I wanna make it dreamy too

I’ve been in a super-hyper-focused production mode these last two years. Nearly everything I’ve done goes into the creation of some video game. I’ve noticed a pattern where each one becomes less artistic/emotional than the last. I want to make art for the sake of searching my soul or exploring or something. And that’s not really what these last two/three games have been about for me (Bibidi, Bonkhope, Long Puppy). I succeeded better with Long Puppy than with the other two in this regard. These three games definitely feel more like I was getting the hang of game design and technical stuff more than exploring emotional stuff. I intentionally set out to try to do something commercially safer with Bibidi, and then Bonkhope is similar.

Space Deer was completely according to what I value. I want to approach my next game that way. So I get to have that deep mysterious satisfaction that comes with exploring something that doesn’t just try to fit neatly into a single genre. The next thing is going to be way more about the narrative and the feels.

I figure the best way to find my way back to working with intuition and going with the flow is to just do random little pieces for the fun of it, like I used to do before I got serious about projects.

I bought some cheap gouache paint and a few brushes. I painted this fella based on a doodle from my sketchbook, just for the fun of it.



Painting this didn’t lead to any direct soul searching. But I think doing stuff just for fun, without the fear of wasting time and just following my guts is what I need for my next project and it’s what will lead future paintings to be more interesting. I want to experiment! Throw shit on the wall and see what sticks!

I’ve been writing songs too, none of them are to my satisfaction yet (mostly because my singing needs work). But they are getting better. I think my instrumental tracks are fine though, here’s a short instrumental ambient improvisation I made on my OP-1 Field.



I finished watching all of Twin Peaks (aside from the prologue movie) and I watched Mullholland Drive and Blue Velvet. I’ve also been listening to interviews and started reading David Lynch’s biography, Room to Dream. He’s really gotten to me. I even started dipping my toes into transcendental mediation because of him (something that he was a big spokesperson for).

“Ideas are like fish. If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you’ve got to go deeper. Down deep, the fish are more powerful and more pure. They’re huge and abstract. And they’re very beautiful.” - David Lynch

I find him to be a great spirit animal at this time in my life. And I love the weird, beautiful, creepiness of his work.

This clip where he complains about the unfair logistics his producers are forcing upon him really speaks to me. Let me just quote him here below…

“I’m not working this way again, ever. It’s absolutely horrible. We never get any extra shots. We never get any time to experiment. We never get to you know, go dreamy, or anything. We barely fucking make our days. I could have spent a week at the Fireman’s, I love that place. And dream up all kinds of stuff.” - David Lynch

This comes from the guy who made Twin Peaks and Mullholland Drive. Some of the dreamiest, wackiest moving pictures I can think of. He’s got producers and stakeholders to argue with. The reason his stuff is so dreamy and experimental is because he fought for it. In my case I pretty much just have myself and my limited time or budget or fear or whatever to blame.

Me: I wanna GO DREAMY TOO. I wanna make WEIRD stuff.
My brain: I hear you, you win.

I argued with myself about it and I won!

I never fully embraced that in any of my projects, despite that being one of the things I love the most. I gotta go all in on what I care about now. That’s the point for me and I hate that I have let so many other people’s thoughts and opinions (and reality) get in the way of that.

I could explain in which ways I compromised on different projects and how I would do shit differently now. Maybe I will someday. My choices made a lot of sense at the time though, so I don’t blame anyone else or myself for it. It’s in the past, I’m dreaming ahead.

---

published 2026-09-18