Hello Asymmetric
I’m sorry that you don’t get to see your son. I do hope you’re able to patch things up with his mother so that you can be part of his life growing up – mostly because it will mean a lot to him.
Why don’t you tell your story – in the form of a game? Like an adventure story or an interactive visual novel or a roll playing game? You can ask the audience to decide what you should have done / said and imagine various outcomes. Start by elaborating on the piece you told us here and illustrate parts of it and so on.
There’s software out there that is easier and simpler to use than Unity. They have free starter editions that won’t cost you anything - look for something that makes you excited about writing games. If you just browse these forums or the games that fill in the metadata, you’ll see a lot of gaming software. They all have basic tutorials – work through one and if it seems like “hard work” skip it and go to the next one until you find one that is “fun” to figure out and work in.
Popularity? Don’t worry about that – life is random. Do something you love, for yourself and don’t be afraid to put it out there. If people reject it at first, just remember it’s not personal – there are 100 000 games – 99% of the people here aren’t going to see your project – the other 1% are looking at approximately 100 games, they need a good reason to choose yours (or mine) and it might have more to do with the mood they’re in, than the game.
What got me into writing games was my love of playing games and wanting to also write games like the ones I was playing. When I’m unhappy about getting nowhere in developing games, I take time off and just play games other people have written – or ones I wrote myself – and that rekindles my love for the genre. Don’t worry if playing games seems like wasting time in the moment, you can’t write a good game if you haven’t played a lot of games like it – because you’ll miss all the tricks that make the game fun. Playing games is part of the learning process – it’s the easy and fun part.
If you’re feeling depressed though – as opposed to just having a bad day - please get some real help – search online for charities that can help you, there’s medicine you can take, please don’t just ignore it.
Best of luck.