The Time // It Takes
I have bipolar disorder. The psychologists and psychiatrists I have seen tell me it’s a particular variant known as cyclothymia, or as it’s sometimes referred to, type 3 bipolar. I have known this for a long time now, although the NHS refuse to issue me a formal diagnosis, making accessing any specialised medication for it impossible. I have tried several types of non-specialised antidepressant medication, on which I dissociated, was sent into manic spirals, ruined what semblance of eating and sleeping patterns I had, and screamed until my throat was in agony. So, for years now, I have dealt with this through nothing other than the coping strategies developed via a lengthy period of outpatient psychotherapy.
On many days, this is enough, but on some it isn’t. On some, the bright light of living is fucking blinding. It’s too much to bear. On others there is simply no life to be derived from anything. I have heard cyclothymia referred to as ‘mild bipolar’, and while I only dread to think of the weeks-long nacrotic highs and deathly lows of type 1 bipolar; the thing about the third type is that things change so rapidly it can become impossible to orient yourself, pinballing from one mental state to the other while desperately trying to find a thread to hold onto.
Statistically, I am 20-30 times more likely than the average person to choose to end my life. Some sources say the suicide rates for those with bipolar disorder are as high as one in five. My chances of making it through life without voluntarily ending it are arguably less than if a neurotypical person put a round in the cylinder of a revolver, put the gun to their head and squeezed the trigger. I feel that pull frequently.
Every time I come out the other side of an ideation unscathed feels like a little victory. A smug middle finger to the wolf at the door. I’ve lived through countless attempts on my life and came out every single one (mostly) unscathed. A chill here, some cuts and bruises there. Fuck you, I lived. Sure, the person I’m saying that to is myself, but I’ll take that over death by my own hand. I am more powerful than some bullshit post about how men die because they don’t open up. I’m here, I’ve opened up and you’re all fucking silent.
Anyway, I’ve digressed. What is worst about bipolar isn’t any of this, but the time it takes from you. The amount of life you just lose in the churn. I can barely remember most of my 20s. I look back on photos and videos of that time and almost don’t recognise myself. And it is endlessly frustrating just to lose whole days, weekends, weeks to it. Time I could have spent making memories with my partner who means the whole fucking world to me, or writing music, or learning how to make the games I’ve always wanted to make; instead just desperately trying to find that thread.
I’ve wasted this weekend trying to find the thread. There will be other times. Hopefully I’m not going anywhere any time soon.
January 23, 2022
Thoughts on GMing
As something to do at Halloween with my friends, I wrote and GMed a modern / uncanny horror one-shot using the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules. I had an absolutely incredible time doing so. It was a really rewarding experience to see my friends engaging with and enjoying something that just kind of spilled out my brain, bolstered by a few internet horror touchstones, such as Eckva, The SCP Foundation and The Backrooms. I have some mental notes about the session that I’d like to jot down for the record:
Trusting your friends / players to engage with your work in good faith, or what I often hear referred to as ‘high-trust play’ is so rewarding and affirming.
Being flexible and changing things on the fly to accomodate your players should be a common courtesy when hosting.
I have not bought the Call Of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook. I have not read it and I don’t intend to. Everything needed to play Call Of Cthulhu is in the player’s handbook.
I deliberately omitted ‘sanity points’ because they’re gross. I was considering trying to replace with a Mothership-style panic table, but in the end I just trusted that my friends wouldn’t make light of any incurred trauma. It worked.
D100 roll-under is great as a resolution mechanic because you don’t need to be constantly pissing about with modifiers.
Call of Cthulhu’s default skill spread is not great. There are very obvious optimal choices such as ‘listen’ or ‘spot hidden’, and there are important skills that present as dump-stats, such as ‘navigate’.
Overall, I’d have preferred to use a much lighter system, such as Liminal Horror, but at the end of the day, Call Of Cthulhu was what was agreed on for the session. I may end up tweaking it for Liminal Horror later though, as I think it’s a much more natural fit for the setting.
I have included all my scenario notes, warts and all, as a separate post, accessible here.
