23/12/2023
On Charlmes
Long ago, during the COVID pandemic, I had quite a productive time making games, churning out some of my favourite games: Silent Bill and Remember Mary. It was around my peak game output and they're both games I'm proud of in different ways.
These games would not exist without the work of Charlmes, a really nice Australian game jam host making beginner friendly jams, designed take the pressure off making games and just to have fun.
He personally played every game and provided in depth feedback, because with public ratings, someone will come at the bottom of the rankings, and that could be enough kill your game dev spirit.
I participated in the catchily named I Can't Draw But Want To Make A Game Jam 2 and I Can't Write But I Want To Tell a Story Jam.
These were both quite pivotal jams in my game development career, because they encouraged me to explore alternative art styles for Silent Bill, and I wrote a small story loosely based on Mary Wollstonecraft and themed around clinical death to accompany Remember Mary, a game which had quite shallow gameplay but ultimately was well received. This helped me to get over feelings of inadequecy in two departments of game development - artwork and storytelling.
Charlmes was quite a fan of ducks for whatever reason. His jam pages were decorated with ducks and we were encouraged for the inclusion of ducks in our games. Which naturally I did.
The I Can't Write jam was hosted after the success of the I Can't Draw jam, with the intention of a judgement free place for people to try out a story based game. I got a glowing review of Remember Mary from Charlmes, he had clearly fully explored the game and really thought about what to say.
Before he managed to finish reviewing every game in the jam, he announced he was taking a break since he was moving.
He was working on expanding things, setting up a patreon page, having a relatively large active discord, and things were looking good.
But whilst browsing Twitter one day I saw a post by him, it said simply: "goodbye".
And shortly after he deleted his account and started removing all his other accounts. Everything was removed until there was no trace of him remaining. With his itch io account being deleted, the jams were also gone. No trace of them left on the internet.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but this seemed like concerning behaviour. I tracked down one of his contacts he had collaborated with to ask if he was okay. As it turns out, everything was fine, it's just for whatever reason he wanted to erase his presence from the internet.
Clearly Charlmes had a huge influence on my game development process, and that's enough for me to be remembering this random internet stranger who disappeared, even three years after our last interaction.
Hundreds of people joined his jams and made games for them, and in turn had Charlmes play their games and write feedback for them. He undoubtably had an even wider influence on the community than just me.
Remember Mary, although it hasn't made spectacular numbers, has received across the board 5 star reviews.
Silent Bill I ended up remaking in hand drawn scribble art style.
The I Can't Draw jam has widely influenced me in my game making endeavours and my art style has been a lot more relaxed and "bad" since, with no pressure put on myself to try and create good graphics, which has always been one of the least enjoyable parts for me.
So here's remembering Charlmes, some random internet stranger who might not realise how much influence he truly had on people.
Over my many years on the internet, people have come and gone, often mysteriously disappearing with no trace. But even though they're gone, and not coming back, it's interesting to reflect on how much influence a person can have on you despite never even interacting in person.