Blueprint

This wasn't the project I planned to make. 

I originally started studying game development with the dream of becoming a narrative designer, hopefully working on the kinds of games that made me fall in love with games in the first place. 

Over the past four years of undergrad and postgrad, I've grown a lot as a person, and as a developer. But over time, I've also come to realise that in learning about the truth of the games industry, especially over these last few turbulent years, that I am kind of terrified of becoming a part of it. Not because I hate making games, but because I love them so much that I'm terrified I'll never be good enough to stand among those I've admired for so long. 

This past month, I ended up having a bit of a breakdown over this, during which I wrote the first draft of what would eventually become the script for 'Blueprint'. The stress and panic of deadlines had compounded alongside my perfectionism and made it difficult for me to start working on projects, especially the one I had originally planned for this module. 'Blueprint' became my outlet for this: a game venting my  frustrations with both myself and the industry, and how the differing perceptions of game development between players and the industry has created a standard for myself that I know I can't live up to, but try to anyway. And, after some deliberation, I decided to scrap the other project (for now), in order to make Blueprint instead.

My only intent with this project is to share my personal thoughts and feelings about the industry, and maybe to make people think of games a little differently: less like commercial products, and more as a vehicle for storytelling. As said through the game, 'Maybe all a game needs to be is the simple act of carrying on in the hopes that someday, somehow, you'll figure out what you're doing this for.'

And maybe that's all the intention we need: to carry on and see things through, even if we don't really get it.