steamrolled by deadlines
february 20th, 2026
greetings and salutations! my exam prep is still ongoing, but i did get a teeny bit of game stuff out of the way, just to maintain my sanity, basically... while the game itself hasn't had many updates, something big has happened!? we've hit a major milestone...
that is, the paranormal research society page is now live on steam (after a bunch of nervous procrastination!)
oh, there it is. right on the website. for everyone to see.
that's... that's a bit scary...
technically, the itch.io page is ready too, since it's just recycled assets and the same description copied and pasted, but like, i'm not at all sure when i'm supposed to publish that one...
this really feels like the big leagues now. steam is such an official platform, and there was a whole review process and everything?! it was pretty nerve-wracking and i was jumping around my room nervously trying to procrastinate pushing the "submit for review" button. and if that was hard, imagine my reaction when my game page actually got approved and i was supposed to publish it. i know people shove ungodly slop on steam all the damn time, but this is a big deal for me!!! paranormal research society is a deeply personal project and putting anything related to it out there is genuinely sooooooo fucking stressful. like, there's a reason you don't see many of these devlogs. blogs. well..
this more or less also applies to my most recent problem, which is marketing... now that my steam page is live, i should really really REALLY be posting about it on social media, because game needs player. but in the past year or so i've quit all social media and become so distanced from every single platform that posting on social media is such a chore and i don't wanna do it at all. i've always been super bad at posting consistently, but now that it actually matters, i might be a bit screwed. i'm super neurotic about whether my stuff is good enough to show people as well. i was really nervous about submitting my page for review because like, HELLO?!? WHOEVER REVIEWED THIS, I'M SO SO SORRY YOU HAD TO WITNESS THIS. PLEASE FORGIVE ME. I HOPE LOOKING AT MY WORK ISN'T TOO MUCH OF AN INCONVENIENCE EVEN IF THIS IS PROBABLY YOUR JOB. I CAN JUST KILL MYSELF (OUT OF RESPECT) IF THAT HELPS. I WILL STOP WASTING PIXELS ON YOUR SCREEN
crippling impostor syndrome aside, i made some extremely bad decisions here. steam's got a whoooole bunch of events and stuff you can apply for, which is really cool! but i made the idiotic decision of applying for the june 2026 steam next fest! to a gamer, that's all fine and dandy. you don't need to know anything more. but as a developer, i've just set myself an incredibly tight deadline that just so happens to coincide with exam season. uh oh
the end of registration for the next fest is april 28th, and while i don't need to have a demo released by then, apparently it's better for reach or.. something... to have a demo up a few months before next fest. the absolute latest deadline for that is the start of the event, but i want to have one out at least a month before it starts to qualify for showcase opportunities and stuff... i'll also need to prepare a trailer, which is completely new territory. i do more or less consider myself a jack of all trades, but one of those trades is not video editing. or gaming, for that matter. i tried recording some footage for page screenshots last week but the stuff i got was so fucking abysmal i couldn't use it for shit because i can't actually even play my own fucking game
i'll probably learn at some point though... yeah... i don't have much of a choice, do i?! anyway, bottom line, the demo for paranormal research society is coming out late april or sometime around may. if everything goes well, i'lll be joining thousands of hopefuls in the absolute hunger games event that is steam next fest. or what my current understanding of it is anyway. i have to admit i actually have little to no clue. this is going to be the most monumental solo dev crunch ever. also completely self-imposed, why do this? i thrive under stress, i suppose.. can't imagine this is too good for me in the long run... oh well.... que sera sera......
so like, what's next? well, i'm not quite sure. i'm aiming to drop off the face of the earth for the entirety of april (and possibly may?) to work like there's no tomorrow. next time i update this devlog, i'm hoping to have a trailer done, and then, well... the demo release! in hindsight, this devlog has been kind of useless so far. i've used it for blogging and maybe like two actual DEVELOPMENT updates if anything. i just pop in to go "oh yay i've done things", refuse to elaborate and then vanish... maybe post-demo release i'll use this devlog to actually update on development. but as it stands, nobody is really concerned for the game in its current state, no?! why update anything concrete here!? this might as well be my diary!!! i do think it's kind of funny how the vast majority of developers with artsy projects just post on them online without doing any of the work on the actual game, which eventually becomes their downfall, and i somehow have the exact opposite problem. i don't post about my game at all, how is anyone supposed to know about it?!?!
i have lots and lots of work to do and nothing to say about it, honestly. except for apologizing about how many pixels my rant is taking up on your screen. but really, you are on my website, so you could just close the tab if that's an issue. did you know my website is compatible with viewing on a windows xp? i had no idea until last week, it's pretty neat. altair runs too
best regrets,
ellen alias catskulls