Posted April 02, 2019 by Kara Stone
I've given many talks where I discuss Ritual of the Moon. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is hard. I gave a 15 minute talk specifically on RotM, a "mid-mortem", at the Queerness and Games Conference in Los Angeles in 2017. I used to be very scared of public speaking (skip classes where I had to speak level scared of public speaking) but I am thankfully mostly over it now. But sometimes it comes back. I can't figure out a pattern to it. QGcon is a generous audience. I had spoken at a previous one with no nervousness. But this time in 2017 I was really full of nerves. I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. I had a flash of "omg am I really going to tell this strangers I've been suicidal before???". I've been talking publicly about mental illness for almost 6 years now. It often feels like a script, devoid of any feeling. But sometimes it bubbles up. Here it did. I even thought the talk itself was really good - maybe the best designed one I had planned so far. It became a paper that I'll save talking about for another daily reflection. Maybe it was the wealthy, sterile environment of USC, maybe it was my period, maybe it was the alignment of the stars, but I couldn't catch my breath. I can't bring myself to watch the recording of it to see if it is noticeable in my voice, (but you are welcome to do so and play investigator!).
Two weeks ago I spoke briefly about Ritual of the Moon at GDC. When I was asked to be a part of the micro-talks I had a strong flash of panic. GDC's audience is not so generous. Each speaker is individually ranked which is horrifying. I knew the room would be packed with hundreds of people. But on the day I wasn't nervous like I expected. It felt like no big deal. So not a big deal that I felt quite empty after. What is the point of talking about these things? So few people will actually play the game. Am I destroying the experience of the game by explaining it to them instead? Will they get their fill of this idea just by hearing what it's about? I made very pretty slides though, so that's nice. (I'll save those too for another reflection).
18 days until release.