Madness Starts Young

You are who you are. And you have stumbled upon a museum that you might have not intended to find. But it called to you. As you wandered the halls of an all-too-foreign place, you encountered a small structure upon a table. Picking up the nearby headset and devices gave you control of a minibot. And you realized that you ended up somewhere…roiling…alive.

If you move close enough to interact with the art, you begin to hear some of them speak.

Some softly. Some screaming. And others with a catastrophic roar.

While for others, you hear the echoes of characters who have visited before you, to witness what they had to say about what they saw.

Though some might be distant, you may spot familiar voices here and there, calling across the void.

Either way, you’re here now. You’ve heeded the call. It’s up to you now to explore.

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What the Game Includes:

My parents and I saved every single piece of art I ever created. After scanning everything I could (and taking photos of the larger art), I compiled and organized it all in chronological order as accurately as possible within categories of medium. There are around 4500 images on display. Spanning from ages 1 to 36. I originally organized it all into 45 categories, but in designing the actual museum, there are around 60 sections, some small and some vast.

For my first indie game, I wanted to make something that leaned towards my strengths and degrees, writing and art. So this is a simple walking simulator museum game with a written story component. I set up the written portion in an unobtrusive way of clicking on intractables to read, so you don’t have to engage with the writing if you don’t want to. The only text you must see is for the titles. Every piece of art and collection has a unique name.

I wanted to create a digital museum that showcased someone’s lifetime development, artistically and psychologically, and I kept that promise by completing this.

Additionally, I’m including the images I commissioned from artists around the world. (I have the exclusive commercial-use rights to these pieces of art). And I organized their work alongside the fast sketches I sent to the artists. So you’ll get to see my silly doodles and what professional artists were able to make out of them. (I did send lengthy descriptions too, but that’s all too long to include in this game.)

This section is for two categories:
1) The game features over 100 images of mythological creatures from cultures around the world. (These are from a board game I created.) (All the monsters will talk to you in that area.)

2) The game features the art for my book covers. Starting from 2012, I wrote 38 novels in a decade. Those are my treasures and I’d like to share them with you.

(And just a note for those areas, be kind to the artists. I worked meticulously with them until we landed on depictions that met my standards without impinging too much on their styles and capabilities. You may have even worked with some of them yourselves.)

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The Art Excluded:

I originally wanted to keep to the promise of showing everything. Every piece of art. And I technically am within reason. But here’s a small disclaimer. This project includes every piece of art I ever created (that I could find), but excludes the following categories:
1) Portraits of real people’s faces that aren’t mine.
2) Nude sketches from college that are too revealing (I included those that don’t reveal private areas and cropped certain other images that I thought still had value in that form).
3) Erotica. There are no sexually explicit acts depicted in this museum.

(Otherwise, through this game, you will begin to know the horror of Everything.)

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Age Ratings:

I filled out the age rating questionnaire as accurately as I could. However, what I’ve created might be somewhat unique because certain questions in the rating system were not designed with an art museum in mind. Therefore, I’m not an expert on how to gauge age ratings for an art-themed project that spans so many years, genres, mediums, and topics, so I’d advise erring on the side of caution.

Keep in mind, even though a large portion of my game contains art from my childhood, this game does contain art that I made into adulthood. The art doesn’t contain any erotica, but there are other adult themes throughout the sections. For example, there are body horror monster drawings, a few of which depict gore and violence, but those aspects are sparser throughout the total amount of images. Even some of the art I made when I was twelve has gruesome imagery, blood, and violence, but in the form of childlike doodling.

In the written portion of the game, there are no descriptions of sexual acts. Most of the adult themes relate to conversations about traumas, mostly from the topics of bullying, family strife, rage, grief, and existential despair. There is also ominous and crass humor here and there. There is a sparse amount of coy flirtatious jokes between character echoes when they comment on the art.

What I’m trying to say is for any parents out there, if you’re interested in playing the game with your kids present, vet the game first. Certain images and dialogue might not be suitable for your individual standards.

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The Absence of A.I.:

This is another disclaimer that I’ll put here even though I don’t like that we’re in an age where this now feels necessary.

This game does not include any A.I. generated or edited art and writing out of what I created. That’s not what this project is for. It’s only for content that I created or worked on in some capacity, without A.I. involvement, from age one until now.

I still possess the original pieces of art in case I ever needed to prove that for some reason.

(For the commercial-use art I bought, I doubt the artists I worked with used A.I. to edit images because I’ve only worked with a select few – those I began working with years ago in late 2020. The ones I trusted to match my needs with what each of their styles bring.)

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Music Credits:

All the music in my game is from the prolific legend, Kevin MacLeod.

