10 seconds of fun vs 10 minutes of seriousness
Hi pal!
Earlier this week I decided to change my profile picture on Twitter to my avatar in Surmount. It’s not every day I change picture so I thought I might as well make a quick post about it, just to commemorate the occasion.
852 likes over a week are not breathtaking numbers. But it’s a lot compared to what I’m used to. I expected around 10, max 50. No way in hell I would have guessed this, it seemed unrealistic. I just changed my profile picture, this post was an after thought. If I had made this post with the intention or hopes for it to go big, I would probably have put way more words into it. Something like,
“I’m making a climbing game! It’s called Surmount! And it has a character editor inspired by the mii maker!”
I KNOW that this wouldn’t have taken off the same way. It’s desperate and not entertaining at all. The one I wrote is a careless two word pun. The image and these two words make so much more happen in the head of the right reader.
I wish I could say that this was calculated, that I knew this would work. But what it really proves is I’m terrible at predicting what people will respond to. Effort does not equal outcome. But then again, not every single step needs extreme effort. Sure, it was easy to make this post, less than 10 seconds of typing and thinking. Making the character editor was not as quick though, that was a months-long project. And getting the art skills to make it appealing has taken me a lifetime (roughly).
Words really matter, but more words doesn’t mean more matter.
Mini Notes
📝 Short Story - Silly doodle VS The Biggest Painting Ever
Something I wrote on the same subject last year. Effort is not proportional to outcome. It’s more about intention and execution.
🕹️ Game - Mosa Lina
This might be the most realistic game ever made even though it doesn’t look like it.
a hostile interpretation of the immersive sim, where nothing is planned, and everything works
The premise of this game is the most appealing and ground breaking thing I’ve heard of in a long time. All games are designed for every single situation to be solvable. This is the first one I’ve heard of that really goes against that. This means that the game is a lot more like the real world, there are situations that nobody meant for you to get out of.
📝 Essay - Are you serious?
There’s also a great anecdote from Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman, where he talks about how physics used to delight him when he used to play with it, but then it started to disgust him when he got burdened by this idea that he was obligated to advance the future of science. That he was supposed to be doing “important” work.
I’ve experienced this sometimes too when I work on something too seriously. It becomes a long dragged out hassle because I try to make sure I do everything correctly. As I think I proved with my tweet, 10 seconds of fun might cast a shadow on 10 minutes of serious contemplation.
Did you ever make something you didn’t think much of and then had it go popular? I would love to hear about it.
Thank you for reading! Have a creative week.