Do you like math? Me either. But more on that later.

In my post about Every Story is The Same, we learned all stories, and by extension life, follows a predictible pattern: descent into chaos and return to the known. Insights are gleened by breaking through order by making sense of the chaotic unknown. Perhaps you've learned some shit about yourself producing content on this site.

Almost every game I've created has taken me on this cyclical ride. Much like a sine wave, the whole process is highs and lows. Sometimes you run out of money, sometimes your vision isn't as cool as you thought it was, people will drop out of your project and others will flat out discourage you (avoid these people, energy vampires). There are often times you think of just giving up.

But also, things go well. You have a breakthrough, people find your game fun, you sell copies and are proud of your work. Then you are re-inspired to power through.

See how that works below? Imagine the sine wave is your happiness at the top, misery at the bottom.
 

Game Dev, as with any long project can have bouts of doubt, misery and depression.

But these things are mitigated by having a healthy lifestyle... something we internet cretins neglect sitting in doors, in the darkness hunched in front of blue light all day.

I battled the depression monster during the development of every single game I ever made. All the way from Slime Quest to Sentry Knight Tactics, the long process and anxiety of reception layed on me. I'll be sure to talk about this more.

But honestly, during Realm Raiders its been not so bad. In fact most of the time its good. Its actually great right now and I feel good. But I owe that to good self-care. So thats why I've started a self-care video resouce to help pull other people up to where I am. Check out the Intro Video:

I would post on NG but I think theres too much video footage to not get Tom Fulp in trouble. Maybe future episodes can be posted here.

Love you all,
- Tyler