In case this isn't clear from the theme of the game: this devlog will deal with issues of suicide, suicidal thoughts and related feelings and issues. Please be careful as you proceed.

the concept

I'll be honest with you: I planned this game for a long while, but I never got to making it. Back in the past, I opened up about my experiences with suicidal ideation in my art, and I was subjected to humiliating interrogations, in which I was forced to confess to my "tendencies" to various people, including my own mother. It was traumatizing enough to shut me up about the subject. Anytime I open up about it in my art, I fear that someone will show up and I'll be in trouble again, even now that I'm almost 24 and nobody can really do anything to me. It's not easy to open up about things like these, even now.

A couple of months ago, an idea entered my head. I imagined an abandoned VN - something that's not meant to be read or posted yet, a dev's struggle with getting their ideas to work, intertwined with them not being able to get their real life in check, which would lead them to a pretty dark place . It was meant to be somewhat meta, like a script.rpy document being written in real time, with the player being able to talk to the dev through the code. This was untitled_2 or (yet) another ren'py project, and I never started it because I felt like something was missing from it, or that the idea wasn't refined properly. And in addition to that, I was scared that showing the inner workings of a suicidal mind will get me in trouble again.

So, it was left on the shelf. I didn't want to scrap it completely and I kept thinking about it, though each time I questioned if the original concept was right. I even considered making a new itch account just to publish this game to, just so that I can't be traced back to it, just to not worry anyone about my mental state (which, by the way, is... okay, actually).

And then, the incident happened, I guess.

how to go with grace: suicide portrayal

Yesterday, I had the great displeasure of being a witness to a particularly nasty, disgusting, heartless handling of a portrayal of suicide. I won't be naming anything or anyone, mostly because everyone interested knows exactly who and what I'm talking about and because I do fear retaliation. I'm a small dev. I can't mentally afford having hordes of people sent my way. But I know I'm not the only person who found this portrayal absolutely horrendous. Those who know, know. And if somehow, the dev in question is here and reading: go fuck yourself. I mean it.

To be clear, I don't have anything against portraying suicide (or any "taboo" thing, for that matter). I believe that art comes from our humanity, and it's always been a way for me to cope, process and make sense of thoughts and feelings that feel far too greater than my little mind can comprehend. Suicide is no different. I feel like not talking about it will end up doing far more damage. If we don't speak about it, we'll end up alienating those who struggle with it. And people who want to use suicide as a cheap shock value tactic don't hesitate before doing what they do; they won't have any problem with inserting scenes like these into their work. Why would I, someone who went through it, hesitate, then?  Why would I watch as others who have no reverence towards the subject write about it? Why can't I show how it felt like for me? 

Authors who use suicide for shock value often won't think about it beyond the surface level. For them, suicide is an action. It's not the slow death that happens through the months and even years, eventually ending in an act of desperation. It's meant to shock the reader or viewer - it's meant to be an extreme act, something that will shake you to the core, not as a human being, but as an animal. It targets the primal fear of death, not more. Perhaps it engages your compassion, just so you feel the hit a bit more, but it's not targeting it. It doesn't want you to stop and think about the horrifying reality of what suicide really is. For those people, suicide is a physical act. It's a dead, cold body. It's nothing more than a fake cherry on top of a cake.

I remember myself, somewhere back in my first year of high school in December. I was in a large city, sitting in a small rented room. And I was about to end my life there, knowing full well that nobody will help me or find me until the morning. I won't say what exactly I tried to do, as it's irrelevant, but I stopped right before it started to go into the dangerous zone as I burst into tears. It's complicated. The emotions that get you there, the circumstances, it all makes a complicated cocktail, and for someone who wasn't there, it's hard to imagine its taste. It's not really about not wanting to live anymore. It's more about not knowing how to live anymore. Something led you here. This isn't a split second decision or a decision you make due to one thing. This is something that shock value people fail to see. It's never one thing. One thing can send you over the edge, yes, but it's never just one thing. There is an accumulation of things first and sometimes, a stone gets tossed, and it causes an avalanche.

This is an act motivated by a wide range of factors. Nobody kills themselves for shits and giggles. But it's easy for a writer to throw a fictional life out of the window, because they don't think about how it will affect the living, breathing people who read their stories. Call me names if you want, but I think art doesn't exist in a vacuum and you are responsible for the things you portray, therefore, you should make sure you do your best to portray them well. Talk to people who have relevant experience. Read their stories. Make sure you do them justice. Including something just to play on others' emotions will usually not result in anything good.

I don't consider myself an expert, so I don't feel qualified to talk about how to properly portray things. It's like asking someone who learned how to play an instrument by ear to give you sheet music. I know I portray things in accordance to what an actual suicidal person would write precisely because I've been there myself. The experiences here are not 100% my own - after all, I wasn't a dev during that time - but the emotion and thoughts are. What I know is that you can tell who cares and who doesn't. You can see the signs. You can tell by the way the suicidal tendencies, or the act itself, are portrayed. Do you have time to think about it? Is there anything in the prior text that would suggest someone is about to do it? Is it made into a spectacle?

Anyway. Maybe I should move into the game prior, in a way.

too tired: why the game is the way it is

[Note: I based the fictional dev narrator on myself at the point of my own suicide attempt. Therefore, I will refer to this fictional dev with she/her pronouns - ones I used back then - and with the name Ewelina, my birth name, which I went by at the time.]

In all honesty: the game looks like shit. It's literally default ren'py GUI. And it's meant to be this way, and I won't be changing it. I left it as untouched as I could. It's meant to be a project that's barely started because Ewelina can't decide where to take this project; after all, "no idea sticks", so it would be hard for her to decide who to work with or what kind of vibe to go for with the visuals or the music. It's a bit of a... liminal space, in a twisted way. All of us ren'py devs know the look of the default ren'py GUI; it's a beginning point, somewhere from which you can start, but also somewhere you'd rather not stay at. But that's the thing with Ewelina: she's stuck there. She wants to move, but doesn't know how. This is, ultimately, how life felt like for me back when I tried to die. 

It's not made to look and sound pretty because suicide doesn't look or sound pretty. It's meant to look like the barebones, default game because Ewelina wouldn't know where to take it, and she certainly wouldn't have strength to make it all nice. It's an antithesis of the spectacle that tends to be made out of suicide in games relying on shock value. You don't get to see it happen. You don't get to see anything at all. The only OST that plays is whatever you hear in your surroundings. And it's all because I remember myself, sitting on that bed with only the ambience of the city reaching me from behind the window.

Suicide is a lonely affair.

I'm getting a bit tired of explaining things but I wanted this post to be out there. Remember that you're always loved and liked way more than you think. Remember that the future is there, even if you don't see it. Remember that everything can change - it changed for me, after all. And I'm glad I didn't die. I'm glad I'm here to be pissed off about people who don't know what they're doing. I'm glad I'm here to tell my story. I'm glad I'm here to hear people tell me that they were moved by what I wrote. 

Thank you to everyone who read this devlog. Thank you to everyone who played the game. Thank you to all the friends I have for letting me know that I'm needed and loved. Thank you to my cats, who force me to get out of bed even if I don't feel like it (someone's got to feed them). Thank you to singers, writers, poets and devs who make me happy to be alive. And a big thank you to myself for not doing it on that December night. Life is quite cool, actually.

Ah, and a double fuck you to the person who caused me to make this game.