So, I’ve decided to pause these devlogs. I started this weekly journal with two purposes: partly to promote Eldritch 2, but mostly to hold myself accountable to make some progress each week. The latter hasn’t been working. I’ve been procrastinating on this game for months, and making excuses here each week. And it is becoming a burden. So I’m letting it go.
I’m not canceling the game, I’m not pausing development, and I’m certainly not pivoting to making a different game. Eldritch 2 is still the game I want to make. But Eldritch 2 is and always has been a side project, something I’ve done for fun in my free time, because I wanted to. And as my free time has dwindled in the past year, it has become less fun. I thought I would spend my holiday working on this; and then it felt like a chore, and I got nothing done, and I felt bad about that. And maybe I was the only person who cared that I wasn’t getting anything done. But I don’t need to put that pressure on myself.
There’s probably more I could say about burnout and mental health in the video games industry, but for now, I’ll leave it at this: I started this devlog for my own health, to motivate myself; and I’m pausing it for my own health, to give myself some room to breathe.
Take care, love, David.