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Who is Sir Dammed?
🕑 Added 2020-12-06 08:54:18 +0000 UTCI had a hard time deciding what to call this thing, so don't knock me if the title is stupid or not really accurate to what I'm writing.
This isn't necessarily a devlog or anything like that. Rather... this is a very personal post where I will actually talk about myself for a change instead of just the games.
If you're not interested in hearing about my personal life or me as a person, I recommend that you click away. If you are interested... feel free to read on... but seriously:
"Dark shit ahead" warning. I'm not playing around... if you don't want to be sad, don't read on, as I'm going to discuss some really dark stuff that happened in my life fairly recently.
First: what inspired me to write this is actually sort of complicated, since as I said... some of this stuff is seriously dark, personal... depressing.... and I don't often share it with people I don't really know.
But something I've realized over the last year as a game developer is... if you leave information about yourself to mystery or up for debate, then said perception of you is at the discretion of the general public... and goddamn, there are some seriously pessimistic people out there. What people think of me isn't something that bothers me, but I must also remember that I am (in a way) a reflection of the community that supports me, and fostering a positive perception of said community is therefore important.
You guys have literally changed my life (for the better) by supporting my work, so I figure... why not share this information myself? Why not afford my supporters the option to hear it from the source? I trust you guys enough, and I know that... for many of you... "who" you are supporting is important.
So who am I? Well... I'm just a (still relatively >_>) young guy living in America in one of the poorest states in the country. I actually grew up in New York... one of the most "liberal" places in the country, and now I live in one of the most "conservative" places in the country. This gives me a unique and rather broad perspective, I like to think, and I tend to always see the best aspects in people, even people who I fundamentally disagree with for one reason or another.
I come from a very small, but close family... I was raised by a single mother, who was a nurse, and I have two siblings and now two nephews. My grandparents passed away when I was a teenager, my father... who I only saw on and off passed away a few years later, and the rest is something I'll save for later. My mother was only a nurse, and therefore raising three kids alone meant some serious financial struggles. Yup, I was the "poor" kid: we constantly had to move around: we'd typically bounce between living on our own in some random state, to moving back to live with my grandparents up in New York.
I think that's why... when I was old enough to fend for myself... I started my first job relatively young (age sixteen) and immediately became invested in trying to make a decent living. This wasn't easy though, as moving around constantly/never having a place I could really call "home," and last but not least constantly changing schools... meant that I struggled. And even though I was originally a straight A student, inevitably I did not graduate, nor did I have some sort of college fund. I tried applying for financial aid, but was immediately rejected because my mother hadn't filed taxes in years. This meant I had to wait until I was twenty-five to even attempt college.
From the time I got my first job and onward, I worked my ass off. Of course everyone says this (and probably believes it, too)... but seriously. I worked hard. By the time I was eighteen I was running the joint I worked in, making pretty good money and scheduling myself to work a bare minimum of fifty hours a week... but this was just a little family restaurant, so "pretty good money" wasn't exactly enough to set aside savings. The cycle of working hard, fooling around with cute girls (and marrying one of them), and just getting by on a week-to-week basis continued for pretty much the entirety of my early/mid 20s...
That was until I found out my mom was sick... and needed my help as she could no longer work or fend for herself. This uprooted my life, and I made the sacrifice to let her move in with me while I continued to work and pay the bills: allowing her to live a normal life for the remainder of her time. Thankfully she overcame that sickness. She got a lot better, but still wasn't able to return to work due to some complications with her surgery. And well... this was my life for the next several years. Working, saving what little I could, and taking care of my mom.
Fast forward to 2018. Something I hadn't mentioned previously is that I was an avid lover of writing & adult video games. By this point I'd probably played everything under the sun... from simple "lewd flash games" in the early-2000s, to more well known projects like Illusion games, Bonetown, Bonecraft, Leisure Suit Larry, the list goes on. Being able to come home after slaving away for 12-hours at work and relax/play video games was something I loved... especially games of the adult variety. When I discovered a game many of you likely know called "DMD," I was enamored... and I spiraled into the world of adult visual novels.
I played every single lewd visual novel I could get my hands on... I was seriously hooked... but I always had it in the back of my mind that the games weren't quite "enough," and that if I really applied myself I could probably do it better/make a name for myself in the industry. That's why I started working on my first game, Polarity, and well... you guys know the rest. The part many of you don't know, however... is back in early 2019... my mom got sick again. And this time it was bad... really bad. In fact, not even four months later... she was gone.
I'm not an emotional guy, I tend to bottle this stuff up... but I'd be lying if I said this didn't hit me hard. After all: she sacrificed her entire life to raise me, my sister, and my brother. She had been living with me for a few years now, and was also my best friend. And as the saying goes, "when it rains, it pours..." so it didn't end there. The news of this was too much for my brother to handle and he lost his mind. I mean this in the literal sense: he started showing symptoms of schizophrenia, and this was seriously impacting his ability to be a father to his son: my nephew.