November 3, 2021
Finding a Kindness // Blade Runner: 2049
There is a version of Blade Runner: 2049 which exists inside what was committed to film.
Where although the world is in its death throes, and everyone is lonely and violent and traumatised and without hope or comfort, that a perfectly unremarkable replicant discovers that a small act of kindness to a perfect stranger feels like a radical symbol of defiance in his dying moments.
That all any of us can do against the unwavering ravages of terminal-stage extinction capitalism is to be kind and forgiving and to love one-another.
I feel like I had to painfully tease it out of the audiovisual barrage of leering misogyny, uncritical product placement and ugly, clumsy metaphor that a megabudget Hollywood production demands.
But it’s there. A story that exists in spite of the medium to which it is committed.
Bravo.
This scene never appears in the movie.
October 24, 2021
Quitting
I voluntarily quit composing for Rogue Eclipse today. It’s possible to work alongside some of the nicest people around on a really exciting project and still know when something isn’t right for you.
At the end of the day, composing music just isn’t where my heart is anymore.
I want to properly explore a bunch of other avenues of creativity, and more importantly, I desperately want to start making meaningful progress on Where Abundance Lies again.
October 3, 2021
Inhabiting Imaginary Spaces // The Dreaded Subject of Systems
I’m still trying to refine my own ideas and how I talk about play. I don’t want to be didactic, but at the same time, I feel a huge sense of discomfort on how it is often talked about by game designers and theorists. Please don’t take this as some kind of grand overarching theory of play, I’m more just trying to make clear my own feelings on such.
Almost every type of play, or game, primarily focuses on some kind of idea of space. This play-space is often imagined, in which case tools such as illustrations on a board, hand-drawn maps, levels in a videogame; or they can be completely real, as with playing fields, tables or social spaces.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the point of any game is to make being inside that space in some way compelling.
The primal joy of being able to inhabit and exist and move and express within an imagined space is the reason why games of all sorts, and more specifically roleplaying and videogames, are so special to me. I feel that often, far more focus is given to systems that intentionally or unintentionally detract from this, and I think this might be a good rubric for determining my feelings on game design theory.
Does a gameplay system aid or hinder the player in inhabiting the space?
For whose enjoyment does a system exist and what is its intended purpose?
Does a system treat the player as subject or participant?
Hopefully I can use these questions to help talk a bit more constructively about my feelings on game design as opposed to endlessly decrying the core loop as a concept.
October 3, 2021
Guns
I came up with a quick and dirty system for random-rolling basic concepts for weapons in the game, which I then imported into Gridless and laid out some very rudimentary stats, which can then be exported to a .json file for Godot to parse, hopefully taking a lot of the legwork out of creating each weapon in-game. My roll tables are as follows:
ARCHETYPES: SMG, Precision, Pistol, Burstfire, Assault, Sniper, Shotgun, Heavy (roll 1d8)
PROPERTES: Ballistic, Smart, Rail, Exotic (roll 1d4)
MANUFACTURERS: Eklund Concern, Temtesh Manufacturing Corporation, Tactical Hardware Design, Imnek Research and Development, XOR Fabrik, Void Ballistics (roll 1d6)
EKLUND CONCERN: Mass-production, function over aesthetic, rugged, dependable
TEMTESH MANUFACTURING CORPORATION: Southeast Asian heavy industrial megafabricator
TACTICAL HARDWARE DESIGN: Overpriced American paramilitary / PMC aesthetic fetish gear
IMNEK R&D: Weapons division of high-end scramjet and rail accelerator manufacture corp
XOR FABRIK: ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛-backed manufacturing arm of [REDACTED] ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ blacksite skunkworks
VOID BALLISTICS: Corporate plaything of a sadistic gun-fetishist billionaire, cruelty by design
After rolling about 40 guns this way, I also added in another ‘kitbashed’ category for improvised weapons, figuring it would make sense for those exploring ruins to try and engineer their own weapons out of spare parts, scrap and schematics. Zeiram’s incredible prop design being entirely to blame for this.
How the fuck I am meant to concept and model neary 50 guns is anybody’s guess really. Pretty sure I’ve set myself an impossible task. That number will likely fall considerably.
August 16, 2021