itch.io

Well, there's a lot to unpack here, but let me try.

"In what sense did you find game jams to be a waste of time? I've found them to be useful to prototype new game ideas and to try out new frameworks."

If I want to try something out, I'll try something out; I don't need a game jam to artificially drum my interest in it.

"When I've game jammed on a team with others, I've often learnt new approaches to making games from people with different sets of expertise from me. And there's also a social aspect of game jamming where you get to be exposed to how other game makers and see all their weird creative processes and ideas."

Fair! But again, can explore on my own, and I much prefer to expose myself to the expertise of others in different ways. It's not much of a draw for me. If that game jams for you, great, but I prefer to do these things while not under stress and not while trying to work out other people. Additionally, in terms of working on mature content games, the only thing I got out of trying to, you know, socialise with other people who make them, I guess, was years of harassment, abuse, people creeping on me and several stalkers. And I very much don't want to repeat that.

"I've also found game jams useful for getting more time in certain parts of the game development process that I usually don't reach. In making actual shipped games, the most important stuff is often at the end--refining the gameplay mechanics and narrative to make them more fun, controlling scope so that things can ship, game testing with real users, etc. With game jams, I can actually spend some time improving my skills in these areas because I actually ship a game at the end. I am, admittedly, pretty good at fast coding and am pretty experienced with game jamming, so I'm more able to shape my game jam experiences to what I want."

I'm not interested in any of these aspects. I'm not interested in being a game developer and shipping products.

"I'm a bit saddened to hear about your job."

I'm not, and neither should you be; the job is exactly what I need in my life. It just isn't an issue.

"You seem pretty talented. I'm not sure why you aren't working a more challenging job in Silicon Valley where you get to work on interesting things with interesting people."

I'm not American, and I don't want to live in America. But I assume you actually mean working in some tech corpo? Well, I don't work in a tech corpo specifically because it's a tech corpo. Either way, I don't want an exciting job or opportunities to hustle and grow. I want stability, companionship, and the ability to pay my medical bills and live a peaceful life for however much time I have left. I think what I'd say about your approach to things is that it's a very masculine perspective. But I'm a woman; I neither do nor have ever seen life like that.

"Or why you aren't slumming it in academia where you can just spend your time pursuing your own research directions."

I worked and published in academia since I was 20yo, and I only (mostly) stopped because of the politics surrounding funding. I'm still very much engaged with a lot of people from academia and even give small lectures from time to time or advise on projects when people need the kind of stuff I can provide. And do add to that, I absolutely engage with my work on this project on an academic level. Ultimately, though, I expressly and willingly removed myself from it.

"I know you think of yourself as the smartest person in the room. And though that may be true, that doesn't mean you can't have peers from whom you can learn things and who can challenge you."

I don't, and I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. But again, returning to what I said earlier, I'm past the point when I want another stalker to pop up.

But I think this is all just an aside to a kind of misunderstanding. Like that I'm miserable because of my job or because of my game and not that, you know, I'm dying and depressed, and both the job and game are some of the few things that keep me grounded and give me some chance to continue to function.