Spark

When I was younger, my favourite passtime was to draw mazes and subject others to them, forcing to solve them on the spot. My mazes started off pretty tame, but eventually they got so complicated that I wasn’t even thinking about where to put the goal and instead was focused on the mechanics of solving it. For instance, some of my mazes relied on folds in the paper, so you’d have to unfold and re-fold creases to open up pathways and traverse ‘around’ the page, and some mazes were linked to others via portals on other pages.

When I went to sixth form (or highschool, as US readers would put it), I was asked to think more about what I wanted to do with myself and my career. I was good at maths and computers, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Eventually I landed on the idea of trying to make video games — I had been trying to make them in my spare time in GameMaker, after all.

I went to university and learned to program. Despite being quite far behind from a programming perspective, the skills I learned from my further maths modules in sixth form really helped me with the problem solving mindset as well as prepare me for some of the harder challenges. Eventually I overtook the other students and became relatively okay in C++. Unfortunately though, university had failed to teach me what I really wanted to know: how to make games in something like Unity or Unreal.

Out of spite, I essentially went away and taught myself how to make game engines, many of which are available on this very website for people to see. After making very basic engines with SFML and eventually OpenGL, I came to understand some of the fundamentals of a game engine. This forbidden knowledge was invaluble and gave me a great advantage during the latter half of university, allowing me to succeed in competitions and pass modules with ease. University didn’t really teach; it tested.

After university, I’ve been through two games studios and various roles until we hit today: I’m currently 27 years old, and I am extremely burned out. I’ve lost my passions and my drive to keep learning. I feel really hollow, as my own website says ‘I try to never stop learning’, and yet I hadn’t really done a project in my spare time.

What happened?

Burnout

The issue is that work simply takes so much energy, and the other side of the coin is that solo indie dev is extremely difficult and requires many hours of time, lots of energy, and a great amount of determination. That’s why all my projects have learning outcomes as I already know that I wasn’t really interested in releasing a game.

After speaking to colleagues, therapists, friends and myself, I believe I’ve determined the root cause of my burnout: somehow, my love for game development was conflated with my enjoyment of programming. Everything I’ve made begs questions like:

• How does this make me more employable?
• How could I make money from this?
• How would this look on my website?
• What transferable skills will I learn?

Eventually, hobby projects became a vessel for career-related issues to bleed into my personal life. I was no longer making things for myself, but I was doing it for potential employers and maybe even for my website.

Even the act of playing games has become less enjoyable. I feel quite hollow and empty. While I do believe we’ve had a few rough years for video games (especially compared to the golden age of Xbox 360 (and also PS2!), I don’t even enjoy the games I used to. There is something wrong with me.

I didn’t know that burnout was a professional term — I always thought it was just a phrase of saying you’re tired. No. It is real, and after some research I’ve discovered how common it is in the tech industry, and I think that it was this shift from making games to software engineering that led this burnout. I’ve always loved talking about games and debating about mechanics and game design, but the further I’ve got into my career the less involved I’ve been with the creative side of the industry. It’s still early days, but I’m trying to rectify this.

Stepping forward

This burnout led to a spiral and an identity crisis. I was no longer the person I was; I didn’t enjoy the same games, didn’t enjoy programming. My stance on established vs proprietary engines changed. I was becoming a new person. This was when I learned something: this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

When you are stricken with these kinds of feelings, the worst thing you can do is tether yourself to your old decisions. Just because I used to like doing something, doesn’t mean I have to force myself to try and get back into it. With this in mind, I’ve been trying to get out of this slump by trying new things.

Lately, I’ve been getting into making music. I purchased Bitwig Studio and have been having a blast making noises. It’s so refreshing having a hobby that I’m really bad at: there’s no expectations for me to do well, and I have no intention on this becoming related to my career, so there’s no pressure. If I feel like it, I’ll do it. I still have low energy levels now and then, but when I can I am trying to focus it into music making and music theory. Wish me luck!

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s this mantra: heat, strike, rest. When trying to improve at something, try to approach it like a blacksmith forging a sword.

• Heat — Watch some videos that get you excited and inspired, or maybe gives you an idea of something you want to try.
• Strike — Do the work! Expend your energy doing the thing you want to do.
• Rest — Enjoy the feeling of having made progress. Force yourself to step back and reflect on your work, as well as taking the time necessary to recover before repeating the process.

I realised that a 5 day working week didn’t really allow me to follow this pattern. There was no ‘heat’ anymore as I am no longer as inspired as I used to be in terms of programming, and I feel like I can never catch my breath. I’m doing too much striking and it’s wearing me down, and so I am currently exploring how to fix this.

Other than that though, eveything is still a work in progress. I don’t really know what I’m doing if I’m honest. I have a lot of self help books to read, therapy to attend and career moves to consider. Thankfully I’m doing okay on my current team and they are giving me a lot of support, but ultimately I think I need to reconnect with the creative person within me. I just wanted to write this blog post so that it doesn’t look like I’ve fully abandoned my website.

Thanks for reading. Normally I’d say ‘expect X in the future’ or whatever, but I’m not going to promise anything. From here on out, I’m going to do what I want and nothing more. I’m going to take life one-second-per-second, and only do things that matter to me. I am still mentoring people and I still enjoy teaching, but I’m not going to keep putting myself down for ‘failing’ to do things like post on my website, especially when I doubt many people even read this.