pains cause by my past…maybe because I was getting more and more skilled at avoiding rather than dealing with issues….that it happened at some point, that I feel unable to do most of the things one would expect a healthy adult being able to do….like showering…eating regularly…doing laundry, keeping your house and home clean etc.
There were many times, when I started to panic, if a path I was going, didn’t look like it was going towards my dreams…I thought, as long as I can go THE path that I imagined to be the path to my dreams, nothing can stop me and I would be able to get better and happier in life, the closer I get to my dreams…
but I didn’t quite realize what I was setting myself up to….an expectation…that I will do something, I don’t even know everything about….an expectation that all my problems won’t or barely would matter anymore if I would just get there.
I was wrong…and painfully so….
What ended up happening, is that I started feeling desperate…despair…panic, when I noticed how I couldn’t “just” work….when it felt like my dreams were so close…I could touch them with my hands….when I felt hopeful that everything would be okay now, because no one could stand in my way of getting there anymore….
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t do as I thought I should be able to….I felt like I failed….heck I somewhat still do feel like I failed. I thought that maybe, all this time, when people told me in the past that I’m just lazy and that I won’t get anywhere…all the voices of people doubting me…what if they would have been right all along?
…I felt….what is my life even worth if THE very thing that kept me going forward…the very thing that I thought is my passion…my desire….my ultimate goal…if I couldn’t do it when I  have the chance to? because of some mental blockage…..

I have been in therapy for about a year now….on anti depressant medication aswell….I have been going once per week since a few months…and I’m having suicidal thoughts…I feel like I’m wielding these suicidal thoughts like a sword, something I can use if I really can’t cope anymore…just that I don’t really know, what “too much” is…I find it scary…and at the same time soothing…it gives me a little hope, that I have not gone past fantasizing about it…
….but it scares me nontheless….because, before I started my own company and to develop my game “professionally” I was convinced that I would never ever feel suicidal again….I was convinced that I already went through the worst…I was convinced that I’m surrounded by good things in my life, despite the stress motherhood came with…
good enough that I took the plunge on doing something scary…starting my own company…

I honestly don’t know where this is going…or if writing here is gonna help me at all…I just felt like, since I was using this blog to show myself how I can be consistent and persistent and it was giving me confidence in myself that I can do some things…that maybe….writing here would help me feel a little less bad.
…

maybe I could write a little bit ^^

It has been quite some time since I wrote here last time and no, it’s not because I don’t like my blog anymore 😛
I still think that this blog is very important to me, but I was getting insecure about telling about things that aren’t so much game related anymore, since I originally had made this blog with the intention of using it to show my progress in it.
Well….but life doesn’t always go smoothly and I have been on sick leave for many months now….and in therapy and on medication and trying to work through the problems I’m having.
It honestly feels a little bit surreal, to be told that I can “practically” do whatever I want, even encouraged to do so, because for so many years I was always bashing myself to not be good enough and not living up to mine or “imagined others” standards.
Also…last time I thought I took a break for a year to “find myself and get better” it was without therapy and I felt guilty about it being a hole in my resume….
but…that doesn’t matter anymore…all I care about now, is that I can find a way to get better and get back to what I love doing…which is making games, creating worlds, being creative and sharing it with others ^^

I’m….a little bit more hopeful again, that things might go better…slowly…carefully…allowing myself to believe that my past, especially the bad stuff that has happened, doesn’t need to continue defining my life and that I can change it.

I want to live.

Coming to terms with the state I’m in

I can’t deny it any longer that I need help. As far as I know I have been suffering from anxiety, depression and possibly OCD my whole life. I don’t have any diagnosis (yet), but I’m wanting to change that to get proper treatment.
I reached a certain…black hole in my life, beginning of this year…getting burn out from doing the best I could and at the same time bashing myself for not doing good enough ever. Like a constant reminder of what a failure I would be on repeat.
I know it’s not true…or I should know it isn’t, but it’s hard to see through that wall, that I have been living with for most of my life.
I finally got the courage to ask for real help, to ask for what I need and to put my health first, so that I have a chance to get better at any point. I’m currently trying anti-depressants (which seems to have helped a little bit, making it possible for me to at least do some laundry or dishes without feeling completely exhausted) and I’m gonna see a therapist end of this week…..
I want to get better….I’m sick of being sick.
So…health first, my game(s) have to wait.
one little bit of hope though, through all that darkness, it seems that games are a passion for me…I’m glad that’s clear for me now.

