Heya friendos! After a week of fuming, I’m back to the normal day-to-day stuff. I’ll share some brief thoughts on the current state of politics and then we’ll get into the current state of my game project as well. Then, let’s see what’s ahead of us in the future!

How Am I Doing?

I’m doing well! Last week‘s rant about right-wing populism has assuaged my anger about the political state of the world for a bit. I’ve done some sports, did some chores, caught some sun. It gave me the headspace to think about why this is happening again, with more empathy.

I think the chief cause of radicalization is that we lack a sense of community. We’ve traded the real-life contact of neighbors and our local communities with online echo chambers. When you meet people with different views and backgrounds face-to-face, you’re intuitively more open to what they have to say. They’re people first, and ideology second. But online, we don’t grant each other that grace. People are anonymous; a single number in a sea of millions. A digital message stating something that challenges your assumptions is to be ignored or reviled, but never sympathized with.

Yet, so much of our lives are spent in the digital world, and so much of it is under the pretense of social contact. It’s only natural for us to assume that platforms built around those ties are natural substitutes. But they’re not. Modern-day social media’s goal is to reduce people to statistics, specifically to drive engagement for advertisement revenue. They’re not designed to serve our need for community, as much as they like you to believe that.

I’m not saying that online communities don’t have value, of course. It’s not hyperbole to say that online communities have saved my life in the past. However, they tend to take away the human element from what makes a community. Since they live on your device, you can choose at any moment to put them away, severing any responsibility you might feel for the people affected by it. Besides, they have hundreds or thousands of other people to rely on at any given moment. It feels discardable.

I think populism is very effective at tapping into that lack of community. “No, it’s fine. It’s not your fault that you’re lonely, it’s all these other people that are making the world shit.” Then they gradually erode your sense of empathy and the relations you do have to make you rely solely on them. It’s the same playbook as cults have.

Is it people’s own fault that they get recruited into cults? Or the fault of those who run it? I do think you’re culpable when you cross a certain threshold, but we shouldn’t forget that people are fallible. Seeing it like that makes me a little less bitter and a little more motivated to find practical solutions like studying cult deprogramming and such.

What Am I Doing?

Other than all that, I’ve been making tons of headway on not-Rumorweaver-anymore. I really need to come up with a new name at some point. After doing some planning, I’m not so sure my initial idea of releasing in March is realistic, however. I’ll try my best to get a version that’s playable start-to-finish before that time. But to include feedback, bug fixing, localization, marketing materials, and a marketing campaign means that launching around then is going to be pretty difficult.

Also, the vertical slice never had a satisfying conclusion, because it was meant to be a demo of sorts, leaving you to want more. But now, I want to turn it into a standalone project, the story needs to make promises and pay off in a satisfying manner like you would expect from any good story. That practically means I have to create a whole new act at the back end of the game.

It’s also a game about choices, so it matters a lot how your choices as a player affect the ending. That’s a lot of work that I didn’t put in my original planning. It feels like the finish line has moved significantly, but luckily I still feel pretty optimistic about the whole thing.

Why Am I Doing? (this)

I have consigned myself to a year of hard workd to try to make money. I’ll keep a tight grip on my wallet, don’t plan too many vacations, don’t go out to restaurants too often and focus mostly on my projects. I want to try in earnest to see if I can create financial stability completely through my own power so that I don’t have any regrets when I do have to get a “regular” job again.

At this point, I have a hard time imagining myself going to the office everyday to work on someone else’s thing. I love the freedom of staying in my pyjamas all day and jumping from project to project to my hearts content. That being said, I’ve leveled up in the narrative design and writing departments, so I think I would also very much enjoy a position like that.

But until then, let’s make some games!