Shipped 5 games, 9.2M users. The biggest one isn't out yet and what I learned about cognitive performance the hard way.
I run a small indie game studio. Been at it for a few years now, shipped 5 games with about 9.2 million users across them. Good stats, solid retention, learned a lot from each one.
But none of them came close to what I've been working on for the last 2.5 years.
It's a dark atmospheric horror game. The kind where every asset has to feel real or the immersion breaks completely. I'm talking maze environments that create genuine tension, hyper detailed character models, leather textures you can almost feel, lighting that makes you uncomfortable in the right way. The scope of it has been unlike anything I've built before.
The cognitive demand of this project specifically is hard to describe. You're holding an entire world in your head at once. Game logic, system architecture, team direction, UX decisions, playtesting feedback, art direction, all simultaneously, every day, for years. The context switching alone is exhausting before you factor in the creative depth each task requires.
Around year one I started taking Lion's Mane consistently. Took about 3 weeks before I noticed anything but eventually it just became obvious. Clearer thinking, better recall, less of that mid afternoon dead zone where nothing clicks. Not dramatic, just a consistent baseline shift that compounded over time.
Added Reishi later for the stress side. At peak crunch I was running 12 to 14 hour days for weeks straight. Reishi changed my sleep quality in a way I didn't expect. Not longer, just deeper. Woke up actually recovered.
I don't come to Reddit that often but when I do I'm usually looking for stuff that isn't mainstream. The popular things get flooded with marketing and people who've been sponsored to have an opinion. Not useful.
I used to take Modafinil occasionally. Stopped relying on it for two reasons. First, it would lock me into whatever I was doing with laser focus which sounds great until your team calls and you're completely somewhere else mentally, zero ability to context switch. Second, started getting some stomach discomfort so I pulled back and now use it very rarely if at all.
That pushed me toward finding something more natural that actually fit how my brain works day to day. Went down a rabbit hole on Reddit looking for things people weren't being paid to recommend. Found Lucetic that way, pretty low key brand, not everywhere, single species extracts. However, it really works for me, can't recommend it enough.. Curious what you guys take when the workflow is genuinely unstable and demanding. Not the occasional hard day, I mean the kind of work that just runs that way by nature. That's how I build and I'm always looking for what's actually working for people in that environment.