Whiskers Collision and struggle to come to terms with resting.

I actually managed to get myself out of the general fear and anxiety to keep working on the game. I felt like everything I did was awful and couldn’t even start doing anything without getting burnout simply thinking about all the things I would need to do to get my game to the state I want it to be in….
I’m working on getting help, also talking to friends and trying to approach everything work related very gently. As much as I would like to be that superhuman being that is always working at 100% max capacity at all times and thinking I can sustain that over long period of time, I can not.
It’s hard to accept and even harder that when I’m thinking I’m already hanging far behind of what I wanted to achieve and what I thought I could achieve and then I HAVE TO take a break, find a way to relax and rest and not think about work….it feels like I should be working, trying to catch up with my huge list of things to do, but I know it’s gonna tear me apart if I try and do that again.

I don’t want to linger in the past and in what I perceive as my past failures, but my mind tends to hold it in front of me, like a bad parent would smear bad grades into their kids face, yell at them and scold them for doing so bad and few.
No matter what the truth of that specific child is, it hurts and it is usually not fair.

Despite all that, some week ago or so, I managed to get myself into programming/developing again. I was doing a little sideproject, something I’m very interested in, in terms of procedural generation. I really want to use it in my games in the future. And it gave me a little of that spark back to why I was actually wanting to make games, the fascination with making worlds etc.
It also gave me the courage to go ahead and start trying out something new for Critters, something I was quite afraid of starting, because there are many things that are interconnecting that need to be implemented and changed in my game in order for those things to work.
In this case I started with the one thing which I call “WhiskersCollisionDetection” it is practically a system, that allows every creature in the game to find their way around obstacles. Think: a cat’s whiskers helping to find their way in dark places by telling it through collision of the whisker tips where it can’t or can go.
I have already a working prototype of it and I want it to work together with a priority system (what a creature is interested in/looking for/needing at a specific moment) and a search system (creature walks around to find what it needs, like food)
and also to be able to avoid things that might be dangerous, like keeping distance of thornbushes or cliffs, though I want to implement an awareness system aswell, that should allow for accidents to happen 😛
I also want to replace the current cubs behaviour with those systems, so that they don’t blindly follow mom around in a rather straight line, but instead if they see food and mom is nearby, they will go to it and eat it, no need for micro managing their movements, but they should still prioritize following mom when as example a storm approaches.
Though I am starting to think that it might be useful to implement a sort of “call” for the mom, to be able to control that cubs follow you and that maybe those further away that might have gotten lost, find their way to you, if not too far away to hear the call aswell.
….I’m not giving up on this….I love doing this….I just hope that with some work on my health side, that I will be able to work on it more freely.

