This newspost a bit scattered, just wanted to get some thoughts out there in writing.
December was pretty wacky. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I worked on a game that got 2,000,000 views and kinda went viral. If you look it up on youtube, you’re gonna find videos with hundreds of thousands of views, and if you can scroll for days trying to dig through every piece of fanart on Twitter. It’s definitely been overwhelming to say the least. It absolutely is a dream come true. Any gamedev in my position would murder to have a 1/10th of the attention that Friday Night Funkin has. It’s been pretty much one of the only things on my mind all December, and because of that it also has felt a bit isolating. Even if I can talk with my pals about it, there’s always something in the back of my mind that feels a bit guilty, like I’m always just talking about myself and my problems. It’s overwhelming to look at numbers and compare myself to classics that inspired ME. It’s cool to see though, and makes me feel proud. Trying to be happy for my own success is a bit of a tricky line. On one hand, it’s like “aw hell yeah, this game I made is fuckin awesome and is blowing away everything else”, on the other hand, it can so easily feel like I’m just some dweeb rubbing in the one lucky break I have. I know for a fact it fills Newgrounds with a certain amount of hope, because I know whenever I saw ANYTHING Newgrounds related get any amount of attention it was inspiring. Whether it be Derpixon’s porn animations getting millions of views, or even the Among Us crew having some roots in NG, it all felt like Newgrounds as a whole was slowly taking over. It’s weird to think that me and the other FNF fellas are a part of that, but really something like this I’ve been waiting for ever since I joined the site. It really has been my dream to be a part of a project that could somehow help out Newgrounds in some way. And it ABSOLUTELY happened.
I don’t think there’s a piece of me that’s like, “naw, I don’t deserve this” because I know it’s all sorta just random chance and right place right time lightning in a bottle type shit. Made good plays and most of them worked out VERY well for us.
It’s weird to think of myself or anyone else on the team as ‘famous’. Almost feels a bit in denial, maybe it’s true maybe it’s not. I think especially looking at numbers it’s easy to compare to other game developers I look up to, and it’s weird to think that I’ve been slowly creeping up on them. And of course shit like Twitter followers isn’t the end all be all of success, but like I said it’s just somethin easy to compare to.
Twitter has definitely been strange, but I don’t think I use it too drastically differently than I used to. I still find myself making dumbass tweets and whatnot. I literally am FLOODED with notifications basically 24/7, to the point where I almost can’t even check my mentions. For a while that’s been overwhelming, to try to keep up with every single comment and reply, but I think I’m slowly realizing that it’s gonna be impossible to make sure everyone gets a piece of my attention. I’m slowly starting to realize that with DM’s as well. I used to try to reply or respond to most questions or messages, but it’s been A LOT, and it’s been spread out through Newgrounds, Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram, and Discord. I really can’t find a place to get away from it other than fully disconnecting, which would probably be good for me to do at some point in time.
It’s weird to think of the potential success. I mean we have a VERY good hand dealt to us right now. The stress I don’t think comes from the possibility of us screwing things up, but almost moreso if we DON’T screw up. Because if we are very successful, it absolutely will be life changing. The thought of having even more than 5000$ in my bank account is crazy, so what’s gonna happen if there’s 10K? 100K? What if this game turns me into a millionaire? If we fumble our chance there’s gonna be a ‘what if’ in the back of our minds for a long time, but at the very least my life will more or less be the same and I’m back to just making dumb little gamejam games. But if we nail it, and everything goes even better than expected, it’s like nothing will be the same. I never grew up with money, I’m still not exactly used to buying myself things too often. At the start of the year was when I had one of my first real jobs ever, and I was able to move out for the first time. At the end of November I moved across Canada to a city in Ontario. That happened not because of the game btw, but it’s like, I think December has just been such a drastic and crazy whiplash for me, and it sorta been makin me lose my mind, just a little bit. Hard to know what things am I doing because I’m just going crazy, or what things am I doing because I sorta ‘changed’ in some form (good or bad). Maybe it’s too personal and real, in case she’s reading this, but did you guys know that I confessed to a girl for the first time ever? Did I do that because I’ve been so stressed with everything? Or do I just have some sort of newfound confidence and I’m just sorta developing as a person? Obviously it’s a mix of both, but it’s always more tempting to think of it as one or the other, and try to overthink in my own mind about it to the point where it feels like I’m short circuiting my brain. That whole situation been complicated but in any case you probably understand my point, where it’s feeling like there’s a chance that all this stress and overwhelming-ness from the game and everything around it is affecting my personal life.
That’s it for now, there’s a million more things that’s in my head. Usually I do a yearly recap or whatever but oops I just wanted to have something out there about Funkin and my own brain. I’ve been trying to take it easy. Game, watch youtube, relax. But it’s been hard. Even writing this and posting this I know I’m gonna get a good handful of messages and replies telling me to take it easy, oh well. I DONT KNOW ANYHTING LOL. I will say the fact I’m writing this means I’m in a bit of a better situation than I was not too long ago. Felt hard to focus on anything other than game stuff directly, whether it be browse twitter for fanart, program the game, or reply to messages from FANS (it’s weird for me to call people fans but it is what it is I guess). It’s good for me to get these thoughts in writing and whatnot, and get it out so it doesn’t feel as isolating.
Happy new years Newgrounds XDD
Macarrones05
I know you said we would say this, but really, take it easy, if you are feeling bad for whatever reason take a break, that is what your fans wants more, for you to be ok,so pls take care, and happy new year ^^