This was a terrible idea and I'm ashamed of it, but at least I learned something from it

I believe it was James Stephanie Sterling who was the first person to teach me that satire has to be sincere. You can't just slap a bunch of assets together and say, "this is satire!" to deflect any criticism. You have to say something. So with that in mind, with my poorly conceived attempt at satire, what was I saying?

To be frank with you, I have no idea.

If I had to shoot a dart at what I was maybe trying to say, it's that certain forms of creativity aren't as valuable as others. I distinctly remember that my inspiration for this came from the highlights of a Vinesauce stream. I don't remember if it was Vinny or Joel; all I can recall is that they were highlights dedicated to "bad" indie games on platforms like itch.io. There was more than one ".exe" game, a format that I already was predisposed to hate.

Why is the game a mere two rooms with no goal between them? Because if the games I didn't like were going to seem lazy to me, I could be lazy, too. Does it say anything more than "I have no idea how to make games," though? No. I'll be honest: what you see here isn't satire because it says something; it's satire because I said so. In hindsight, I believe it would have been better to make a game that's supportive of the kind of half-baked indie horror jank I wasn't a fan of. Games are incredibly hard to make if you're trying, but there's a subset of people who don't try because they don't know how to. There's a kind of magic to the idea of being a creator when you're young. The nuances go over your head, you know very little, and you're more interested in concept than execution. I remember I had a page on Gamejolt for a game called something like The Dumb Game several years ago. I never made that game; I didn't know how to. But here I was, saying that I was going to do it. And on the precipice of it all, I gave up. The page no longer exists, and the idea I had then is not something I'd be enthusiastic to try now. If I were to have a talk with that version of myself, I don't know what I would say. You have to walk a line where you can't be too discouraging, but you can't be very encouraging. It's not for the benefit of anyone but yourself: if you decide to put a project out into the world out of naivety, that's still a piece of you.

Five years later, I still giggle at pleasestopmakingthese.exe, even though I recognize that it's shit. It's like the kind of humor you see permeate digital spaces all the time now--21st-century humor, zoomer humor, whatever you want to call it. But beyond ironic appreciation, I have next to no respect for my creation. There are fascinating ideas to explore using this concept, but I don't think they work when it's negative.