#y'all don't realize how much I don't talk about this game on my dashboard

[tribow]

what is distance

It is quite literally and with no hyperbole, one of the best arcade racing games of all time.

If you ever heard of the notion that arcade racing sucks now or that the genre is dead people couldn't sleep on this game harder. It's not a typical car game either.

You can jump, rotate with thrusters, and fly in this game. The gameplay is structured more like survival racing that normal circuit design. You're dodging obstacles and doing a little bit of platforming the whole way to reach the end. It's mechanically deep and extremely satisfying.

It has probably the coolest level editor in any game too. The amount of shit you can do with this one editor is actually insane. People have made recreations of levels from other games in it, made movies in it, designed characters in it, boss fights, and completely flipped the design of the game on its head in the editor. There's a DOOM clone in this game (albeit it's a bit janky). The devs essentially made a little game engine in their game as a level editor.

I have yet to see a SINGLE racing game top this shit. Trackmania comes a little close especially in the editor department, but it lacks a campaign that's worth your time and rarely gives you something to do outside of the pure time trial gameplay loop.

Distance rewards you for learning how to go fast, rewards you for exploring, rewards you practicing, and even gives you silly stuff to mess with like classic PS2 racing games.

If you like racing games or going fast in platformers at all give the game a try. It's worth $60 and costs less than half of that. The 1st campaign (which also serves as a tutorial) can be completed in less than 2 hours if you learn fast so you can even return it if it doesn't vibe with you.

The game is a little old at this point (10 years!) so the multiplayer doesn't pop off all the time, but the community is absolutely still there. We're like a little cult who swear that our game is the best racing game EXCEPT WE'RE RIGHT.

Quite literally the most slept on game I can talk about it for years.

(Also I'm one of the main modders for this game and I stream it often!)

[ungalossimp]

Social anxiety and online interractions

(while being neurodivergent)

For context , I've been diagnosed with social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder -agoraphobia too, although I don't think it plays a role here. I'm austistic as well (diagnosed too)

Some people get really angry / annoyed about me not answering directly when they send me a message or an ask. I'm sorry about this. I wish I was able to do it.

For some social interractions are simple. For me it's not, and probably never will. I overthink, writing/ talking to people give me panic attacks.

My brain litteraly can't process things correctly, and interprets social interractions (or more precisely : social interractions going badly) as a deadly threat.

I get overwhelmed. I'm scared, insecure, and a lot of negative thoughts spiral in my head and I can't stop it.

Here's some of them :

✧･ What do they think when they see my blog on their dashboard ?

✧･ Do people even remember me ?

✧･ Do I look look desperate for attention - or on the contrary, do I look like I don't care ?

✧･ Are my posts and reblogs too boring ?Do they think nothing of it ?

✧･ Am I being a bother to my friends ? What if they weren't really my friends, what if they were just being polite and I misinterpreted things ?

✧･ What if I was a dead weight and everyone was too kind / polite to tell me so ?

✧･ What if I don't explain my points of view correctly, what if I mess up so much that the next sentence I'll write will hurt someone, and make them want to never speak to me again ?

✧･ What if they hated you because of how weird you are ?

It's hard to fight against this thought process. It's a cluster of thoughts that spiral again and again, sometimes it's there in the back of your mind and you don't even realize it.

It's hard to spot that my thoughts and insecurities are being irrational when I'm in the middle of it. It's hard to realize those fears are present to an anormal level.

Even when I know I'm not being 100% realistic, it's extremely difficult to not be affected by it.

Not to mention, my neurodiversity (autism) makes me second-guess every interractions, because I'm so scared to not have read social cues correctly.

I'm far better at it now, but when I grew up I used to feel like every interraction was a game and everyone knew the rules except me. It lead to a lot of misunderstandings and hurt.

At the time, I wasn't even diagnosed, so I internalized every "mistakes" of mine and blamed myself.

No one understood why I didn't follow the social rules, surely I did it on purpose - there was something wrong with me but I did no efforts to fix it. I got bullied badly.

As a result of all of this... A lot of time my mind automatically chooses the "safest" (irrational) solution: "if I post nothing, if I don't interract with anyone it will prevent me from ruining everything." It's a fight / flight / freeze /fawn situation, and I freeze.

I know that isolating myself won't fix it. On the contrary, it makes my anxiety worse and it pushes people away. So I do my best. It's draining. Some days it's more difficult, and it takes me a lot more time and courage to answer to people. Sometimes I lose the battle. But I try, I really do.

So now : When I say I have social anxiety and that it is hard for me to answer, please be patient with me. It's not that I don't care, I swear.

I hope this post made y'all understand me a bit better.

Maybe it'll help others explain their situation too, who knows.