Bring the BEEF - A Monkey, a Sauna, and an Existential Crisis

Story time!

SO

This morning I had a rather interesting experience.

I'm currently on a short work trip somewhere in Central America, and I woke up feeling like I needed to clear my head and put a few thoughts in order.

Particularly regarding BTB, its development, its future, and whether that future should even exist.

You know.

SO

I decided to try a temazcal for the first time, very early in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise.

*If you don't know what a temazcal is, don't worry.

Neither did I.

It's basically a pre-Hispanic version of a sauna.

Imagine a little clay igloo somewhere in the forest, with a spiritual guide shaman dude guy burning plants, chanting, and performing a purification ritual while you slowly get cooked alive inside.

Is this what they mean by wake and bake?...

ANYWAY

While my skin was sweating, my organs were slowly turning into soup, and I was reconsidering every decision that had led me into this pre-hispanic air fryer, I attempted to meditate.

Which, by the way, I'm terrible at.

Naturally.

But apparently that's the whole point.

A temazcal is traditionally associated with purification of the body, mind, and spirit.

And part of what I took from the experience was learning to accept circumstances you cannot immediately change.

Finding the mental strength to be at peace with discomfort.

And maybe, eventually, finding something meaningful in an experience that many people would otherwise consider torture.

Interesting stuff.

Very sweaty stuff.

SO!

Somewhere between spiritual enlightenment and heat-induced delirium, I started thinking about Bring the BEEF.

What exactly are we doing?

Where is this going?

What kind of world are we building?

And perhaps more importantly...

Why am I doing any of this in the first place?

...

First of all, I want to thank you guys.

For following this little project, for reading these unnecessarily long posts, for commenting, voting, sharing your ideas, and being part of something that is still very much in its infancy.

I genuinely love reading your thoughts.

And I love that this world is slowly taking shape not only through the things I imagine, but also through the conversations we have here.

But I'm also very aware that there's an entirely different side of the internet that has very strong feelings about projects involving AI.

And that's fair.

We've received quite a few mixed reactions.

Surprisingly, most of them have been positive.

But there are also quite a few people who are genuinely upset about what I'm doing.

I've received some rather colorful direct messages, particularly on X.

(If you message me there, I will probably read it eventually , but there's a very good chance I won't reply. Nothing personal. That place is a jungle, and I'm already a monkey.)

And some of those messages have been...

Well.

Creative.

Some constructive.

Some angry.

Some very angry.

Some involving rather elaborate suggestions about what I should do with my own anatomy.

And strangely enough, I find human anger fascinating.

There's something almost beautiful about how deeply people can care about an idea, a principle, or a subject.

Enough to become emotionally invested.

Enough to argue.

Enough to completely lose their minds over a monkey making a game about beef on an island.

Does that make those reactions productive?

Not necessarily.

Does it make them interesting?

Absolutely.

But even with all that, I did start questioning myself.

Am I doing something wrong?

Is what I'm doing immoral?

Am I contributing to something harmful?

Am I...

A BAD MONKEY?

...

And don't get me wrong.

I have pretty thick skin.

I don't get offended easily, and I can almost guarantee there's nothing anyone could say about me that I haven't already told myself in front of a mirror at least a hundred times.

I'm also perfectly capable of recognizing that criticism doesn't automatically become invalid just because it's uncomfortable to hear. And I genuinely love to receive all sorts of feedback.

Some of the concerns people have about AI are legitimate.

We've talked about that before, and I still believe it.

But it did get me thinking.

Should I continue making BTB?

Should I find another hobby?

Should I just start making sourdough bread instead?

Would the internet be happier if I spent my mornings feeding a jar of fermented flour instead of developing fictional beefy men?

Should I make ANOTHER poll asking whether we should keep sailing?

And then...

After a thoroughly masochistic morning inside a clay oven...

Something clicked.

Bring the BEEF was never supposed to be a project that needed permission to exist.