rough version of my past few months

Writing this post is not going to be easy for me….I have been avoiding to write here, thinking that I really don’t want to appear as always bad mooded, depressed and anxious, but that it seems to be my main concern in life, the thing that keeps coming back, my past haunting me, the present not really doing my much favors either.
I know it would be easy to just summarize the things that happened, that are easy to sympathize with. If I would simply tell about the struggles that everyone is seemingly able to relate to easily, like, the christmas time being somewhat stressful, new years eve, my 3 year olds birthday, though the truth is, most of the struggle regards those holidays is only the anxiety of having to interact with people I …struggle to interact with, if my family in germany is reading that: I’m sorry, it’s how it is….and I can’t even explain it to you in a way that you would fully understand, I think.
Then there were events, like my daughter getting pneumonia and being in hospital for a week, with lots of sleepless nights, not to mention worry and suffering. My plan was to actually somehow use the holidays weeks to not have to get my daughter to daycare (her daycare was closed over holidays) and SOMEHOW relaxing and trying to not think about work for 2 weeks…..but turned out, with that 1 week of hospital and practically 1 week of aftercare, that it was only what….1 or 2 days that I actually had somewhat of a bit of restful time? which was before the hospital…so it feels like nothing went how I wanted it to be and I’m practically still burned out, just, instead of being burned out by mostly game dev and my constant anxieties, now it’s also life stuff in general…..
and it DOES NOT help that I keep bashing myself for not doing enough, that despite friends telling me that I probably need some time off and I agree with that….it doesn’t take my fears and anxieties away…….that I have to build up a business, HAVE TO be a reasonable and responsible adult, that I have to take care of my child, somehow SHOULD take care of myself, that, if I ever want to fulfill my dream about making games for a living, like actually living from it, that I would need to do more, that I would be lazy and that I should have all the time I need to actually work on my game….BUT I barely get to open Blender or unity, while I really want to see the game to become what my vision for it is, I’m overwhelmed with all the anxieties, that I don’t know if I can make it, that I feel as if it will take forever, that my skills aren’t good enough to satisfy the people who would actually want to buy my game, that I can’t make my company selfsustaining with my income from selling games……there are so MANY freaking worries, all the time, which are making it even harder to actually work, giving me more food for my brain to dismantle myself, to question everything I do, because it feels as if I’m proving to myself that it’s right, that I’m not doing enough….that my company likely fails…that I’m likely not gonna be able to lead a whole team of people to make the game I’m dreaming of, that everything is likely gonna fail etc.
and whom am I to believe that it could be any other way? considering how my whole life is practically full of all those things I never had really control over, things just happening to me, pushing me down.
*takes a deep breath*
I hate it so much! that I feel helpless, that I feel anxious all the time, that I feel like everyone must judge me for not doing good enough, that I hate myself, that I have inherited so many bad things people told me throughout my life!
I hate that I can’t just shake it off and act as if everything is fine, because it comes through eventually, it always does and then I wonder, where I’m even taking the strength from….what keeps me going.

well…actually I do know….I kept some things close to my heart, always and I didn’t allow anyone to destroy those…..my imagination, my drive to create, my love for animals, dreaming, my passion for new things I’m discovering and can learn about.
It sounds a bit cheesy if I’m honest, but I think those are the things, that I want to live for….the “what could be” in a positive way…..
Games are a big part of my life, because they allowed me to experience and “live” so much of those traits that kept me going and alive.
It’s probably also why I want to make fantasy games, fantastic worlds to immerse into, that are not avoiding touch of reality, but at the same time allow you to see the world with different eyes.

hm.

Eventful week, in a sense ;)

I feel this week was indeed quite full of things. I started off by meeting someone to get evaluated, if I could maybe get an extension for the grant I have been working with the past 5 months and I hope it goes through, but it for sure makes and made me very nervous, because I have no idea how to evaluate my work and how others might see it and what exactly would be even “good” criteria to getting that extension of the grant through and on monday I’m gonna have a meeting about that again 😮 .

I know that I’m trying my best to make things work somehow, which is why I try my hardest currently to get the Steam Store page done and then evaluated and hopefully approved, so I can put it up on steam as “coming soon” and then hopefully! at 31st of October I would release my game into Early Access on Steam.

Honestly, I would have liked to wait with that for a bit longer, but my grant is running out at the end of October, I had struggles to deal with, that I really didn’t expect, some that could have been avoidable, but were due to my inexperience on how to work and stand up for myself. It all has drawn everything out and not only did I not feel good about it, I sort of bashed myself for it.
I try not do, but sometimes it’s hard when I think “I could have done better” even if that’s not true, since I really try my best to research and figure out things the best I can…..honestly…who knows what more could have gone wrong, if I wouldn’t be like that 😉
hah….I sidetracked a little bit.

