TOM FRANCIS
REGRETS THIS ALREADY

2013

This has obviously been the best year of my life. When working on Gunpoint got tough towards the end, and the amount of sustained effort required exceeded my intrinsic determination, I made a guilty little list of all the things that releasing a game might improve about my life in the best-case scenario: Gunpoint motivation.txt. Nothing on it was anything like as good as the reality.

Luck And Guilt

The list of dumb-luck things that had to align for it to go so well is too long to write, so it’s not really a ‘just try hard and you can do anything!’ story. Also, annoyingly, all my friends and family were really supportive and encouraging, so I have no-one to say “Ha!” to. Just a truckload of guilt at all the talented people who made good things that didn’t catch on, or don’t have the luxury of enough free weekends to make something at all.

The only person I don’t feel any guilt towards is the alternate universe Tom who never bothered. I almost didn’t. Someone had to make literally one of my favourite games ever in literally one of the easiest tools ever before I got as far as “Fine, I guess I’ll try it.” Even then, I almost gave up. Not due to any hardship or preventative circumstances, I just sort of forgot about it for two months.

I think even if Gunpoint had failed commercially, I’d still be looking down my nose at the alterno-Tom who had the skills and time to explore all his game design obsessions and never tried. As it is, it’s unlocked a sort of secret game mode in life that I didn’t know existed, where you get to just stay home and tinker around making games.

My leaving/launch party

Weirdness

That part is still very surreal. The really weird moment was during launch week, when the sales passed the point at which I’d told myself I’d quit my job. Since I was already on sabbatical, I could hand in my notice early enough to never even go back. And I was standing in my bedroom when I realised: that’s it. The problem of life requiring me to leave this room is now solved – I could just stay here if I wanted. I didn’t, obviously, but that hook of responsibility that drags you out of bed to school or work each day had just suddenly let go for the first time ever, and I had that dizzying stillness you get when stepping onto a broken escalator.

The other strange thing is being independent. Not just corporately, but starting to think of yourself personally as your job, boss, employee, and identity. I defined myself so much as ‘working for PC Gamer’, it was weird to let that go and have nothing external to cling to anymore. If I die in a car crash now, the company that employs me shuts down. That’s a weird thought.

New Friends

I guess I’m actually more defined by an external thing than ever before, it’s just a smaller and more specific one. And I’m lucky that Gunpoint is actually pretty representative: it tells you what games I like and what I find funny.

Now that I can afford to go to conventions, it’s amazing how people’s games change your social interactions with them. If they’ve made something you like, and you’ve made something they like, you get to skip straight to being friends. I like to think I would have eventually got to know most of the people I made friends with this year, but as a mumbly, socially awkward introvert, I’m massively grateful for that headstart in coming-to-give-a-shit-about-each-other.

That’s probably exceeded my self-indulgence quota for the year, just wanted to share what some of the emotional weirdpoints of this amazing year have been like for me. Profound thanks again to all of you who made it happen. If I had emotions I would probably cry or something dumb like that.