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[mystic_swamp]

ITCH / TWITCH / TWITTER


WISHLIST ON STEAM!




"This Is Crying" is a horror / comedy adventure video game
about traversing psychical memory spaces and figuring out how to deal with your blank note.



Try: Meeting up with the fragmented remains of an old friend
split amongst the unquantifiable pieces of your recollection!

Or: Encountering old problems you forgot you had
that have physically manifested inside you as entities
who want nothing more than to be destroyed.

Make sure to open every Attachment to every Email you can find.
No harm can come to you. If you find an Attachment that is filled with dread,
attempt to calm them by performing various Operations.
No harm can come to you.

[droqen]

omg! i saw this here & thought it looked cool, then saw it on twitter and was like "oh it's you!!!"

hello, this looks good and as with ot'ln'oo i love the crisp planning you have, the excellent scope management. looking forward to following along! <3

[mystic_swamp]

omg! i saw this here & thought it looked cool, then saw it on twitter and was like "oh it's you!!!"

hello, this looks good and as with ot'ln'oo i love the crisp planning you have, the excellent scope management. looking forward to following along! <3

Ahh! your interest is much appreciated, especially for a project like this, one I feel is like really 1:1 with my personal identity as an artist, so any feedback at all is energizing! ty for the kind words.

As for the scope. I seriously had to sit down and force myself to be like, David, this game is not a dream, it can not be ephemeral, it will and has to be discreet, and all you need to TRY to do is make it feel as if it is not, which is the one thing I'm hoping emerges from the way I'm designing it.

Additionally I gave myself no timeline because when I had one it ruled my life and made me feel awful. So I'm taking this project one day at a time just as before, but pacing myself and having fun with it, which I find is really necessary when I make media that feels like I'm kinda just placing my heart on a table for strangers to look at.

[droqen]

How did you decide on these particular mechanics? Have you been prototyping to arrive here? Does  another game serve as inspiration? They're just very specific and you seem so confident about them!

Something that helps me to make a thing feel discreet is to be very clear about the path I expect/want the player to take. A follows B, for example. I design a lot of very tiny-open-world stuff, so it can be a bit weird and conceptual, but every little thing I can nail down without damaging the openness is a small victory for concreteness.

[mystic_swamp]

How did you decide on these particular mechanics? Have you been prototyping to arrive here? Does  another game serve as inspiration? They're just very specific and you seem so confident about them!

This all came to me when I was in a very positive state while creating mockups lol. I wrote down what I was experiencing at the time:

"ever dream up a creation

you work it so fast and loose every moment is fading from within this intangible thing
it has no edges
certainly no handle
but you gotta grab it

yeah my heart pounds so fast in excitement
in mania
i have to have this creation created
short of breath with the fear of it being gone

and i mustn't let it be corrected by the solidity around us
must remain intangible and"

The choices are specific and confident because they are exactly what I want them to be for the experience I want to create. They are the emergent conclusion given years of assimilating media into my taste, so in that regard it is really difficult to point to any particular thing that serves as inspiration for this project, but if there was something serving as at least a source of my apparent confidence it would probably be David Lynch talking in interviews about how he feels about ideas.

Something that helps me to make a thing feel discreet is to be very clear about the path I expect/want the player to take. A follows B, for example. I design a lot of very tiny-open-world stuff, so it can be a bit weird and conceptual, but every little thing I can nail down without damaging the openness is a small victory for concreteness.

In regards to concreteness, I have a similar method to your expected player path.
I try to create specific moments.
Not even necessarily a crux or anything, but moments I feel are special.

I think about pretty much ALL media I create like this and I honestly don't know if it's good or bad.
I take very particular imagery like a memory or dream I can't explain, something that feels mystical to me, then I create a universe to support the existence of that imagery. I have SO much of this imagery that I've written down over the years that it is honestly overwhelming and hopefully I will get to it all eventually somehow lol.

Edit: So, in the middle of writing this yesterday I found out that I have been exposed to a person who tested positive for covid, not sure what that will mean for development, but i'm a bit stressed rn to say the least...

[anonyore]

this is graphically the coolest looking vidcon i've seen in a long while, very very very excited to see how this progresses

[Alain]

First, I looked at the images and did not know what I was looking at, so you caught my attention. I think this reaction is exactly what you are going for. At a second look they are amazing, I will definitely follow your progess!

[mystic_swamp]

Its been awhile since posting.

I've widened the scope of the game, but refined it's navigation and mechanics.
I've also slightly modified the artstyle.

I'm going to focus on development a lot in the coming weeks.
I'll be streaming development after 5:00pm est some days.

I posted a TikTok of the process I use to create the art for the entities and objects in the game and it got more attention than anything I've ever created before, which I find cool, but anxiety inducing.

I'm going to go about development in a way that works for my mental health. I am not going to create an organized timeline yet, because I'm not ready for that.

But, here are some links to ways you can keep up with development when I'm not posting here:

the game's itchio page
https://mysticswamp.itch.io/this-is-crying

the game's twitter
https://twitter.com/this_is_crying

my twitch
https://www.twitch.tv/haha_dave

and my twitter
https://twitter.com/nonbinary_owl

[Alain]

Finding a healthy pace is hard for me, too. But being aware of that is a good first step, I hope. I think we all make games, because we love it, so we shouldn't stress ourselves out so much about it. Anyways, I'm looking forward to hear more about your game!

[mystic_swamp]

This project has become much more solidified in a way I am very excited for. I've been working on an organization of development based on a timeline aiming for an end of July release on Steam and Itch. It's very much not like the prototype it started as and I believe that is good.

Here is some interface design I've been noodling with. (I've also updated the main post)

[QOG]

Like the look, seems like this game has a lot of potential. Posting to follow.

[Alain]

The UI looks clean and focussed, yet appealing and I am sure it will give your art the space it needs to breathe. Nice job so far!

[droqen]

i am excited by the 'Attachments' pun

[mystic_swamp]

I wrote out a really long explanation of how this new mechanic I'm working on functions, its purpose, its meaning, and the rhythms of my worldly attachments, but then I refreshed the page accidently and all of what I wrote was gone.

Okay, here is some stuff:

[JobLeonard]

 

Oh this just oooooozes style

[mystic_swamp]

I have been working on putting together a navigation demo to better actualize the navigation mechanics and build out the world.

I needed to make an overworld map so the the first thing I did was use a diagraming software and mapped out the logical connections of each room.


Next I scrunched the diagrams logic into 640x360 and sketched a map onto the connection logic.


Finally I cut down the number of map locations to just main areas.


This map serves as a Bethesda-like fast travel system.

I have also worked on polishing some stuff as a treat:

[JobLeonard]

 

It's easy to forget for players how much work goes into this kind of thing

[mystic_swamp]

thank you for the appreciation of my efforts! <3 sometimes even I forget the amount of work that has to go into this kind of thing

[mystic_swamp]

I've been working on this video game every moment I can afford.
It's getting there.

I'm currently working on getting organized. I'm hoping to release a demo sometime soon?
Going to have much more time to work on it over the next 3 months.

[JobLeonard]

The mood is so good using so little, it's amazing!