Soooo….I made a bit of a deal with myself, to crunch through work until end of the month (trying to not overdo it though). That includes, setting up steam store page, making materials ready for promotion(videos, art etc.), adjusting my plans, getting my game into a relatively stable and feature complete state. I don’t know honestly, if I will get all the features in, especially the more complex ones, like save functionality….not even sure if I should do it, since I don’t know how to do that yet and I expect it to be quite a lot of work 🙂

Also…what the hell! I need to make a trailer for my game, from game footage 2 weeks away from the launch o.o and I have never done Video editing like that XD sure I edited some Videos while I studied, but I think I don’t really have a clue 😛 So that will be a first timer and I hope it’s at least gonna turn out moderate lol……
I really feel like graphically my game isn’t ready for such exposure of it’s graphics…>.< buuuuut that’s the version that is gonna come on steam…and if there are any extras, in case I manage to develop some more when the store page is up, I guess I can just update everything as needed 🙂 Maybe I can make the Video relatively “neutral” as in, it shows current game, shows what’s in it…..hmmm I will see what the results will be o.o
Also I wonder how my german accent would sound like if I would do a voiceover/talk ….could I pull off some sort of scientist explaining the life of critters like a documentation? XD

oh….and there are images to share 😀 I finished my promo picture, which btw. took much longer than I wanted it to…with occasional: sitting on my pc without anything happening to it for weeks….>.>

I’m honestly very proud of it 😀 only thing I don’t like, is that for some reason I chose this really weird format and never checked on what I actually needed rofl….which kinda bit me, when I tried to use this image on the steam store-page stuff o.o

hihihi first preview of my steam store page :3 I would be lying, if I would say that this wouldn’t make me somewhat excited 😀

oh and then I also updated all my EmberSparkz pages with my new image and even started work on a Critters own Sub Webpage on my main domain 😀
http://www.embersparkz.com/critters.html

what’s not so visible, is that I made all the “capsules” or images necessary for steam ready and I also created a unique Logo for Critters 😉
And just yesterday I have implemented food and “dead bodies” decay to the game, as well as fruits regrowing on bushes 😀

so yeah….quite lot’s of stuff that happened this week 😀

So much! So few time *sighs*

I think it’s about time I start prioritizing the actual game development. I have put much more time in trying to do business related things, than developing and it honestly has annoyed me quite alot. Not to mention, that I also had some personal issues “to deal with” again and those things just keep eating time, if I want to or not….and then on top of that I might have also felt quite depressed about not feeling like I’m progressing properly and feeling as if I ruined everything by not being active enough on social media etc.
Last 2 weeks were stressful to say the least…..
But I’m slowly crawling back out of that hole again and I was even pondering, if I get the time and to gather some experience with making Videos, if I should make a stream of me working on something.
I have no idea how that would go, cause I’m actually a quite shy person and not thinking that I’m very photogenic OR videogenic XD for that matter…..but I am curious about at least giving it a try.
(If someone wants to see it, please tell me so XD cause that could make a difference in how courageous I feel about it 😉 )
On a good note: I got to continue work on the final promo picture for Critters and my discord is still alive 😛 even though it’s not really “busy” in there XD. Also I might have found a solution for my grass bending/visibility problem with my cubs and have already implemented a first version of it.

A weeks busy business :D

Monday: got my ID, drove bus first time in 3 years in new country, got bus card, felt good

Tuesday: worked on camera controls and character movement, made new game icon, replaced splashscreen with unfinished promo picture, added logo as splashscreen

Wednesday: bank account made, register officially as creator on steam

Thursday: separated movement controls from camera controls

Friday: steamworks application went through and I was an emotional wreck for some time due to overwhelming feelings of “OMG I’m officially registered with my company on steam now! OMG ahhhhhhhh!”

