I just copy/pasted this into the reply box from my notes and I can only apologise that it turned out to be gigantic x3
I’m hoping to work on it in some capacity this year, but it’s still not going to be a top priority because the guilt I have over having finished the writing for another long-term project years ago (Clarity in Qualia) is just too big x3 I desperately want to get that made first because I feel like it makes more sense to finally complete and release it before focusing primarily on Darling Duality since the writing for CiQ is finished and the writing for DD is nowhere near finished >.<
I know that’s probably not what anyone who’s following me specifically for DD wants to hear, but it’s what makes sense to me. Especially since I can’t write effectively unless I’m in the right frame of mind for it. Whereas I can code and stuff without needing to feel it because it’s a boring task whenever it’s tackled, haha.
I’ll try not to ramble on about the different reasons that have caused delays to this particular project’s development here though cos I’ve already drafted a ridiculously long post explaining everything x3 I just haven’t posted it yet because I wanted to get out at the same time as my 2024 schedule, which isn’t quite finished yet.
What you say about voice acting makes total sense, and I have no doubt that almost any other dev would definitely go that route because it would be the best compromise! Unfortunately, though, it wouldn't work for me personally for a couple of reasons >.<
As a player, I can’t stand partial voice acting or just like efforts and sound-based grunts and stuff x3 I would rather 0 voice acting, or full voice acting, anything in between irritates the heck out of me and has even put me off of finishing playing games in the past that I’ve otherwise been enjoying. But more than that, as a dev, voice acting is a huuuuuge motivator for me. If I know that a script I’m trying to write won’t have full voice acting, I essentially lose all motivation to write it at all >.< I have one project where I tried my best to plough on despite finding out I wouldn’t be able to get it voiced, and I truly believe that the game is awful for that reason (among a couple of others) x3 It’s the Love in Lockdown ones. They’re just reeeeally bad because my heart wasn’t in it in the end >.<
This will probably sound kind of crazy and somewhat pathetic, but I can’t stand my writing and my characters always feel so hollow without voices >.< For me, it’s the talent of voice actors that gives the characters a soul and allows me to actually begin to accept them along with the rest of my writing x3 Without voices in mind for the characters, I want to scrap all my writing and burn it to the ground, haha.
So even if players would rather a project had no or minimal voicing in order to get it out faster, it wouldn’t work because I wouldn’t be able to finish the project at all T_T So yeah, it’s more of a personal thing I guess. Even when I manage to finish all of the writing, I don’t think I would ever be content enough with it to actually release it without VA, regardless of what players might think >.<
In all honesty, I try my best to avoid thinking too much about what players might want in general since I find that far too overwhelming x3 If people happen to like what I’m doing, then that’s incredible and I really appreciate it a lot, but at the end of the day, this is a hobby that essentially functions as a coping mechanism to combat my depression and suicidal thoughts, so the priority with my projects is generally just doing whatever I can to keep my stupid brain occupied and somewhat content so that I don’t completely fall apart, haha. I don’t really have the energy in me to think about pleasing others in the process >.< It was only with getting my autism diagnosis that I actually learned it's something incredibly common for autistic people to do, using their special interest as a thought blocker!
I wish I could cater more for players because then I might stand a better chance at making the hobby into something I could actually support myself with like therapists keep telling me is my only hope of earning a living in life doing xD But I just don’t have anything left in me to devote to that side of things and I think it would potentially destroy my enjoyment of the hobby altogether if I try. Which is scary to think about because I genuinely don’t know how I would cope with life if I wasn’t doing this, haha.
Actually, I don’t know why this happens with me, and you might know with being a psychology student, but it’s one of those things that seems kind of absurd to me x3 Basically, when this particular project began getting more interest after Manly’s video, I was elated. I couldn’t believe so many people were interested in the project, and it made me super excited to return to it after I’d put it on hold to work on other things. But that very quickly turned into being completely overwhelmed x3 All of a sudden, people had expectations for this side project that I’d put on the backburner to return to at some point, and the weight of those expectations felt crushing.
I went from - holy moly, this is amazing, people like the project!!! To - I wish everyone would just leave me alone and stop expecting things from me T_T pretty quickly.
It’s a weird one because I never stopped being immensely grateful for the support people have shown at any point. But the more people started asking about updates, or suggesting features and story arcs, the more I wanted to boot the project off the face of the earth and run as far away from it as possible xD
I DO want to work on it, and I still have a huge passion for it and drive to finish it at some point. But I want to do it when I feel like it at my own pace. And I think the problem is, most of the time, when people make suggestions or they ask about updates, they don’t mean to pressure me at all, but I feel pressure anyway because (like an idiot) I put that pressure on myself >.< So it’s crushing nonetheless. It’s not the only reason progress on this has been so slow, but it’s definitely one of the big contributing factors.
The really crazy stupid thing is, I probably would have gotten further by now with (specifically the writing side of) the project if it had never received that attention, haha. Buuuut, on the flip side, without that attention and the support that came as a result of it, I likely also would never be able to implement full voice acting for all the characters I hope to create for it since I wouldn’t have the funding to pay for it all. As it stands, I have a much better chance of getting multiple characters fully voiced thanks to everyone’s generous support for the project :3
The support is clearly a super positive thing that I’m forever grateful for! I just wish my brain knew how to better handle the expectation side of things, haha. I think If I were ever in a position to run a Kickstarter for any of my projects, if it was actually fully funded, I might break from the weight of the following expectation >.<
I think that’s partly why I’m addicted to game jams. Because I know I have X amount of time, usually 1 month, to create and complete a concept, and once that time is up, I can release it into the wild knowing that I did my best with the time I had and that it’s then behind me. Folks can make of it what they will because the whole thing is there in front of them. Darling Duality was different because my aim was to release a self-contained story within the jam timeframe, with the intention of expanding on it as and when I was able to post-jam. I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford voice acting, so I’d put it to one side as something to work on in the distant future. I now know that making demos and concepts and releasing them is a bad idea for me for a whole host of different reasons, not just the expectation stuff, but things like losing voice actors as well.