The songs I selected are:

"Cephalopod"
"Jaunty Gumption"
"Brain Dance"
"Equatorial Complex"
"Journey to Ascend"
"Paradise Found"
"Evening"
"Voxel Revolution"
"Man Down"
"Morning"
"Soaring"
"Laserpack"
"Almost New"
"Rising Tide (faster)"
"Hiding Your Reality"
"Promises to Keep"
"Wholesome"
"Master of the Feast"
"Dark Fog"
"Disco Medusae"
"Inspired"
"Neon Laser Horizon"
"Pamgaea"
"Blown Away"
"Lost Frontier"
"The Complex"
"Electrodoodle"
"Immersed"
"Echoes of Time"
"Myst on the Moor"
"Light Thought var 1"
"Unity"
"RetroFuture Nasty"
"Odyssey"
"Reawakening"
"Angel Share"
"Sincerely"
"Outfoxing the Fox"
"River Flute"
"Club Seamus"
"Half Mystery"
"Tyrant"
"Kalimba Relaxation Music"
"Ethernight Club"
"Cloud Dancer"
"Strength of the Titans"
"Still Pickin"
"Stay the Course"
"Beauty Flow"
"Past Sadness"
"Envision"
"Dreamer"
"Floating Cities"
"Garden Music"
"Spellbound"
"Kawai Kitsune"
"Disquiet"
"Infinite Perspective"
"Brittle Rille"
"Dub Eastern"
"Avec Soin"
"Wallpaper"
"Senbazuru"
"Cattails"
"Eastminster"
"Silver Blue Light"
"Finding Movement"
"Voice Over Under"
"Music to Delight"
"Ouroboros"
"Crunk Knight"
"Numinous Shine"
"Bathed in the Light"
"Eternal Hope"
"Heartwarming"
"New Friendly"
"Farting Around"
"Mellowtron"
"Nonstop"
"March of the Mind"
"Celtic Impulse"
"Errigal"
"Ishikari Lore"
"Lasting Hope"
"Baba Yaga"
"Long Road Ahead"
"Long Road Ahead B"
"Comfortable Mystery 2"
"Voltaic"
"Firebrand"
"SCP-x3x (I am Not OK)"
"SCP-x1x (Gateway to Hell)"
"SCP-x2x (Unseen Presence)"
"Ossuary 7 - Resolve"
"Isolated"
"Industrious Ferret"
"Sunflower Dance Party"
"Reformat"
"Continue Life"
"Lone Harvest"
"Village Dawn"
"Dragon and Toast"
"Willow and the Light"
"Jet Fueled Vixen"
"Mountain Emperor"
"Cut and Run"
"Cognitive Dissonance"
"Shiny Tech II"
"Neolith"
"Dream Culture"
"Windswept"
"Aretes"
"For Originz"
"That Zen Moment"
"Steel and Seething"
"Resignation"
"Energizing"
"Whimsy Groove"
"Eighties Action"
"Harmful or Fatal"
"All This"
"Killers"
"Crossing the Chasm"
"Obliteration"
"Guzheng City"
"Living Voyage"
"Arcane"
"Night of the Owl"
"Jalandhar"
"Hot Pursuit"
"Curse of the Scarab"
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Kevin MacLeod (incompetech)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

[Incompetech is his website's name. I cut the links in his preferred citation method because Steam doesn't allow them here. But I added his full preferred citation method into the game's menu under credits.]

(If you're curious, this is the order I downloaded them in. I like to think that in itself can tell a story, or form a poem.)

Also, the two songs in the trailer are:
"Equatorial Complex"
"Jaunty Gumption"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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Asset Credits:

Async Loading Screen by Truong Bui

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Preexisting Media:

This game does showcase my childhood doodles of characters from other author’s stories. I don’t claim ownership of any preexisting characters and media depicted in this game, but I do claim the right to display them in this transformative manner because they were a part of my childhood.

Because this project is a type of non-traditional memoir, there is a point to be made that the media I engaged with throughout my life has a place here for story-telling purposes.

However, I do claim ownership of all original characters that I created and showcased in this game.

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Permissions:

It is my preference that no one digs into the game files (or uses snapshots) with the intention to access my images for modification without permission (that includes feeding them into A.I. generators).

However, if you want to draw fan art of characters I created, I welcome that (as long as it doesn’t depict illegal acts).

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And That’s about It:

Now that all of that’s established, welcome. Enter the museum if you like. Enjoy. Relax. It’s a large space. You can take your time if you want. Laugh at the ominous and silly tones that thread their way through my veins. Or cry, if that’s where the museum’s halls take you. It might lead you down that path instead. Or maybe you’ll be doing both, at the same time. Either way, try to have fun with it, this strange threshold land where Madness Starts Young.