Hah okay, so actually that list above was just meant as a reminder for myself what I would write about at the end of the week, but tbh I found it so entertaining to read it summarized like that, that I decided to just keep it 🙂 Also to give an idea how I’m wanting/had planned to write blog posts, to be able to know what to write about, since I might sometimes forget what exactly happened and this is a good way of reminding myself 😀
As you can see, it was a quite eventful week for me and a lot of things, that are not directly “game development”, but had to be done as a business and to be able to release games on steam O.o *tries not to hyperventilate*.
Also for anyone interested: I will try to aim for releasing an Early Access version of my game around mid October, but I don’t have an exact date yet, since there is so much to do and I’m already feeling slightly overwhelmed (and now that I have seen what Steam needs from me for the store page and other “little” things that I took for granted on steam games (lol) I was made aware that I might have to work a lot…. ;_;

It’s okay….I can do it….I want to do that, it was my wish to get where I am now and I will accept that I have to do those things, if I want to see this company and my dreams going anywhere XD just breathe…..slowly and steadily and make it work! 😀

Sorry for not really having any visuals this time 🙂 I hope I have something for next week. I will concentrate more on finishing my games banner and wrapping up the controls for now and likely will work on animations and such, probably should also add at least some sort of sounds. Anything graphical would be great to add atm I think, to be able to create some footage/screenshots for the steam storepage. Which also means I want to work on some feedback systems aswell since they are inevitably connected to some visual elements. As example I already have particle effects for overheating and poisoned, but I never implemented the mechanics for it, which shouldn’t be that hard, since it’s practically just a variation to the hunger and temperature system 🙂

Oh right I forgot, there is this 😀

Demo update and recap of last week

I had set up a deadline for myself to release the demo, no matter what, to gain some experience in how I handle my own deadlines and also how it would feel to know that there might be issues with it. To be able to go through the whole process to “release” the game. Especially one that I have had spend more time on than a weekend (ludum dare games).
And as expected, it was feeling a bit different. On one side it was more relaxed, because I knew that I am the one in control of when it would be published on itch.io unlike the ludum dare events, where it was always very anxious process in the last hour for submitting and because there was no way to push the deadline even if I had good reasons (like rl interfering or not feeling well etc.)
On the other hand, it was feeling weird to release a game I had spend more time on, but it actually was more buggy/laggy etc. than the ludum dare version, which makes sense, because it has more content, but it DOES make me think, that keeping a game from having any game breaking bugs is maybe more work than I would have thought.
Even now that I have updated last version (btw. with patch notes and announcement to get a feeling for that as well) to fix some major bugs and issues, it introduced new bugs due to changes I did that were not bug related XD
A bit frustrating, but also a bit amusing I admit.
Practically in the newest version, cubs don’t seem to die from starvation for some reason or at least not past first generation. Also the tornado is not pulling anything up….might have changed it’s pulling power or messed up a statement …whatever it was, it’s annoying when such things happen XD and I only noticed it when I presented my demo at a local IGDA event XD best timing for something to not work hehe.

Oh well, but the good thing is, that I’m getting more experience with things now 🙂 also interacting with players in regards to feedback on how they like it (or don’t like it) and to get bug reports and dealing with those bug reports. While I got a glimpse into that from my ludum dare participations, it was far less extensive and to be fair, it also mattered less, since ludum dare games are not made for others necessarily 🙂 it’s more like a place I can go, test my skills, improve my skills, test out ideas and have fun 😀 and make something small and without any commitment into having a fully polished and finished product.
It’s different with Critters now though, this is a longer term project and I have the goal to finish it up for release on steam towards end of the year or beginning of next year, ideally I would like to try early access before that, but I know of the possible risks for that, especially depending on how far my game is at the point of EA.
Currently I don’t think my game should be put up on steam for it’s current state, but I’m hoping that end of next month, I might have a version that is more suitable for it 🙂
But that’s honestly, very optimistic thinking, because there is really a lot to do.

btw. here is the link to newest version of my demo 😉
https://farelle.itch.io/critters-cute-cubs-in-a-cruel-world

my plan is to use itch.io, maybe also gamejolt, to get some first feedback for it and then, when I feel it’s ready I go to steam. When everything goes well and I can say that the game has a sort of “finished” state I’m going to include GOG and other portals as well.
Honestly I’m a bit afraid of publishing on steam, depending on how much traction I would get, I’m afraid of negative and especially unfair critique, but I hope I can handle it. So far negative criticism, was at least not making me want to stop game development. It just made me wonder, what it is they see and if there is any way for me to help them see my game in the right light, but that I might not be able to change everyone’s perspective on it and just have to move on.

