log 09: Please stand by...
march 29th, 2026
greetings and salutations! how have you been? good, i hope. unfortunately, i can't really say the same...
i've had quite an eventful yet also very boring few weeks! first and foremost i had my matriculation exams for maths and social studies, which i hopefully passed despite promising myself i'd finally study for something in my life. for weeks upon weeks i updated this devlog saying i'd take a break from game dev to focus on my studies, but that literally never happened. i was working on the game literally two days before my exam. i'm really not a responsible individual all things considered
but that's not really relevant here, is it?! you're here for my game, aren't you?!?! right, so, about that....
so at the time of writing, the demo's been done for at least 4 days now, all builds uploaded to both steam and itch.io, ready to release and just a single click away from that. how'd i get here this early, exactly?!?!? valve threw a couple spanners in the works by kindly not reminding me that i actually had to submit the damn demo build 7 whole business days before my planned release date... which i found out exactly 7 business days before the demo's release date. while in the middle of pulling an all-nighter and still waiting on some sfx from a VA.
this basically triggered a kind of panic mode, it was incredible. i was on vc with my friend kumi and i was ready to walk out of the house and in front of the nearest car. now, one thing about me is that i do not wait for others when it comes to my projects. if you can't match my pace, i will leave you behind. i hate being reliant on others... so when i had to get to work and the VA was nowhere to be seen, i had to handle things myself, albeit extremely clunkily, and thus spent three hours bashing together free sfx in audacity and running it through a garden variety of filters and such...
but thanks to that, i managed to finish the demo build and submit it to valve within the day! like, last thursday i think? on the 26th, regardless. and i was fully preparing on valve taking their sweet time with the review process, but i was glad to have it done anyway!
until two days passed and i got the go-ahead from valve to release the demo. again, a full week before the release date. i'm sitting there, looking at my email like... okay.... good.... but what now though. i rushed this for literally no reason
as a result i've spent basically every day since in a complete fugue state just going through the motions and not getting anything done. of course i didn't get anything done, i've hardly got anything to do!! i started working on a temporary side game project, but that ended up not being much fun. it feels wrong to start a new project while i'm still working on prs, you know?! i want to work on paranormal research society, damn it!!!
i got bored and decided to bleach and dye my hair again. ended up really cool. took a few hours doing that. but then i went back to my usual limbo state of just wandering and doing the most useless shit. genuinely, this is throwing me off so bad, what the hell am i going to do after the game is finished, huh?!??! well, naturally, i'd probably just start working on a new game, but this is so much worse because i can't start working on a new game!! fuck!!?!??!?!?
i'm counting down the days to the demo release. i did have my maths matriculation exam last week and i was assigned the seat number 24. it was a pretty nice seat, honestly! i like to take inspiration from meaningful and less meaningful things in my life and decided to release the demo on april 2nd as a result. like, you know, if you write the date in the correct way, it's 2.4., yeah?! i also had my social studies exam, but for that one i was assigned the seat number 69. i'm not waiting that long.
to be fair, with the amount of agony i've been in for the past few days since finishing the demo, i couldn't have waited a day more. like, i want to release it now! it's done!!! let me release it!!! I WANT TO RELEASE IT!!! I WANT TO GET THIS OVER WITHHHH!!!!!!! but then i remember i set the date myself and i don't even know why i set a release date for it. it's not even a professional project. i kind of feel like i'm playing make-believe and foolishly pretending to know what i'm doing and to have a good product on my hands. i shouldn't be taken seriously.
i'm going to tell you a secret... as much as i do want to get this demo out, i'm really scared of the mere thought. what if nobody plays it? or worse yet, WHAT IF SOMEBODY PLAYS IT? i'm stuck in this horrible limbo state of placing my entire self-worth into how much people react to the game but also being completely terrified of the mere thought of someone seeing my work. just horrible insecurities, really. i've had to physically stop myself from apologizing individually to every single person who has played my game so far. i'm sorry for taking up your time. i'm sorry for taking up pixels on your screen. i'm sorry for taking up your thoughts and brain power. things like that...
but at the same time, maybe it's OK if i delude myself into thinking i'm the greatest person who ever lived. it probably wouldn't do much since my self-confidence is so deep in the negatives, so i've been letting myself say things out loud i never would have even put into words before. things like "my game is good" or "people are lucky to get to play my game". the latter feels especially egregious and i feel kind of dirty even typing that out. whatever. you can deal with it
again, this period is especially agonizing, because i can't direct all those thoughts into making the game better. the demo is done, THE DEMO IS DONE, I HAVE UPLOADED THE BUILDS TO THE PLATFORMS, THERE'S NOTHING TO WORK ON THERE BEFORE RELEASE!!!!!! so i'm all alone with my thoughts, waiting for the time to pass, constantly plagued by made-up scenarios about the reception to my game, negative or not. honestly, my worst nightmare would probably be for nobody to react at all. it's like, if my work isn't even perceived, does it exist at all? is it worth anything at all? i really need to stop relying so heavily on external validation, but also, i have no time to go to a therapist!!! I HAVE GAMES TO MAKE!!!! EXCEPT NOW I DON'T AND THAT SUUUCKKKKSSSSSSSSS
this tangent has gone on long enough. nobody likes to watch some fucking loser wallowing in their own misery for this long. i might just come back to edit this later and revise it to be, well, less angsty? but then again, i'm still not really interested in updating my last devlog, the one i wrote while completely hammered and that has literally no substance to it except a link to my demo trailer and some kind of second-rate text attached. yyyikes, maybe don't go look at that one
bottom line: the demo for paranormal research society comes out on april 2nd, 2026. i hope you'll give it a shot and play through it! it's not very long, at least if you so choose. it's actually quite open-ended -- there's lots of content, but quite a bit of it is completely optional. if you're the curious sort, i'm sure you'd enjoy it. i hope to hear from you once you've played it. no, seriously, please talk to me if you do play it. i want to hear from you. yes, you, specifically. i want to hear everything you think. every single thing. thank you.