Let us be gentle to ourselves and make sure we rest

Disclaimer: This DevLog is intended to help anyone, who is in a similar situation we are in at the moment. Everyone has to make their own decisions. This merely is our own honest view and opinion, based on our experience. We would love to hear from you, what you think about it all. We wish you all the success and fun you deserve with the development and release of your game! eXplore Studio

‘Just five more minutes pleeeease, and then I go to bed, I promise.’ Does it sound familiar? Haven’t we all pronounced these words when we were younger, as we were trying to negotiate staying up later than our usual bedtime? Well, now that we are grown-up game developers, we have slightly changed our plea, but we still want to remain up late and deny the fatigue that accumulates day after day (and all its devastating side effects). Indeed, there was a meme going around on social media lately depicting a person who quit their 9 to 5 job to become a game developer and saying that now, instead, they work 24/7! There is definitely some truth to it.

So, time to wonder what we actually gain from working crazy, long hours, eyes glued to the screen, hands on the keyboard, days filled with caffeine or other energy drinks to keep us alert? What do we want to prove to ourselves or others? If we are truly honest with ourselves, we know that our productivity will definitely not increase, on the contrary.  Instead, we need to shift our mindset. It is time to hit the reset button, time to rest our mind and body without feeling guilty about it. We need to gently allow ourselves to take some days off, to sleep more, to eat healthy food, to walk in nature, to reconnect with ourselves and the people around us. At first, it sounds impossible to do and we experience mixed feelings about it. Yet, after a couple of days, we start feeling more relaxed and we will be almost completely revitalized after a week, ready to conquer new mountains.

Let us be gentle to ourselves and make sure we rest - it’s for our own benefit. Because we will feel better, we will enjoy more what we are doing, and we will be better at doing it (i.e. developing our game).