Post-Mortem: I Released the Blightened Demo and Went Feral

Dev log post mortem demo oversharing

Well, after a little over a year, it happened. I released a Steam game demo. Cool, right?

What started as just killing time (because corporate America demanded it of me) became “Blightened.”

I’ve come to realize that the premise of this game wasn’t something I just came up with, but more my life’s work combined in totality and then projected into a single title of a game (blighted + enlightened). My life career has been hours of relentless working, dealing with BS politics, learning to code, learning dozens of industry disciplines, always reading, always competing for peanuts, everything. It was cruel, grueling, and rewarding all in that order.

Bottom line? It was a fucking grind. I did what I had to. Some of it I wanted. Most of it I didn’t. Didn’t matter. I kept going.

Sixteen years contracting with the military. Fifteen more supporting 40+ companies building their games. And a pile of other hats I wore in between. 2023, I became unemployed just like so many others. I still get decline emails from them to this day on resumes I sent out over a year ago. Clowns.

After months of “relaxing,” I got angry. No, not angry, fucking feral is a better way to put it. I needed a channel, a focus, something other than nothing, because nothing wasn’t really working for me. So I sat in my chair and tried reinventing myself.

After multiple complete misdirections of my own making, I eventually landed on: “Make a game.” Yeah, I had the same response you just had reading that. I mean, what was I supposed to do with all the knowledge I had acquired? Get a job telling other people what to do? Yeah, I’ll pass.

The only people that knew were the immediate family I had around me. And I knew I had (at best) a 5% chance of making it work. So yeah, I understood the risk. I still do. That’s still my mindset: Let’s see what all this experience can do when it’s unleashed all at once. If the studios I supported for over 20 years could do it? I knew I could too. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

Because I became feral (as I said earlier) the player became a beast. Something monstrous. Something that would claw and hack anything in its way. I didn’t want the beast to be good or bad. Just there. Surviving. Even when it wasn’t in control. It needed to absorb everything it touches. Not with ease, weakness, fear, or anger. It’s only there to continue (summary of my career) and carry as much as his will can hold.

I wanted different realities (industries I’ve helped), fragments of time (my career milestones), and new abilities (things I learned along the way). I didn’t want the world of Blightened to always lean dark. I wanted it to be rich and vibrant at times. Sometimes warm, sometimes cold. A blend of corrupted fantasy (the game side of my career) and an age of industry (the military side), colliding in strange ways.

I believe the demo shows some of that coming through.

So now that the demo’s done... what’s next, underdog?

I’m glad you asked. Simple truth: I’m either going to kill this final boss with the support of my fellow Blightened, so we can all celebrate the end credits or the final boss will kill me and I can die knowing that I tried.

But the real ending? I made that final boss. And you, your kids, and their kids will get to kill it for me forever, or as long as the internet exists.

Time to create monsters and seek my revenge.