WE GOT 2000 WISHLISTS.
Man, thanks so much.
It really means a lot. With this milestone, and some really exciting events coming up, I thought I would share an actual Dev Log I've written around the time it was first announced. In case there's another Solo Dev going through it out there. I get ya.
Uhhhh, so my game got announced! I think the 24 hours leading up to it were maybe the most stressful I’ve ever encountered in my life. It really did me in. I talked to my family and friends about it through the day, but I don’t think they really understand why I was so stressed out. It wasn’t fear of it succeeding or failing, I mean as long as one person enjoyed the game, I was happy.
It was the amount of people that were going to see it. All of those eyes on me, I felt like Theo in the Mirror Temple (epic reference). I’ve never really had to deal with that before, I always sort of stayed underground in my own little world, doing what I wanted to do because it was fun. But now there’s potentially thousands of people that are going to see my game, and the idea of it freaked me out!
“Like a thunderclap to a small dog, all of this attention really stressed me out.”
I didn’t really know how to handle myself for that day, I tried everything. It wasn’t until about 8pm that I thought of this random scene from one of my favorite movies, A Silent Voice. Oh big surprise the guy who made a visual novel likes anime. There’s this scene where Shoya is riding a rollercoaster, and he’s sitting next to this kind girl named Miyoko. Shoya is nervous because they’re reaching the peak of the rollercoaster, and Miyoka starts this dialogue with him:
“I was always too scared to ride this, I was such a coward back then. But then, one day, I looked at it differently. I was going to wait until after the ride to decide if it’s scary or not. Can’t help feeling a little scared, though!”
Something about it, man. Either the music swelling up afterwards, or the context I find myself in to resonate with the scene. It clicked. It helped. If you’re going through it right now, I hope this helps you as much as it did me. If you’re nervous, wait until after it happens to decide if it’s scary or not. Take the ride, the fear of never taking it will last longer than the experience.