While dealing with all of this... my current job had gone seriously downhill and I was working fifty-seven hour weeks just to not starve. I was tapping into the small amount of savings I had just to pay the bills each month because I was literally making negative-income. The only "positive" in all of this was I had released Polarity, which was giving me a little bit of extra income and I was just so happy it wasn't a failure/was relatively popular... but the income from that wasn't enough, and things were still incredibly hard.
Finally, when I was at my lowest, tragedy struck once more. As I mentioned a minute ago, my brothers mental state was impacting his ability to be a father, I was working too much/too financially starved to take over said responsibility, so an old family friend that we'd known most of our life volunteered. We thought this was a blessing in disguise: one less thing to worry about... but we were so, so wrong, as my baby nephew, who was not even three years old was murdered by the husband of that family friend.
...as I said... when it rains, it pours.
I'm still not over this. I don't think I ever will be. It's still hard to talk about and still impacts my mental state every day... because that kid was like my own son. People who know me and interact with me on Discord would probably describe me as a hardass... but there's a reason for it... as if I wasn't the type of person who could bury strong emotions then my family would've seriously fallen apart. After all... I was the only person who could deal with all of this. Every remaining dollar I had saved went towards two funerals in the span of a few months... funerals for two out of five members of my family I have on this earth. I was the person at the hospital dealing with doctors, police, paperwork, the works. I mean, I was the only person who could.
Anyway... with the depressing stuff out of the way... there was something very positive that came at the end of it all. I knew I had to do something drastic or I risked losing even more. I was on the verge of being kicked out of my house... since, as I said, all of my savings were now gone and my job (which I was more or less trapped in) was in the tank... aka I was making negative income... even with my support from Polarity. That's when I was approached by Alorth via recommendation from a mutual friend, who knew I was a decently skilled writer and was wondering if I was looking for an artist.
From the start, I'd wanted to have two games running side-by-side: one made with DAZ, and one made with HoneySelect. In fact, Radiant was almost my first game... as I'd started writing it at the same time as Polarity... but ultimately decided it would be more suitable than Polarity for DAZ Art. So I held off on Radiant until I was able to either 1) find an artist... or 2) teach myself DAZ Art. And man... Alorth couldn't have come along at a better time, as I was literally weeks away from being kicked out of my house:
Because of Radiant's huge amount of success... and because of you guys... I was finally able to stop worrying so much about my financial struggles; about getting kicked out of my house and living on the side of the road... and actually take some time to mourn and process everything I'd been through in the year prior. For once, I felt like my hard work and perseverance actually paid off. In fact, the game helped me so much that I was finally able to leave my shitty, dead-end, negative income job and do this full-time. And for that, I can't thank you guys enough. So while I've been through hell in the last year or so, there was certainly light at the end of the tunnel and a sort of "redemption" story.
While the struggle of overcoming the loss of loved ones and rebuilding everything else I'd lost is not quite over... things are certainly a lot more pleasant and comfortable now... and most importantly I'm actually doing something that I love. To the loyal supporters of the games I've put out there... especially those of you who've been around since the beginning/supported me through it all, I can't thank you enough.
And if you stuck around and read this thing to the end: damn! You have some seriously fucking thick skin. Hopefully I didn't ruin your day with my sob story... since, as a creator, what I want more than anything else is to just make people happy/brighten their days up. The fact that I can do something I truly love and provide some form of happiness or entertainment to others in the process is... well... kind of a miracle, if I'm being honest.
At least, that's what it feels like... which leads me to the good news: you guys are stuck with me for the long haul. No matter how "tough" game development can be or how much pressure we're under as developers, I've been through worse, I've always had to work hard, and I frankly wouldn't dream of doing anything else. Both Polarity and Radiant will be followed through to the end, and when they're done I'll continue to make games for years to come. If you decide to stick around and offer your support through it all, it's going to be a hell of a ride!
But if you're in a position like I was and dealing with financial struggles: please do not worry about us, and instead just take care of yourself.
As for the "who" I mentioned earlier... I'm just a normal guy who has always worked hard and put a lot of focus and effort to caring for family and loved ones while trying to make it in this world. A lot of people give me shit over on places like F9Z etc. for taking my time with the second chapter, but they don't often realize what's going on behind the scenes or think about what might be happening with someone.
Not to mention... when you have such a good thing going, you're always careful not to fuck it up. It's always good to try and communicate what's up with the people supporting your projects, that way the "public perception" I mentioned doesn't leak over/cause problems. After all, I want the community surrounding the game to be positive and be able to enjoy what we put out.
There's not much else that can be said or a better summary to leave off on.
Alright, time to wrap this up. Thanks for listening/reading. I hope by writing this you guys can all say that you know / understand me a little bit more... since that was my goal with writing it, after all. And some words of wisdom to end this on...
Treasure the time you have with your family and loved ones.
