Why hello there, person currently reading my blog!
It’s been so long since my last update, and since I was updating this regularly, that I feel like I need to make a second introduction, and a renewal of the purpose of this blog.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably someone who searched me on a search-engine, probably after playing one of my games? Or you’re a bot. If you played my games and liked them enough to search me up, there’s a good chance you’re a bit younger than me. Because my game and its target demo remains the same even as I age. When I started this thing, personal dev-blogs were a much bigger deal – social media wasn’t what it is now, sites like Twitter hadn’t completely taken over public discourse (and the idea of The Discourse didn’t exist). Big and small indie game devs had their own dev-blogs where they would regularly provide updates on their projects as well as their thoughts on games and maybe even some life stuff. And then people had these things called “RSS Feeds” that would compile these blog posts and give you all the updates, and that was how you experienced the internet – it was like an electronic newspaper. Now we have things like Twitter and Twitch that are super centralized platforms where you can get a much more direct connection with your creators, and you can see them interact in a much larger forum. Or semi-public things like Discord and Patreon that allow for a more dialogue-based format.
Except, I really hate how centralized and connected a lot of that stuff is. I will link a talk from someone more knowledgeable and articulate than me, if you want to do some extra reading (and I do encourage you to, time willing) – which goes much, much deeper and more pointedly into the history of flash games and web tech – which I bring up mainly to avoid falsely attributing any of the following ideas as coming purely from myself: that the internet was intentionally consolidated into different monopolies that are indifferent or hostile to art, creativity, even our mental or physical health. While all the traffic and interest behind personal blogs is basically gone and has moved on, none of the reasons that I might create or maintain one are.
All of this is to say that even if I am writing only to myself, I believe that having a written history of what I’m doing where I can go deeper into my ideas, my thoughts and feelings, and even what is happening around me in the world, has value. I will keep my old, old posts, even though I might cringe at them, even if they are written by a younger person that does not reflect who I am today, because I believe that this history, even in its most granular and personal aspects, has value. I hope that anyone who is so motivated to find and go through this blog is able to glean something authentic about a person endeavoring to make impactful games for an ever wider audience – not just a curated public image that I would use to try and market myself and build a personal ~brand~.
Fuck that.
I believe that these things have value because they were and remain the things that I have read that I feel are actually instructive and substantive; when I am able to see where people have come from, what drove them to make art and what allowed them to, the challenges they have faced and how they did or did not overcome them. What little information I have to share needn’t be handed over to the destructive impulses of tech corporations where it can be spewed into the world like wood-chipper dust to maximize engagement and ad revenue. Here it remains whole, and coherent, and you can just go through the entire thing in an afternoon.
Woops, it looks like I went on a bit of a tangent. I’m not really editing this post, I’m just gonna hit send and go out to do some grocery shopping.
With all of that out of the way – hello, one last time. My name is Patrick McGrath and I want to make games that are, like, really good at articulating things that words cannot, and making you feel stuff. My main interests include game design, programming, history (the older the better!), visual art, language, and the general pursuit of telling stories. I will probably only post about game stuff, but who knows.
peltastsoftware.blog 