In the Summer of 2024, I played a free game on GameJolt named Ultra ADHD. It is a game with 2.5D sprites and a 3D environment with a somewhat unconventional art style. The game opens with a phone call from an agent needed to work with to remove an unknowing threat from the longing land, killing zombies and moving your way through the levels helping people and doing quests. You soon learn that everyone in the game is in revolt of the maker. You move through the game’s three presented endings, but instead of being treated with a traditional reward for beating the game, you are rewarded with a conversation with the developer as a self-insert character.

He begins playing into the story as a character but slowly devolves as the talk becomes more real. Moving from his developer name Dancing Engie to Alon Karmi, his real name, which is a Hebrew name. He rambles for a small amount of time having small talk with the player, poking fun at the message of the game. Finally, it is revealed that he had put the art he liked into it, forming a creation. He is scared of the success of the game and, again, self-deprecates the game. Then speaks on how he loved the process of releasing games and works himself.

The people of the world of the game almost represent the relationship between him and his art, with them pulling away from the principle of past creation to be liberated.

He moves onto the overall crass of the game revealing through reference to other media that he loved the idea of work that is looked at as low-brow, but with a heart of gold underneath with a good conversation or emotion. Honesty and genuine thoughts and feelings are art, and in that art is human. It comes to a head what real art is and what matters–the free-spirited nature of creating art. The conversation fades away and he ends it with, “You don’t need validation from anybody to do what you love. You can learn anything nowadays. Just go for it.”

We all live lives that we are unhappy with in some way and even now if we are happy and content we will look back and have a hard time loving that condition in time, but maybe by doing the healthy things we love and chasing those who encourage us in those things, we can achieve peace.

Life is very short, even in times where it will last the longest. So, if you have an unconditional love for something healthy, learn about it, chase, work, and scream for it. One day all your efforts will come to the fruits of your labor.