{"id":3202,"date":"2016-03-24T13:24:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T17:24:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/?p=3202"},"modified":"2016-03-24T13:25:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T17:25:19","slug":"depression-and-the-creative-professional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glyphpress.com\/talk\/2016\/depression-and-the-creative-professional","title":{"rendered":"Depression and the Creative Professional"},"content":{"rendered":"

In March, 2014, I announced the launch of the <\/span>Mobile Frame Zero 002: Intercept Orbit<\/span><\/a> (<\/span>originally, Alpha Bandit<\/span><\/a>) Kickstarter. I had high hopes, as my three previous Kickstarters had gone well, succeeding with between 300% and 900% of my cash goal. Instead, the project wound up testing my limits as a creator and seriously, adversely affecting my mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I promised my backers that I\u2019d tell them what had happened when it was all over. Now it\u2019s over and, rather than feeling like I\u2019m complaining and making excuses, I feel like it\u2019s time to share something that should give backers an opportunity to get a glimpse into the challenges faced by project creators, and give creators the reassurance that this isn\u2019t just happening to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

My initial intention was to publish the game as a small, supplemental set of rules to <\/span>Mobile Frame Zero <\/span><\/a>001: Rapid Attack, printed on a heavy, cardstock, 11×17\u201d poster, the equivalent of seven pages plus the front cover. But as I\u2019d closed in on how to express the differences in the two games, I began to realize that I was touching nearly every rule, and the specification grew to 48 pages.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in 2012, I\u2019d badly underestimated costs on Rapid Attack, estimating at $9000. If I\u2019d met that minimum, I\u2019d have been short by $2000. Instead, I had exceeded that minimum by 800%, which meant I had made $18,000 too little. $18,000 that was to be my salary from the yearlong project.<\/span><\/p>\n

I wanted to learn from that mistake, so I took more care in estimating my costs, which bumped my minimum for project success up to almost $30,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the project launched, I experienced\u00a0a further worrying phenomenon: while existing fans brought in $15,000 on the first couple of days, I couldn\u2019t catch any of the press that Rapid Attack had received. I began biting my nails. 30 days later, the Kickstarter ended at just short of $37,000. At 120%, it was the closest any of my four Kickstarters had come to failure.<\/span><\/p>\n

But those stressors are the same that I\u2019d experienced with my earlier Kickstarters. The next stressor was the one that was personally toughest to handle.<\/span><\/p>\n

I started the page design of the book,\u00a0getting the text in order, turning my notes into a game, and sharing each draft as it became complete. I was really happy when I started seeing blog posts of the MoF\u00d8s playing Intercept Orbit, building cool micro spaceships and testing the mettle of their fleets and strategy. But I started to notice something going wrong: <\/span>games were ending in effective stalemates<\/b>, where fleets would simply run out of dice, costing them all of their decision-making capabilities. Eventually, players had no options but to tempt fate and ram each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

That made the game, already slower than Rapid Attack, go much, much slower, ending with a randomly determined victor.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was bad.<\/b> It was exactly what one worries about when designing a game. A loss of player control. A loss of player investment, throwing one\u2019s fate to the winds.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t happening every time, of course. But my calculations when designing the game had said that this should almost never<\/i> happen. And it happened twice in perhaps five playtests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Economic theory stands on this broad, stable foot of one assumption: that humans are rational actors, that they act in their own best interest. There are many arguments that say that this broad, stable foot is made of clay. I\u2019m inclined to agree. We respond first and most strongly to our own emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

I started seeing this failure of game design \u2014\u00a0of <\/span>my<\/span><\/i> game design \u2014 as an overwhelming, personal one. It was a denunciation of my abilities as a game designer; the final proof that I don\u2019t have what it takes, and that I was letting down almost a thousand backers who had faith in my ability to deliver an enjoyable social experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went through the complete cycle of emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First, I was simply stunned. I couldn\u2019t imagine why this was happening.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Then\u00a0I decided that it was a probabilistic fluke. It was unlikely, but it could still happen twice, right?<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. When that started to feel implausible, I got mad at the players: why were they playing like that? It was stupid and they were just doing it because collisions are flashy. The were <\/span>ruining my game.<\/span><\/i><\/li>\n
  4. I considered a simple patch: warning the players that this was a dangerous outcome if they played a certain way, if only I could figure out how to express what that way was.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Then I realized that none of this was true. I had written a <\/span>bad game<\/span><\/i>. It had a major rot in its heart and I was incapable of seeing what was going on. I just wasn\u2019t up to the challenge of resolving this profound, endemic flaw.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This is where things really went off the rails, not just for the project, but for me, personally.<\/span><\/p>\n

    I remained frozen in this position for <\/span>an entire year<\/b>. I couldn\u2019t even look at the text. After all, I\u2019d already looked at it so, so much, right? How would looking at it more help?<\/span><\/p>\n

    In the meantime, I was rapidly running out of money. A large line item had turned off to be off by almost 100%, handily absorbing my profit. Shipping was threatening to jump again. The text had grown to 100+ pages, badly threatening my still-slim print budget. Entire sections were showing themselves to be unclear when I looked at the questions that playtesters had. It was a disaster. The only conclusion I could draw was that I was incompetent in my medium.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Throughout this process, I was dragging myself to the Owl & Raven creative space daily, trying to find the motivation to work on the text beside my fellow creators, primarily <\/span>Hannah Shaffer <\/span><\/a>and <\/span>Evan Rowland<\/span><\/a>. But working on other games made me feel guilty because I wasn\u2019t fixing Intercept Orbit. I couldn\u2019t even get my ass to the coworking space before 2 in the afternoon. Nothing could make me care enough to push myself forward to resolve the issues I was having.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Finally, a year after recognizing the problem, I decided to forgive myself for writing a crappy game, finish it off, and get it off my plate. I didn\u2019t bother waiting to actually forgive myself. But I decided to, and rationalized that I could get to the forgiveness when it came. <\/span><\/p>\n

    I sat down and looked at the rules, reading from page one. <\/span>In under a half hour, figured out what was wrong.<\/b> There was an interplay of rules, a cascade of effects that went like this:<\/span><\/p>\n