If you don’t read fully into this post, then the news is likely going to upset you. But please do hear me out.
Socially Distant is an up-coming narrative hacking game I wanted to make since the real-life global pandemic of 2020. I’ve always loved “biological fiction” games, that being games like Prototype that follow the story of some kind of diabolical biological threat against humanity. I’ve also always liked the idea of making a hacking game, and Socially Distant is that.
Although Socially Distant as you know it came to exist in mid-2021, that’s not actually the full history. I have been trying to make some kind of hacking game non-stop for 10 years. For context, I’m 22 years old at the time of writing this. Do the math, and you’ll start to understand a bit of how I’m feeling.
What am I feeling?
I’m feeling more or less burned out. Not because I find Socially Distant hard to program, or that I don’t find the game fun to work on. I love solving problems in the game’s engine, I love seeing new gameplay mechanics come to life and existing ones start to feel more polished and complete. I even dream of different scenarios that could take place in the game’s world.
But with every wonderful dream, there’s a time where you must wake up and face reality. The reality with Socially Distant is I just don’t have the ability to do everything I want to do with it. Development is at a point now where my vision impairment does more harm than good, since many of the core gameplay features that don’t involve visual art have been finished or are at a functional state.
As easy as I make it look, designing the game’s user interface is extremely difficult for me. I’m grateful that I have friends to help keep me on the right track, and make sure that the game looks moderately pleasing to people with varying vision. But I’m at my best when I don’t need that help. You can call it a character flaw, but I don’t like being helped all the time without giving back in some way. My fear is not being able to make the game I dream of making because I’ve exhausted everything I can do on my own and need other people to carry the torch for me. That’s just not something I want to go through, given it’s my dream to make my own game.
What are the challenges with making Socially Distant that I’ve not overcome?
Simply put, everything visual.
I cannot do 3D modelling (yes, there are hidden parts of the game that need it - even if the game presents those models in 2D, the city map would be a 3D model).
I can’t design my own icons for the interface, and are limited to things like Material Icons. This creatively limits the game’s art style, as these icons are designed to have their own identity rather than conform to my game’s.
Without the use of generative AI, which I find unethical to use in game development for any other reason than early prototyping, I can’t even make profile picctures for NPCs.
All of this stems from my blindness. I could never and will never be capable of visual art, I’ve accepted that, it’s fine, I am a programmer, I want to remain a programmer.
So why not just…put all of that aside?
Well, for now, I have been. The problem with building a prototype is, eventually, it needs to become a finished polished game. Choosing to ignore what I can’t do for Socially Distant doesn’t solve the root problem, that I have no way of getting it beyond that prototyping stage.
Not only would this be an impossible-to-overcome hirdle for me given my blindness, but hiring a team of people to help isn’t possible either. Their paycheck needs to come from somewhere, and although I’m extremely grateful for my Patreon supporters footing the bill for up-keep, that server upkeep cost isn’t much more per month than what I’d legally have to pay a full-time employee in Ontario for one hour. We as a community just don’t have that kind of money, and I must work with what I have.
So what about commissioning art?
For things like the game’s logo artwork and the default wallpapers of the in-game OS, this is fine.
The problem is this doesn’t scale. Time is money, and someone would need to invest a tremendous amount of their time to help me bring Socially Distant fully to life. There’s just too much artwork that needs to be done.
I don’t have the cash to put into that. I just don’t.
So why not give up?
Because it’s my game and I won’t be hearing that.
It isn’t a sunk cost fallacy for me. It’s about my blindness. Letting it win over my desire to make something isn’t something I am willing to accept. It will not win, under any circumstances. Fuck my blindness, I’m stronger.
So… what’s the plan?
The reality is I do need a break from the game. I need, and furthermore want, to broaden my horizons. I want to improve blind accessibility in the tools I use, such as KDE Plasma. I want to make other games that I’ve dreamed of making but never thought I could.
And I don’t want to work on parts of Socially Distant you don’t get to experience.
And I want to fix that cashflow problem.
I do need your help.
I don’t feel like I deserve the credit I get, but if you ask many of my friends (close or not), at least a decent majority of them will say something about the fact I’m a talented programmer. I’m not, I’m just like anyone else who does what I do for fun, but… somehow I’ve earned my reputation.
Whether you see me that way or you don’t, that’s okay. But I want you to look at the very few things I have done that worked out. If any of it, or this post, resonates with you in some way, then this is a list of things I’ve always wanted to do.
- Write my own Linux desktop environment.
- Write a LittleBigPlanet-like level editor that works in 3D rather than 2.5D.
- Start my own game studio.
- Publish my first game on Steam.
- Do the same, but to Xbox and PlayStation.
- Create some kind of story-driven platformer game
- Create a rhythm game of some kind
- Teach people how I do what I do without being affected by what I can’t do
- Make cyberspace, and realspace, a better place
- …Complete Socially Distant.
If any of those things resonate with you as well, then I need your help. I can’t do them alone.
And if you think I’m worthy of it, then let this entire site be my…very unconventional… resume.
But don’t feel sorry for me. I’m still fighting.
So what happens with Socially Distant?
I am not completely stopping development. The game is going into “hobby mode,” meaning I will no longer be working on it because I have to. I will work on it when I feel like it.
Monthly devlogs will be suspended during this hobby mode. As much as I love sharing the game’s development with you guys, preparing a devlog is a massive chore I have to consciously think about when working on the game full-time. I can do it, but it’s not fun.
The game’s source code, with the exception of Career Mode, will remain FOSS on my GitLab instance.
I will still accept merge requests and issues, that will not change. My readiness to handle them may.
What will I be doing instead?
I am working on prototyping another game, “Codename: World,” which you can see the WIP pitch for at https://gitlab.acidiclight.dev/world/pitch.
I will also be continuing my journey contributing to KDE, even if that just involves reporting and championing accessibility and usability bugs. Helping Brodie Robertson with the Kwin caching bug was some of the most fun I’ve had hunting a bug in years.
I also intend on tearing down the Socially Distant Forum and replacing it with one more general for the acidic light community. I’ll also be opening up a section on the forum where you guys can ask for accessibility feedback on your own work, or even just share cool things with the community.
And when it’s affordable, Socially Distant will come back.
Do not lose hope for this game. I know many of you are excited for it (as evident by the activity in my Discord server and t he playtest application form). Development will continue, and it’s worth the wait. A delayed game is eventually good, this delay is just necessitated by my disability.
So…yeah. That’s basically it.