btw. those were some very efficient and productive 2 weeks 😀 I actually overworked myself somewhat to get the demo out, but I’m happy with it *pushes doubts and self critique in a bottle to be opened later*

HacknPlan and some crittercalypse XD

I’m glad that finally my “forced” vacation is over, but after a week of my daughter going to daycare, we both catched a cold and I was really not happy about it, because I already struggled a lot last week with getting myself to tackle the more “scary” things that need to be done to make progress in the actual game, rather than the advertising part or other way easier things (like making a shader for fog surrounding the bottom of the islands O.o)
ok I admit, it wasn’t necessarily easier, but it allowed me to believe I would make progress while doing something that has not much importance attached to it….so in one way I would feel less like screwing up something important, but if I would screw it up, it wouldn’t really matter. But that’s also exactly the problem *sighs* Since it really doesn’t contribute to any gameplay and is more eyecandy than anything else….
And it made me anxious and doubt myself and made me feel and think that I might not be able to finish Critters afterall, if I keep doing this.
Soooo after sitting down with some friends to talk about it, I came to the conclusion that i need to do what i felt like avoiding all this time: set a date and a plan on when i want to have a playable demo done with an at least crude version of all the new mechanics that i wanted after the Ludum Dare version of the game. Something that i can compile and give to people to playtest it, something tangible, that makes me actually feel like i can do this! What I set out for.
And coincidentially and luckily I had stumbled on a game dev video (I watch a lot of those) where one dev was using HacknPlan, a service, last time I heard about, was advertises as beeing like trello for game devs, but oh boy, I don’t understand why they would be underselling their product by comparing it to trello 🙂

I used Trello for a long time now and what always bugged me, is that it seemed to lack any form of categorizing that would allow you to practically make folders and make everything look less cluttered, while there were lists and color-tags and such, I found it always ending up in a mess, organisatory and overwhelming to look at 😮
So when I heard of hacknplan to be like trello, I thought it would not be worth looking into, because I already had settled with Trello and have a lot of content in there.
Until a few days ago, I actually looked into it and found out, that it had exactly the kind of subcategories and planning tools I was so desperately missing in trello 😀
Not only that, but because it’s optimized for game devs, the lists and tasks provided are already fitting mostly to my Project(s), so I barely need to do any setup or changes to what’s there and can just start adding tasks 😀
Also another nice function is, that I can put in time estimates and later on can actually see if my estimate was correct or not and that way, if I do this for a longer time, I might actually be able to estimate things more accurately 😀
Oh also, since I figured i needed a due date for a demo etc. with that nice “Milestone” setup, I made exactly the playable demo a milestone and wrote down everything that I think is needed to understand and be able to play the game like it’s meant to, with it’s bare bones 🙂
heck it even shows if the estimates i made for each task is actually time wise fitting with my due date XD This is taking soooo much of planning off my shoulders 🙂

So after I set up everything last night for the coming 2 weeks (yeah it’s quite tight deadline I made) I actually got everything done I had planned for today 😀 despite me and my daughter being sick ^^ I’m so happy about that 😀

here some screenshots and gifs I made from it XD:

practically, what I implemented today is, that I can spawn in new critters on pressing L and kill them all by pressing K XD
and I found out, that apparently my game didn’t break when I spawned in more than one litter 😀 which is great ^^ it’s just getting a bit fps heavy after adding too many and when all the debug prints are taking over the console log XD

Also, those are the new models 🙂 still with missing mouths and currently they are only having random colors for all their colorable body parts 🙂 so they are kind of monochrome, but that will change ^^ As well as the randomness in general.
Ideally it’s gonna be like this:

and more ideally their colors would be dependent on each other, to avoid unpleasant or color combinations that would make patterns invisible.

Also, I have a little sneak peek on the banner I’m working on 😀 which is close to finish 😀

I’m actually really excited about it’s progress and the ingame eyes will be made more closely to resemble those drawn ones 🙂 I hope I can also make some shaders to get a proper cartoon like specular and iridiscent iris reflections 😀 haha
I love how their eyes look like gems XD