/agdg/ - Amateur Game Development General

Not sad, more like gave up on happiness. Now all that matters is that I finish my game so I if I die I won't have been a joke.

Less "depressed" and more "desperate".

My life as it is right now is at a crossroads, and can go one of two ways. Down one path, I continue to exist the way I am, looking for IT jobs that don't provide any kind of satisfaction, where I perpetually fear making the one mistake that causes the bureaucratic asshole du jour to fire me, starting the cycle over again and continuously leaving me in a position of zero power over my surroundings.

The other path, I start making games professionally. I fully subscribe to the notion that making games for profit is a bad way to go, and if I made games I'd do it because it's truly what I want to do, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to make it my career. To be my own master, to be beholden only to myself and the people who like my games...such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world! And I know it wouldn't be easy, I know that I'd ultimately end up being poorer than I would in a 9 to 5, but just knowing that I'm being creative and that I'm bringing people joy would be enough to sustain me.

Right now I'm more or less stumbling down the first path, and every day it seems like the second path is getting harder and harder to walk down. The people around me need me to be a wage slave so that their lives can be easier, or because it's what's expected of me. Some of them know of my dreams, and those who do believe I can do it, but the real world is beating down on me harder and harder as I get older, and I see myself in ten years in the exact same spot I am now: struggling to find a steady job in a field I only like because I can fuck around on the internet during my downtime. Financially unstable, creatively bankrupt, and having a pure undercurrent of misery beneath my happiness with my family and loved ones.

But the reality of my situation, knowing nothing of programming, having no art or music skills and only having ideas, presses down on me like a lead weight. You would think it would motivate me, but really it just makes me not want to get out of bed.

>>22907

You'll never get anywhere if you don't start. Stop feeling sorry for yourself because you don't know anything and go fucking do something about it.

I don't eat right so I'm very lazy and sleep way more than I should. I'm also not very creative or funny, I think video games and alcohol ruined my funny bone.

>>22952

I'm also tired all of the time. I get tired early and wake up late and never feel ready to work.

I'm not even trying to create something unique. I just try to copy retro games that seem simple enough to make. I want to develop my skills so I can copy bigger and more complex games but I need to work harder and more often to achieve my goals.

I used to be a lot less lazy.

Depression is a myth.

There is no such thing.

Humans are not meant to be happy most of the time. It would not work as a reward or incentive if our brains worked that way.

I was once stranded in the woods all alone for three months in the winter, in Canada. I had to do things to survive, like collect firewood and ice fish at night (sleep during the day, avoid frostbite).

I was very sad at first, and grew hopeless. I faced down death daily and struggled to survive.

Hopelessness gave way to determination. Practice gave way to progress. Soon, I had widened the margin between life and death from a fine line to an almost comfortable path. Necessity gave way to

By the time the snows stopped I didn't want to leave. I had conquered, overcame. Every day was a challenge.

People get "depression" because it's too easy for them to live day to day. They don't have to fight to survive. Rather than each day containing a true accomplishment, mixed with fear and joy, risk and reward, they face the doldrums of mediocrity. They are not forced to live an adventure, and society shields them from doing so every day.

People who are happy most of all the time are either good liars, or are easily satisfied by meaningless achievements. The reason that so many great creators and innovators are depressed is because they need greater achievement to feel accomplishment than normals do.

If you are depressed it is because you are an adventurer without an adventure.

In an adventure we are allowed to make mistakes and recover from them. We have no time to be a perfectionist, we must accept fate and work with what we've got. Improvise or die.

You are not depressed. You are merely too comfortable.

>>25292

>Necessity gave way to

See! I don't even proof read anymore. How "risky".

I forgot to mention: Years after having that adventure I grew "depressed" but lucked into another hardship where I had to fight to survive living on the streets. A year or so after overcoming that ordeal, I was once again "depressed". That's when I realized the truth of what I wrote in the prior post.

Point being: I was once just a "depressed" guy working a dull job, leading a meaningless life making no satisfying accomplishments. Even between periods of strife and joy, I found comfortableness destroyed my soul. Take some risk.

If you can not take risk, then fake it. At the very least, make a list of goals for the day, and don't eat anything until one of them is met. Deprive yourself of absolute comfort unless you achieve. Happiness is just another word for comfortable pleasure, and requires periods of discomfort and effort to obtain.

>>25291

Don't give up anon, I was in the same position like a week ago, I felt so worthless that I didn't create something great, but in the end it's just my fault so all I can do is try again. And I have a better sense of motivation now.

That saying really is true, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so fucking beat your depression down and make your dream game.

>>25292

>>25293

You know what, I actually believe you and I do think that depriving oneself of stability and comfort helps. But there's one thing that you might be overlooking: other people.

You see, while it might be okay for a person, by themselves, to fix their brains by total comfort deprivation, doing so when someone else is looking at you (or worse, is dependent on you) makes that solution more or less non-feasible. When you have parents who you're on at least fairly good terms with, you can't cut out stability because you will always have THEM to fall back on, and unless you have ultra strong strength of character, eventually you will default to them.

But worse than that is if you have a wife or child (or both). If you have someone who depends on you, you can't take time to fix yourself through imposed hardships because their safety supercedes your own desire to become "better". After all, YOU are the one who wants to take on hardships willingly, can you legitimately justify forcing such discomfort on someone you care about just to make yourself feel better?

Now granted, for many on /agdg/, such a complaint is more or less moot. But for others (myself included), it's not an option.

>>25291

>I've always hated how that game represented depressed people as complete fucking retards, who are unable to do anything to improve their current situation, and instead do everything in their power to make their situation worse.

Because as much of a failure it's been, at least I'm fucking TRYING to do SOMETHING.

It's almost like it was written by someone who just wanted to latch on to us for progressive points.

>Anyway, yeah, I've been depressed for a couple years now. Shit makes it hard to get out of bed most days, but I kinda force myself to do it.

Yeah, I can do it if I have to, but I really really need to push myself if I don't want to spend most of the next hour trying to get up.

Think logically, quit bad habits, give up on delusional pipedream game project. Then you can look at gamedev from a cynical cash cow view. It's possible to see what projects will make money, you have to be aware of this shit and not just going through the code files randomly wondering what to do next. A real project has goals, budget and sourced art constraints.. I wasted 10 years on this gamedev procrastination bullshit. But fix your thinking first. If I could stand normal people I would get any job. I'd rather work 10+ hour dev days with no breaks though. It's hell, it's actually worse.

The thing is I made more progress in the past 4 days than I ever did clinging to my perfect pet projects. Money and creativity is my motivation now. Even if I fuck up and get 1000 sales a year, it's far better than never finishing an impossibly complex perfect game. I'm not a sellout microsoft tool, but I'm not going to daydream either, not when the AAA industry is falling so fast. This is the best opportunity in history for indie devs. IF you put in all the time, you practically need it to become your life. It's not for cowards like who I used to be.