laurels

11 Mar 2026

I went to an event where someone asked me "how's your choose-your-own-adventure game going?" and in the past, whenever someone's asked me "how's your (project I was last aware of) going?" I've usually felt an immediate wave of disappointment and dread. "I haven't picked it up in a bit, something else came up, I had to go mitigate an immediate survival situation, I wasn't skilled enough and the learning curve was a lot steeper than I thought", the works.

this time, i felt the same dread wash up at my ankles while I looked through my brain for an answer, until I remembered that actually, I was learning Godot just today, because it seemed important to learn about designing more straightforward games before moving onto weirder, format-breaking multimedia projects. and it didn't feel so bad when i said that. there was continuity here. the trajectory makes sense.

somebody else at the same event asked me what I'd been up to, and for a minute I felt another kind of terror I usually get from sharing a deadline I've set for myself - the fear that sharing will act as a placeholder for resolution, stop me from being accountable for it, and that I'll fall short. but I told them: "I'm going to make five games until the end of summer. They don't have to be good games, but I want to learn how to think in terms of game design, because I think it's an important skill for what I want to do."

and I didn't feel like I was kidding myself. or like the pressure was going to be insurmountable. it felt okay. two of those games [1] [2] are tutorials on Godot's documentation that someone recommended I do. one of them I'll probably do at the next Global Games Jam (a jam that taught me it really is possible to wrap up a game in 24 waking hours) - and I want to try having a game design role this time around. that leaves me with just two games to make from scratch, unless I want to join more jams to keep myself accountable. a few weeks timeline for each one of them. it's really not so bad. I could show those games at so many other events once they're done: animation related, creative tech related.

I've started therapy again recently, and one thing I'm realising is that actually, I'm perfectly capable of making things from start to finish, but I will sometimes aim very high and feel like shit when I fall short, rather than celebrating what I did manage to do. it makes me particularly guilty of not trusting my own process, or believing I won't be trusted when it comes to creative direction.

but because of the years of effort I've put into improving how I manage my time, I've found ways to break big tasks into smaller ones, plus one small way to be a bit kinder to myself. I am growing to be okay with the discomfort of knowing that I'm going to set nebulous, far-reaching goals and still come out of the other side with something. and that means something will be finished. the more I do it, the more familiar that discomfort is, and the quicker I get at making things.

I don't have to tell people what the far-reaching picture was. I get to keep that to myself, if I want. I just have to be proud of the thing I have in my hands. I'm hoping that therapy gives me a better grip on the whole thing.

x
moth