It has been almost four years since my last blog post.
So many things have happened during these four years, the main thing is I and team Lantern Studio developed our first indie video game, LUNA The Shadow Dust. You don’t really have a real sense of time when you’re busy working on something, only after the time has passed, for example, I now look back on my last blog post, it feels like it was million years ago. I remembered how unsure and excited I was but also how naive and inexperienced I was, to assume the game could have done in just 1 or 2 years.
The fact was, I have to almost give up all my freelance works in order to meet the constantly delaying deadline. To be honest, I was biting off more than one can chew. It was indeed a big accomplishment for the team and myself but it was undeniable one of the hardest things I ever tried. In the end, was it worth it? I don’t know, maybe it’s still too early to tell. We all understand that you can’t really judge anything’s true value by how much money it makes. Especially due to the Covid19 situation, all industries including gaming was heavily affected, there is no way for us to find out what will it be like if we could go to all the game conventions to promote our game normally.
After the game released in February, I did not feel the huge excitement that I thought I would, instead, for quite a few months I was feeling lost. I could work and finish tasks but for myself, I can not draw or write. Most of the time I just stared at a blank paper till the feeling of failure overwhelmed me. It is a different kind of burn out, almost like there’s nothing about myself that was worth express. The drawing post above was done in early 2019 when the game is on the final stage of optimizing. I felt I have spent too much energy in this colorful game, my entire creativity and the fun in my life have been sucked dry by working day and night. It was like walking in the desert.
So I think I need some time to recover from it and slowly get back to my usual rhythm. I also realize nowadays the invading of social media and the dependency of the Internet, have dramatically changed the way I behave. It has affected my concentration time span. I feel that I am less and less able to read or write for a long period of time. Most of the time, I just can’t wait to jump to the next page, next song track, or the next video, after 15-20 min I start to feel restless no matter what I do.
I remember back in early 2000, I was really enjoy blogging, I draw regularly and didn’t overthink about the result. There was space in my mind to just allow nothing. I was more in peace with myself. Alan watts once said,
“A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thought, so he loses touch with reality, and lives in a world of illusions.”
Time to get back to my old habit of writing blogs.
I never know who reads my blog, at least I write for myself here and I like the quietness about it.