I guess it’s all part of learning, haha. I’m at a point now where I’m going to try my best to participate in fewer jams in general in order to make some progress on my older long-term projects that I have yet to finish. Having CiQ, this, and Bitter/Sweet incomplete is irritating the heck outta me x3 And any jam I do participate in, I’ll be aiming to create a complete project within the jam, something short that I won’t be coming back to in the future, or at least not that exact story.
I really appreciate you saying to prioritise myself first, by the way :3 Because I do have a bad habit of forgetting to when I get overwhelmed, and I pressure myself to do stuff when I’m not feeling it because I think it’s what other people want me to do, and then it just turns out all wrong, haha.
It also means a heck of a lot for you to acknowledge how exhausting it can be just to exist with ASD because I feel like a lot of people don’t realise that or can’t comprehend it >.< Before my diagnosis, I used to think I was such a weak person because I thought that everyone else was dealing with the same issues as me, they were just able to somehow handle it all better. Getting the diagnosis has meant I now know that things I thought bothered everyone don’t even register with a lot of people xD Especially when it comes to the sensory side of things, haha. Half the time, I have to have a nap when I get back from the supermarket because the crowds, noise, and fluorescent lighting just sap the life out of me x3 It’s a relief to know that I’m not necessarily weak, I just have a different kind of brain. But I do feel like society has a long way to go in regards to understanding how seriously mental health stuff can impact people in general >.< For example, my own mum still believes that anxiety and depression aren’t things. She thinks that people just need to suck it up and get on with it >.<” I think she only thinks that way because she’s never had anxiety or depression, haha.
The funny thing is, I think how casual this project is is also part of why I’ve not felt like working on it much lately! I was in a somewhat happier place when I started it, and I think that shows in how much more playful and non-serious the story is, haha. My other projects are fairly dark and more serious than this, and I reckon that’s because that’s the place my head is at most of the time. To me, this project is kinda like just silly dating sim fuzz stuff that doesn’t mean anything beyond the fun of romance and building relationships with characters x3 And it does endlessly confuse me that this seems to be the one that’s the most popular out of everything I’ve worked on because I truly believe it’s not even close to being the best of my projects >.< I actually struggle to understand exactly what it is about this project in particular that people like. Because I can see in my analytics on itch.io that many people who play this and enjoy it don’t check out my other games. So I’m constantly asking myself, why this one? x3
I guess it could be down to my autism that I can’t comprehend why someone would play this and not my other stuff because I just analyse it all and when I scrutinise my writing and other aspects, I think it falls way short on this project compared to probably Apartment No.9, Limbo Line, Bitter/Sweet, Dawn of the Damned, Tunnel Vision, and Sapphire Snowe. Technically, all of those are better games. I feel the writing is stronger, the soundtracks are better, the sound design in general is better x3 there’s more to the artwork, there’s more in general. So yeah, I’m just forever puzzled by that, haha.
I still love this project just as much as any of my other projects, of course! I just don’t get why other people have grown more interested in this particular one when I view it as inferior x3 Sometimes I imagine it feels a bit like how musical artists with one-hit wonders must feel when an audience only wants to hear that one hit song xD And the artist must be thinking, but guys… I have all this other stuff too, ya know… don’t you want to hear any of that? T_T Thankfully, I’m somehow lucky enough to have supporters who do check out my other projects even if this is the one that initially caught their eye, and I think it’s largely thanks to them that I haven’t gone completely insane, haha.
But yeah, the only way I’m ever dropping this project is if I die or somehow become unable to use a computer x3 That’s the only way I’ll ever drop any of my projects, haha. Even if no one else cared about Darling Duality anymore and lost interest because it took me so long to work on it, I’d still finish it and release it because I can’t stand leaving things unfinished :3
It honestly means a hell of a lot to me though what you said about taking more time and stuff because hearing that sort of thing does genuinely help. It allows me to stop being quite so hard on myself if other people give me permission to take my time. And I know that’s daft because I shouldn’t need other people’s permission at all >.< But for whatever reason, I do, haha. Because without it, I just feel guilty 24/7 that I haven’t been able to achieve as much as I would have liked by now. And that guilt is pretty paralysing. Sometimes it can be the opposite and spur me into action or increase motivation, but most of the time, it just cripples me and makes me feel useless and despairing >.< So yeah, I really appreciate you saying that. Thank you :3
And just thank you in general for taking the time to type up such a thoughtful and kind comment as a whole! I still don’t know if I have it in myself to think of myself as an artist x3 but it means so much that you would say that!
I can’t say that I know much about what’s involved with getting a clinical psychology doctorate but I can imagine it must be a heck of a lot of work, so I hope that you’re having fun along the way + that it all goes fantastically for you :3 It’s a great thing to be doing! I went to study psychology at college in the hopes of better understanding my own anxiety and depression (and just cos I always found psychology fascinating in general), but I dropped out after having a complete breakdown and never completed the course even though I was enjoying the content >.< I think if I’d known I was autistic back then and had support, I might’ve stood a better chance! But I was also being abused by someone I thought was a friend at the time, so that didn’t help matters either. Still, I do think having support would’ve made some sort of difference. I’m at a point now where my anxiety is so crippling I wouldn’t be able to go back to college unless I had some sort of helper with me.
Thank you again and good luck with everything!! :3
Oh, and I’m sorry that I rambled so much >.< Please, please, please don’t feel as though you have to reply to all/any of this by the way x3 I just went off on one cos I can’t help it, haha.