"It's been a long time!" or "Some reflections about Recluse"

Today I'm re-releasing Recluse, a very old game made for Ludum Dare 23, in 2012. It was unplayable for the past few years due to the page it was uploaded to not existing anymore.

Playing it again after such a long time brought a lot of mixed feelings. As much as this game was important in my journey as a game designer, it  also carries a lot of emotional weight.

Recluse got praised a lot when it was released, and even got a few prizes and articles, which took me by surprise. It was one of my first jam games, and while this helped boosting my self-confidence for a while, during the following years it actually made me feel like a bad game designer for not being "inspired" enough. It constantly made me afraid of showing my work so people wouldn't judge me or be disappointed. During all this meantime I tried starting new projects and found it too difficult to solve design problems in them, or gave up, thinking some problems were "impossible" to solve. Sometimes, especially when I compared myself to others, I felt there was something broken in me, which would make me a bad game designer forever.

At some point during the past few years, I watched Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Talk (which I strongly recommend) about this subject. It helped me staying motivated to make new stuff, but I still had many unresolved issues with Recluse. 

Recently, I ended up hearing a similar story by Daniel Benmergui which made me revisit this game. I was expecting to feel like "look at how good I used to be!" but it turns out that I mostly saw its flaws. Games like windowframe by Daniel Linssen showed how the same gimmick could be used in many more fun ways, in a much more dynamic, well structured experience. Similarly, I've spent the past few years working on Raider Kid and the Ruby Chest, which is just as old, and has plenty of design/aesthetic decisions that reflect my limitations and tastes in 2013. This has put me in a constant state where I am hyper conscious about my work's flaws, and forces me to deal with self-doubt feelings.

Back when I made Recluse, the unexpectedly good reception made me feel like I was a genius game designer - that being a good game designer is just something that I "got", despite my lack of professional experience. But now I understand it's actually all about experience. So maybe there's a silver lining in all this - the fact that today I look at it and think "I could do better" shows that I actually had a lot to learn, and to my relief, that I'm improving. I can certainly say that 7 years later I am better at some things, that I have more knowledge to deal with certain dilemmas and make quicker, more reliable design decisions. This perspective also enabled me to understand that there is still plenty of stuff to learn, and that in 7 years I'll probably know things that I can't even imagine right now.

At the same time, knowing this allows me to respect the fact that I used the knowledge that was available to me back then. It allows me to be fond of my games and of my past self. I also understand that it is OK to not have enough technical or emotional experience to face a difficult challenge. Sometimes we do need more maturity to tackle some ideas. When this happens, don't feel bad for giving up. You can go get some experience first and still come back later. If you feel you're not good enough, don't panic. After all, it's by doing stuff that you get better at doing stuff.

Anyway, I feel today I finally made peace with Recluse, so I decided to revive it on this page.

I hope re-uploading this will make more people enjoy the game, and maybe have some old fans who wanted to download the game again will find joy in re-playing it.