A Lot. - Update 2/14/2022

CW: Discussions of parental death, anxiety

Hey ya’ll, hope you’re doing well.

First off, I wanted to apologize for the radio silence since December. Despite the year still being so young, it’s already shaping up to be far and away one of the most eventful I’ve ever had. Luckily it has been overwhelmingly good, though with a couple noticeable streaks of bad.

The good news is that the cross-country move went off without a hitch! Officially moved into my new place and I won’t mince words about it: It’s been fucking incredible. After a few weeks of unpacking and setting up, I’m proud to say that I’m writing this post on my editing rig in my new basement studio and I could not feel more fortunate. It’s basically everything I’ve ever wanted out of a production space for the channel and I’m incredibly excited to put it to good use. I finally feel like I have all the space and resources I could need for any kind of content I’ve wanted to do over the past few years. This will undoubtedly mean more streams, more live action content, and just more at large will be sure to come before too much longer.

That said, as blessed as I’ve felt lately, there have been a couple notable and serious caveats. The biggest without question is that, at the end of last month, I learned my Dad passed away. Without meaning to sound callous, we hadn’t spoken for the past couple years and weren’t on particularly good terms well before that, so I hope you understand what I mean when I say that I’m not heartbroken nor am I really in mourning about it. I am fine and am only better with each passing day. However, I’m also sure you can understand that it has, nonetheless, been A Lot. He was a complicated man whom I have a lot of complicated feelings about, and even if ‘grief’ isn’t one of them, there’s still a fucking dragon’s horde of other emotions to sort through.

Add to that the stress and struggle of leaving the state I’ve lived in since birth and adjusting to a new life in a new state with a new culture and a new family that, while a drastic improvement from where I was, is still radically different from anything I’ve known in a long time and… well, let’s just say it’s also been A Lot. My choice above to describe it as ‘overwhelmingly good’ was deliberate. Even before learning of my Dad, I found myself struggling with a series of panic attacks that I did not foresee having to manage if I’m being entirely honest. Expecting a change THIS colossal, no matter how positive or healthy, to be frictionless was likely naivete on my part (It was definitely naivete on my part), but either way, it is what it is. Consequently, it has been A Lot, and it’s been A Lot which I haven’t entirely been in the best state of mind to process or manage as well as I typically would.

But rest assured, I am getting there, and much faster than I’d usually hope. I have an incredible support network of people who care about me and are helping me through all of this. I already feel much more grounded than I did at the start of the month and have no doubt I’ll be back up to full speed in no time.

As you may have guessed though, this is my roundabout way of explaining why I’ve effectively vanished from the internet for the past month, as well as why I’m returning with less to show than I’d like. This is not helped by the fact that, as those of you familiar with The Marble Nest are aware, it is a game that is very, very, VERY much about coming to terms with Death itself, which… yeah. I believe that it’s a comforting and valuable meditation on the matter, but the subject is still one that I’m particularly sensitive to at the moment as I’m sure you can understand. As such, there’s still a fair amount of progress that needs to be made on The Marble Nest script before it can enter production proper.

With that said, there has still been progress. 

Most notably, I got about 2000 words into writing the intro for the Marble Nest video before I realized that, to do what I wanted to do with it, I would have to make a sizable section that effectively served as a proper recommendation for Pathologic 2. Something to explain why I was and am so adamant that, while Pathologic 1 may not be suitable for most audiences, Pathologic 2 is *absolutely required* for anyone with an interest or passion in games as a form of art.

However, it was then about 4000 words into that when I began to hear the question that I knew would inevitably be shouted back at me the moment I did so: ‘Can I play it on console?’

Unfortunately, this is a question that I did not have a good answer for when people asked me in the comments of the Patho videos, but it’s one I knew I’d have to answer if I wanted to effectively demand that everyone in the world play it. Perhaps even more unfortunately, I didn’t personally know anyone who had played it on console, and word of mouth about the various ports online was incredibly mixed to say the least. So I realized, if no one else was gonna answer that question, it was, tragically, gonna have to be answered by me.

Am I telling you that I have begun a quest to replay Pathologic 2 on every console it’s currently available on?

No, of course not, don’t be silly.

I don’t know anyone with an Xbox Series X and I’d never buy one just to see how it runs an obscure indie game. That’d be unreasonable.

I have, however, now played Pathologic 2 on my partner’s PS5. And I have *attempted* to play it on my own base model PS4. And I’m going to be purchasing a PS4 Pro soon (unrelated to this project I swear) that I will also be attempting to play it on. And I will also be borrowing an Xbox One from a friend to try it on there.

That is much more reasonable. This is reasonable. I am very reasonable.

I realize this may potentially seem like overkill to some, but I feel it is important to establish the quality of each port if I’m going to be recommending it as broadly as I'd like. Normally, I’d just turn to reviews written by others to get a sense of these sort of things and leave it at that, but with Patho2 being what it is, it’s a serious struggle in those reviews to tell what is standard Pathologic 2 jank you’ll find even on the PC version, what is a port specific failing, what is just someone’s really bad luck, and what is just the game being miserable by deliberate design.

This is not helped by the fact that I’ve already discovered that the ports do, in fact, vary wildly. The game runs really well, though not perfectly, on PS5, but is nigh unplayable on a base model PS4. So where does that leave the PS4 Pro? And, given that the Xbox is heavily based off of PC architecture, where does that leave the One? There’s only one way for me to find out for sure. God damn it.

So this has become something of a smaller project within the broader project. But where does that leave The Marble Nest itself? Well, as I said, it’s still got a ways to go before it enters proper production, but honestly not too much. It’s currently about 50% written with everything that hasn’t been fully written being extensively outlined, I have the initial casting all laid out, and, most importantly, I know what I want to say with and about it from my own perspective. My current hope and expectation is to have the rough draft in hand  by the end of the month so I can begin contacting actors and get things rolling.

Once I have that squared away and I’ve contacted all the potential cast members I have in mind, I will also be taking a moment to put together a couple special things for you fine people! In my last post I talked about potentially talking about the Behind the Scenes experience of putting Act 1 and Act 2 together as well as commentary tracks for them and the response to that seemed enthusiastic, so I’ll be putting those together as soon as wheels are in motion on The Marble Nest. I also expect it’d be helpful in feeling out the ways I think I could add to Act 1 and 2 when it comes time for the Director’s Cut, so it honestly feels like a Win-Win.

tl;dr Personal struggles and loss have gotten in the way of things moving at the pace I've wanted them to, as has the ballooning scope of the project, but things are still moving along all the same.

There’s more that I’m excited to get to in the future, but I feel it’s probably best for me to leave it at that till I’m a bit more on my feet. Looking forward to seeing ya’ll again real soon, and hopefully way more often~

Take care of yourself,
Ruby <3