whoops it's been 3 months. anyway, i recently discovered that i'm plural. so what does that mean?

plurality is the existence of multiple self-aware entities in the brain^[1]. a system is the group that resides within a brain, and headmates are the individuals within that group. there are other terms people use; i've simply listed the ones i prefer here. plurality may or may not be a new concept to you, but i'd already known several systems online. before that, i first discovered it from a VRChat interview with one. i thought it was really cool (if only every human had that attitude) and latched onto the idea since.

initially i dismissed the thought of being plural myself, but as time went on, i began debating it more and more. i could spend hours simply conversing with myself. i felt a profound level of disconnect with my body, like i was merely observing the world through someone else's eyes. eventually, i found out about two things that made it click: a.) it's extremely common for systems to doubt themselves, even those who have been out for several years, and b.) every system differs; not every one is composed of entirely distinct beings.

my last hurdle was feeling like i had to identify each of my selves. every system i'd known of had a complete list of their headmates, but nothing i tried seemed to get anywhere. even now, i'm not sure how other systems go about identifying them (if you're reading this and know more, do let me know!) learning about that last point really helped me; i stopped trying to force us to be more different.

learning i was plural has answered many questions i had about myself, and brought up just as many. if you know me personally, it's unlikely it will change anything; we have the same experiences and memories, and none have any preferred pronouns. regardless, i'm glad to have discovered this about me.

this is Generic Topdown Shooter. it's my first published game, but i've actually been a game dev for quite some time. let's see how i got here.

way back in primary school, a friend and i discovered Scratch, a website that you could make games with just by snapping code blocks together. we churned out dozens of poorly made, but genuine, projects. game dev became our passion. our ambitions were unbound.

secondary school came around. we decided we were too grown-up for Scratch, and picked up Unity. some things were familiar, but otherwise we were starting from scratch (heh). so, we got to learning. my friend found out about game jams: competitions where you must make a game based on a theme in a certain time-frame. the perfect way to learn- the limited time forces you to keep your games small. we found an upcoming jam and joined together!

no, i didn't. why should i bother with silly little game jams? my ideas were way too great for them. so i kept chipping away at my dream game. my friend, meanwhile, joined jam after jam. he improved, little by little.

the years passed. i continued with my project. i stagnated. he found a small team to work with. i burnt out. he became better than me in every way. i gave up quietly.

then, high school was over. i began seeing a psychologist. we talked about setting goals, and i thought: i've tried game dev before. why not give it another go? so there was my goal: "i will finish a game by the end of August." this time, i was okay with failing. i'd just set an easier goal.

but i didn't fail. it's not an impressive game. it's a generic topdown shooter. but it's mine.

(and i didn't need AI to make it lol!!)

welcome to my first blog post. i've been thinking, i'm a thing with a lot of thoughts; but social media is public and algorithmic and all that. then i thought, why not put a blog on your website? and here we are. well, this is not really a blog, just a page that i add text to manually. good enough for me!