Here's something I can't believe I'm saying: The Beginner's Guide came out 5 years ago today.

What a weird fucking game. I'm amazed it found the audience that it did. For years I'd been sitting on it, stressing about whether people would like it.

I still hear from folks who say it was a very meaningful experience for them, which is extremely gratifying for me. I also hear from people who say it was self-obsessed and navel gazey, haha. I mean, they're not wrong.

The truth is that I'll probably never make another game like this again. Solipsism is a young person's game. When I think about trying to be publicly vulnerable in that same way today, it just makes me feel exhausted.

Last week I was looking through a journal that I wrote during the game's development, I was considering transcribing it and posting it online for public enjoyment. But... as I read it I just kept thinking "this is too vulnerable, I don't wanna share this."

...which is exactly what Beginner's Guide is in the first place. Funny. I used to be excited about that kind of thing, but age turns us outward, away from ourselves and toward the world. Talking about myself is just less interesting to me now.

I'm still really glad I did it though, even if just to get it out of my system.

I do look at all the emails people send to the email address I left in the game, though I almost never respond. Thank you to anyone who felt compelled to write me something.

(my favorite emails are the ones ripping mercilessly into me for stealing an honest creator's work and releasing it into the world, I live for those)

Lastly, here's a quote that I almost put at the start of the game as an epigraph, but I removed it at the last second because it felt too on the nose. I sort of wished I'd left it in.