It's a passion project.

Something I'm making because I genuinely love making it.

And yes, of course I love money.

I'm a monkey, not a saint.

But I'm also extremely fortunate to be in a position where I can create something like this out of love rather than necessity.

I don't need BTB to become the most successful game in the world.

I don't need everyone to like it.

And I certainly don't need every single person on the internet to agree with how I choose to make it.

What I do need is to feel that what I'm creating is something I genuinely believe in.

And that brings me to the actual point of this ridiculously long post.

I don't want Bring the BEEF to be a world that is afraid of being itself.

No one should be.

(Unless you are a Percival of course...)

I want it to be colorful.

Ridiculous.

Wholesome.

Romantic.

Stupid.

Sometimes surprisingly emotional.

Sometimes completely inappropriate.

A world where you can spend an afternoon peacefully fishing, help someone work through grief, rebuild a little village, and then find yourself dealing with an absolutely unhinged bureaucratic dispute involving six raccoons.

I want characters who are kind, but also characters who are selfish, arrogant, jealous, dramatic, hypocritical, and occasionally complete idiots.

Because that's what makes characters interesting.

I want humor that is absurd.

Humor that is sometimes uncomfortable.

Humor that doesn't constantly stop to ask whether absolutely everyone in the room approves of the joke.

And I want stories that aren't afraid to explore complicated emotions.

Not everything needs to be sanitized.

Not every character needs to be a role model.

Not every joke needs to carry a moral lesson.

And not every story needs to make everyone comfortable.

That doesn't mean being cruel for the sake of being cruel.

There's a difference between having a personality and deliberately trying to hurt people.(Unless it's Percival, in that case it's understandable...)

And I think that's a very important distinction.

But I'm not interested in creating a world so carefully polished to avoid every possible disagreement that it ends up having no personality at all.

BTB is going to have a voice.

An identity.

And probably quite a few deeply questionable jokes.

And I'm going to embrace that.

As for AI?

I understand why some people don't want to support projects that use it.

I respect that choice.

I've been transparent about its involvement, and I intend to continue being transparent.

People deserve to know what they're supporting.

But I also believe that anyone should be allowed to explore the tools available, experiment with them, and use them to bring ideas into the world that might otherwise never happen.

You don't have to agree with that.

And you don't have to support it.

But I don't think disagreement automatically makes either of us a bad person... or monkey...

So...

What happens to BTB now?

Well.

We keep building.

We keep experimenting.

We keep listening to feedback.

We keep improving things that don't work.

We keep questioning our own decisions.

And we keep making this ridiculous little island a place worth visiting.

Still We Sail! And I want the people who genuinely enjoy this project to feel that they're helping shape something special, without turning every creative decision into a referendum on whether we deserve to exist.

Because ultimately, that's what I want BTB to be.

A little world with a big personality.

Made with passion, curiosity, questionable judgment, and a completely unreasonable amount of beef.

And perhaps the most useful thing I learned this morning is that finding peace doesn't necessarily mean changing everything around you until nothing makes you uncomfortable.

Sometimes it means accepting that discomfort will exist.

That people will disagree.

That you won't always get things right.

And that you can still choose to enjoy the experience.

So no.

I'm not quitting BTB.

I'm not abandoning the island.

And unfortunately for everyone involved, I'm not taking up sourdough.

There's still a lot I want to create.

A lot I want to learn.

And a lot of stories I want to tell.

And if you want to be part of that journey, whether you've been here since day one or just arrived yesterday...

You're always welcome aboard!

Just don't expect the captain to know exactly what he's doing.

He's a monkey after all...

ANYWAY!

Thank you for "listening" to my little existential crisis.

I went into a clay oven looking for enlightenment.

I came out with dehydration, questionable spiritual wisdom, and an even stronger desire to keep developing a video game about beef.

10/10. Would get roasted again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIiaO6jlk48