phanes
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Check-in on 0.46
🕑 Added 2022-03-22 18:53:35 +0000 UTCHey, perverts! I'm just checking in; as I said in my last reflection/preview, I was essentially away from working on Ruin Me for a week after the last release, so there's still some work to go on the upcoming update. The time did me good, though, and I'm making steady progress.
I mentioned my status on my Twitter, but here I have much more space to talk about what I've been working on.
The release will have a play scene with Meg featuring sounding, which is fully written, and a new horror expedition that's in progress that features parasitic infestation and tension around perception and reality. I want to redo Meg's art, as well, although that work hasn't begun.
Writing nightmares to accompany the new expedition has made me think about the themes that I am trying to explore with the broader ideas Ruin Me explores. Off the top of my head, here are some of the concepts I try to use as refrains in the game:
- We cannot divide our minds from our bodies, nor should we conceive of our consciousness as an illusion. Our thoughts are emergent, but real.
- We are all part of a community and our individuality itself is, in many ways, a fiction.
- Constructing taxonomies and labeling things as "similar" or "different", while often useful, is an arbitrary exercise with no one correct outcome.
- Horror feelings like dread and shock often manifest in similar ways to erotic feelings like longing and ecstasy.
- When we try too hard to be safe, we not only risk missing out on opportunities but also risk harming ourselves and others in different ways.
None of these are particularly revolutionary philosophical/moral/aesthetic concepts, but I really like making them echo and recur throughout the game. Some of them definitely show up in the expedition and nightmares I'm writing, and I'm looking forward to getting them in front of your eyes.
