As a kid it's broken down pretty simply for you.
Do well in school, get a degree, get a good job, now you can really live!
From there you could travel, start a family, or find happiness some other way.
It all seemed so easy, step by step.
I went to school, did decently well, got a degree in computer science. The hard part was getting a job. It was supposed to be a high need job market, it was supposed to be looking for new talent.
You get the degree, you move to the big city, New York for me, and you get a job with a high salary. That was the plan, follow my dreams, make plenty of money doing software development, and make games in my off time. That was always my real passion.
Except it didn't work out like that. Every job required five years of experience, even "entry level". I needed to have experience in 7 different languages and three highly industry specific skills. Remade my resume countless times, trying to get past the automated machines checking for keywords. So I took jobs I hated, that's fine. At least I could survive.
Barely.
Long hours, back breaking work, cost of living always going higher while I can't even afford healthcare. Trying harder and harder to find the time and energy to work on my games. It's so easy to think about games; I always love to design their systems on paper.
My dream game, Sanguine Sacrifice, an RPG based around a mechanic of sacrificing health and time in the game for abilities and boosts, run out of either and it's game over. Balance using up and gaining those resources to traverse the world, preventing it's end similar to that one Legend of Link game but you can turn back or speed up the clock based on your choices.
I've been working on it alone for over two years now. Sure I can program it, I've gotten used to the game engine, I can gradually make mediocre art assets, I can mix and make some basic music, I can write mediocre dialogue. But I'm barely living anymore. I have no friends, no social life, no romantic interests, my body's been falling apart for months now. The only relaxation I get nowadays being alcohol. I can't even enjoy my old favorite games.
All that is in my mind is the world I've been trying to make. That's why I got into this, that's why I learned coding and sought game design in the first place, I've only ever wanted to make something good, something inspiring. This game has been in my mind for years for beyond the past two. A world of sacrifice, of love, of family. The main player character, Nero being the canonical name I chose, starts as a child in a small village on the edge of the magical Kingdom of Hemog. The inciting incident being an attack from the gods in the form of a disease. The gods grew tired of humanity and their follies, and sent down a blood magic plague. He, his parents, and his older brother all became afflicted with it. For most people the plague simple killed them. Slowly and painfully, but still just death. There are however two outliers. On one side, some infected, particularly the strong ones, mutate and evolve in many ways into monsters. These being the primary enemies you face throughout the game. The other outcome, a much more random one, is when after suffering through the symptoms of blood leaking from their pores as they have a fever strong enough to kill a horse, they too evolve, but don't lose their mind. Instead they gain control of their body and blood far more than anyone else which is what the player character gets. The idea was to incorporate different systems of playing for different possible uses. Whether the player sacrifices life span, limbs, or max health primarily, different ways of playing and progressing through the world unlock. A strength build where the focus on increasing their base strength, heart beating faster, blood hardening around their fists, muscles being torn and healed over and over for a blazing fast growth. Rapid and violent growth, but unsustainable, leaching off their max health. There was also the path of blood bullets and puppeteering powers, more of a magic route, sacrificing a more abstract sense life span, or in terms of game mechanics, time. Think blood bending from that one kids show, but using it reduces your time in a fight and in the game. The less you have the more severe the consequences to the player. Run out entirely? Then anything can kill you. The final path being the most high risk high reward. Shooting off your fingers, ripping off your limbs to use as blood grenades and so on. There are mechanics that make it possible to restore the players body after fighting, but if you can't defeat the enemy with the incredibly high damage output or get your resources whittled down by multiple waves of enemies, then the player is left severely crippled and damn near unable to continue the fight. I even added one joke ability to blow up Nero's entire body on that path and guarantee the enemy's death, you could technically use it, you just needed either a massive pool of health, or resurrection items. It's a path thats damn near impossible for beginners of the game. All of that is at least how the systems were supposed to work. Of course nothing does. Nero wakes in his house, his parents both turned into monsters, his brother Sol while dying from the Blooded Plague manages to hide him away and save him at the cost of what little remained of his life. The tutorial is actually playing and dying as Sol against their parents. I wanted a properly heartbreaking intro after all.
The first four out of seven chapters of the story are done. Most of the base systems at least work to some degree. The ability/upgrade trees were fairly easy to incorporate. But none of the story after the beginning flows, the fighting styles aren't balanced, the monsters are either far too weak or far too strong, most of them are bugged to all hell. I've been stuck trying to figure out the same bug involving some consumable items and blood bullets causing abilities from different builds to become accessible for four months.
I just can't TAKE IT.
Staring at line after line of red error warnings, with a bottle of rum in my hand, I've been here for ages. Nothing seems to work. Nothing has worked for months. I haven't worked in so long. I just can't handle it anymore. I launch the bottle at the wall and throw a punch at the PC.
Not my smartest move. Definitely one of my most painful.
I feel the glass shards embed themselves in my hand. My start burning on impact. Finally in this split second moment of rage and despair, I feel a shock. Thousands of volts of electricity, arcing inside me through my arm, shoulder, into my heart, and out again. And I feel something give. My body hasn't been well for a long time. And I just pushed it over the edge. My breathing strains. My heart feels off rhythm. It slows. And slows. And as I collapse forward onto my desk, all I can think about, is how all I've ever wanted was to make something good. But all I can do is break. My vision dims out.