'Happy Hunting Ground' - postmortem

happy hunting ground [sic.] was released on 9:00 AM EST, March 30th, 2024, and by my measure, it is likely to be – and already is – something of a flop. As of this moment, the game has incurred 16 views and 2 downloads – both of those downloads being on behalf of individuals I know; my expectation is that the game’s view-to-download rate will keep at 8:1 or even increase further, but we shall see.

Though I would love to delve deeper into this project’s development, I am weary at the moment and would like to forgo thought on this work unto death; it’s a failure and that’s that. Long story short, happy hunting ground was initially conceived as a run-and-gun FPS, with ‘Guns, cultists, synth-wave music, 3 minutes of negative space at the beginning, fake Polish folklore, and a heck of an ambiguous ending’ – as evidenced by the final project, the game turned out to be anything but, with coma-inducing non-gameplay and a torturous, sea-gouging, wake-wharfing, awful, asphyxiating visual scheme – I hate to look at it. I spent roughly 12 hours working on the game yesterday – fasting until the game was complete – and thus it and I are mortal enemies. Now I am weak and dislike what I put out. The next game will be better? Who knows at this point.

So, the score – ‘Nessun Dorma’, distorted beyond belief. I wanted the game to be romantic and uplifting and thus I chose that piece, which I was initially acquainted with by a football fan. I found the most reasonable public-domain recording of the piece (from 1929) and messed around with it in Ableton, and that was that. I might post it on YouTube, I guess?

Anyways, good night, or good morning; as previously stated, I am quite tired.