Post-Mortem Reflection

Content warning: discussion of depression, suicidal thoughts, and feeling like I and my work doesn't matter.  Also angry ranting.

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This game is a vent piece, in case that wasn’t fucking obvious.  It wasn’t intended to be one—when I was planning it pre-O2A2, it was going to be a positive mental health story.  But my depression got really bad before & during O2A2, and I couldn’t write that story anymore.  I had to let my feelings out, so I let out with Shyler.

I constantly feel like nothing I do matters.  I've been making games for almost 10 years, but it feels like my work has barely been seen by anybody at all.  I just released a new game called Romance The Backrooms, an otome I'm really damn proud of, one I want to see through via crowdfunding in the future, but has anyone played it?  NO.  THEY FUCKING HAVE NOT.  And if nobody plays it, nobody is going to fucking crowdfund it!  Sure, I have a 2nd demo planned for Spooktober, but is that really going to get that many more people interested?  I love this game so much, but it's barely been noticed; it makes me feel extremely defeated and sad.

And I'm just a solo dev, but I’m trying my best with marketing for fuck's sake!  I have joined a TON of social media sites to promote it, and I post something for RtB literally every single day.  But do people notice?  NO!  It feels like I am screaming into the void, and the void is laughing its ass off, wondering why this little shit is wasting his time.

The most fucked-up thing to me is that people have only flocked to tell me that my work matters during periods where I wanted to kill myself, and I asked people whether anything I did meant anything.  Now that I want to die, NOW you decide to speak the fuck up?  Where the HELL were you before I got to that point, motherfucker?  Why do I have to be on the edge of death before people tell me my work has meant ANYTHING to them?!

I see other otome games with a large number of comments and I get so jealous.  I only get comments when I specifically ask people for them--that's why Somewhere Near Romance has a TON compared to the rest of my projects.  That's related to the "logically, emotionally" line Shyler says, btw--I know LOGICALLY that my work has impacted people because people are still playing Somewhere Near Romance SEVEN YEARS into its life, but EMOTIONALLY, that barely matters.  My depression brain justifies it by saying, "People are only leaving comments because you asked them to.  That's the only reason people ever want to tell you things about your work.  Look at your other games.  They don't have comments.  That's because people don't care about what you make."

Look, the point is that I am TIRED.  I love creating things with all my heart and soul, and if I wasn't able to create, I would lose all meaning in life.  But goddamn, it's so hard to want to make stuff when it feels like nobody cares about what you put out.  It makes everything feel so pointless, and when it feels pointless, why even try?  I love Romance The Backrooms so much, and yet I'm THIS FUCKING CLOSE to throwing in the towel and giving up on marketing it, because nobody gives a flying fuck.

This has just turned into another vent, and I feel bad about that, but at the same time, I don't feel bad at all.  Does that make sense?  It makes sense in my autistic brain, somehow.

Thank you to everyone on the team who helped bring my angry vent to life, especially Nobody, the voice of Shyler.  I am extremely grateful to all of you for working with me on this.

That's all I have to say.  I don't feel like writing anymore.

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Update: 7-17-24

I'm doing a lot better now, thankfully.  When I'm in the depression hole, I really get anxious about whether the things I do/make matter, especially if I don't feel seen.  The game and what I wrote here is the result of that.  When my mental health is at its best, I know that the things I make matter to me, and that is enough.  But when I'm out of balance, it's hard to remember that.