What's up, what's up!

Alright, so, I think this is the 4th time I have rewritten this post in the span of three hours. It's pretty on track with how I do things, so that checks out. I'll just write whatever comes to mind and stick with it this time around.

The text below Is a big block things I have been meaning to tell someone, but I never had anyone to really listen. It is not so much about Failing to Fathom as it is about me. There is a sizeable portion of it that is indeed about the game and how it came to be, but if you don't really care about that then it would be probably a waste of your time. To those people who choose to read further: thank you.

Two years ago on this day I released Failing to Fathom version 0.1 to the public. It's been both the best and worst thing that happened to me throughout my life to be honest. It was originally meant to be just a creative outlet, something to do while I had nothing else to do and it was just that for the better part of these two years, a passion project I worked on whenever I felt motivated enough to sit down and do stuff. There have been more times than I want to admit that I started to write only for it to end in a spiral I couldn't get out of. I was not happy with what I did, I felt like I could do so much better, but I didn't have the mental power to keep doing it and learn from failure. I am too much of a lazy perfectionist to keep pushing through until I make something I find presentable. If I don't like something I make I get depressed and essentially shut off and start doing things to distract myself that aren't productive. There have been times where I actually wrote stuff I was happy with, but I am a bit of a mess when it comes to organizing things and taking care of them and also unlucky as shit. I lost files, scripts, renders basically anything that goes into game development multiple times in the 500 days I haven't updated the game. I am not saying I was working every 500 days, not by a long shot, it's been spur of the moment dashes of sleepless nights and sparks of motivation here and there, but it was something and seeing those things just cease has weighed down on me. I still fear of losing things even now when I keep multiple backups over multiple different devices and drives and I don't think I'll ever not fear losing something I cherish. I love writing, I really do. It's the only thing I ever thought I was remotely good at. You see, growing up I was the "talented kid" who would get straight As and be praised like some sort of genius who would invent the next big thing or something. I was extremely confident in myself and arrogant as well, I had a god-complex I think, or at least I always thought I was better than everyone and, well, realization caught up to me. Everyone around me started to talk about their dreams and slowly working towards them. Talented artists, top-notch mathematicians, olympian athletes and even seemingly regular people had something they were exceptional at, something they worked towards and I had nothing. I was miles ahead of everyone, but I had no aspirations, no dreams and was left behind. Suddenly years of self-image were turned upside down in my head. I had a severe case of imposter-syndrome now that I think about it, I didn't feel like I belonged or were worth anything to consider investing time and resources into. I was suicidal, but not to the extent of actually trying it, I cared too much about my family and people around me to do that. And this has been going on for quite some time now, just me drifting along with no end sight. In late 2020 I accidentally stumbled upon a game called "Lessons in Love" made by Selebus. Check it out if you haven't. And at first it seemed like another cheap, money grab game, but after playing it I got hooked. It was so much more than I ever could have hoped for. Nobody ever understood me and that game spoke to me in a way no person ever could up until that point. I was never touched emotionally by media and felt apathy towards death of people I know, or name any other extreme emotion. It's not like I didn't get it, it just felt unnatural for me to show emotions and kinda just screamed internally instead. But that game had lines I could relate to, characters that felt more human to me than people I knew in real life, just raw emotion, that's what I needed. Something that made me not feel inferior anymore. People, or in this case fictional characters, that felt human enough to consider as their own being and relating to how broken or miserable they can be. We humans are such fragile being, but I feel like we rarely see that, cause nobody gets to see the part of you that you hide, the part of you that you try so hard to make disappear. Anyway, I didn't mean to fangirl over a game in this post, but as I said, no more re-dos. I was finally a part of a community that felt like home. I made new friends, albeit being only online ones, but you can't win them all. I felt like I belonged. I even started tow rite a novella with the characters of Failing to Fathom, but not yet the story. It was just something I did on a dare basically. Some time passed and I mentioned this draft I had to an online friend I have (I didn't ask, so I won't reveal his identity here) and he said it was cool. I remember going on about how I wished to make something like that, a game or piece of media that would resonate with people who were like me, that didn't feel like they belonged and this online friend of mine asked me why don't I just make a Visual Novel like that other guy, I essentially have the same tools. And, well, that's that. I started working on Failing to Fathom after that. It went through a lot of iterations before I was happy with how I wanted to story to unfold. I don't think I went to sleep once without thinking about what I want to write since that moment. The game was originally called Exulansis, a word from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It means: "The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.". That was a feeling I felt I couldn't really put my finger on until I learned of this word's existence and it stuck with me. I still like the name Exulansis over Failing to Fathom and I will likely release it under that name once it's remastered and finished (which I intend to do once I have enough funds, original art and all that stuff). And another thing that shaped the way I am is the lack of dreams, both figuratively and literally and that ended up being the premise of Failing to Fathom as it is now. People with a lack of understanding they are unaware of up until it hits them. The game is essentially a symbolical autobiography. It means a lot to me, like way more than it should how much I neglected it. It hurts me how I didn't take care of it more and in turn of myself, but that's something I cannot change anymore. I am trying to look forward and I hope whoever read this will help me do that as well. I thank You, yes You for helping me get my shit back together. There is multiple You's and I cannot name any of them in fear of missing out somebody else.

I have written a giant chunk of text and still feel like it's just scratching the surface of how much I have to say, but that is for another time. You will learn more by playing the game as it gets updated.