Divinlog no. 5: I think I'm actually proud of this thing
This is part of my series of devlogs about my upcoming tarot music game Divinuet. Read them all here!
Wow, I haven't written anything at all in almost 2 months. And it's been forever since I've done a Divinlog.
To be honest, I was not doing well for awhile there. Nothing dire, just an overall dreariness, like all the color had been drained out of my life. It happens to me a lot in the winter (plus, you know, the world is bad).
There was all that plus a few very, very stressful circumstances. All mostly resolved now, thankfully. But it was not a good combination! You really, really have to dig deep to find the fortitude to deal with a crisis when you barely have enough energy to get through the day to begin with.
So basically I spent the past few months dealing with some form of seasonal depression and ADHD brain fog, and intense anxiety. Flip flopping between them, basically. Not good! Not ideal! Not recommended!
I wouldn't say things are 100% better now, but I'd say they're back to life's normal ups and downs. Things are much more manageable, and I've been thinking about the moments I felt best and most alive during these past few months.
A major one was Divinuet.
Throughout all that, I somehow still had the energy and motivation to work on it. Don't ask me how, because I don't know. I think there was a part of me that really, really needed a win, and Divinuet has been starting to really come together. Meeting milestones felt good. Being able to look at this thing I made and feel proud felt really good.
Because this thing is good, actually. This weird little piece of my heart. This strange project I've been working on since 2019. There have been times I felt so insecure about it, but I'm truly starting to love it.
There's really no way for me to experience this game, knowing how complex the music systems are and how many wildly varied tracks I wrote, and think I'm a bad composer.
Of course there's room for improvement. There always is. But I'm thinking about how meticulously I planned out these music systems, and the entire aural experience, and now most of the music is done and actually in the game. And it sounds as good as or even better than I thought it would.
Because I know what I'm doing. Because I'm a good composer.
It's so beautiful, the way people shine when they're doing something they're truly passionate about. Divinuet is such a weird combination of things I love (tarot, film, overly complex interactive music). I guess that's the nice thing about doing a personal project. You can make whatever weird thing your heart desires.
It's not always been a smooth process. I probably overscoped. I've gone through periods of hating the game, resenting the fact that I ever started making it. I don't know if I ever want to make a game again, to be honest. Above all else, I'm a composer. And Divinuet, above all else, was an opportunity for me to explore making music in a much more involved way than I ever have before.
I started getting Divinuet's Steam page set up today. (I'm currently in the middle of the ID verification process, or I would have linked it here). It's so odd and niche that I'm afraid nobody will buy it. Or maybe they will buy it, but they won't understand the point of it. Maybe I'll get bad reviews.
But if either of those things happen, I hope I can hold onto the feeling I had a month or so ago. When, after such a long time of feeling so unsure of what I was making, I had that moment of, "wait a minute. This is actually sounding really good."
Almost like past me knew what she was doing when she created the whole huge ridiculous music system. When she had a deep gut instinct of what the game's overall sound should be and ran with it. When she balanced elements of randomness with being very, very deliberate.
Because despite the way insecurity can sometimes claw its way to the front of my mind, the way I sometimes tend to negatively compare myself to other people who make music, the way I can always find some flaw in my work, this game is how I finally was able to prove it to myself.
I know what I'm doing. I'm a good composer.
I can't wait to share the game with y'all. And after that, I'm so excited to see where my musical journey takes me next.
