Upcoming Break and What This Means (Patreon)

Evening everybody!

First of all, congratulations to Sleepy for winning the last art contest. It ended up being a way tougher choice than I imagined, and ironically some of those non-winners might appear when I close my eyes at night when I'm sleepy.

In bigger news, the Patreon is going to be paused in April. It's actually been a pretty long time since that happened, since if I recall last it was in summer 2019 when my back got obliterated and I physically wasn't able to work on anything at a rate I was comfortable with. Truth be told it's only the past few months where the pain from that is mostly gone, though there are still weird days with it or I push something too hard and end up sore the next. I'm going to be working on some longer term stuff through the beginning of March, and figured it would be a good idea to get a billing cycle in along with a post for credits and the like. That way when I do return I won't have to actually time it to a set date, and whoever had an active pledge in before the pause will still have their name in the credits and all that. Those who paid in advance also don't have to worry, since a paused month just extends the time your pledge counted as.

As for when the return will be, I have no idea. It might be in April, it could end up longer with some more pauses. There's a lot I want to be working on, and I'm sure at the very least I'll be recording a lot of gameplay since there's a ton I want to catch up on. Some CRPGs in particular like Arcanum are things I really want to be in the front of the lineup. Plus the fact is that the backend stuff is always going to be present in some way. There's always YouTube screaming about something (a part of Dead Space 3's video got muted again just today) and there's the ever going march trying to keep captions and translations up to par. It's been going good on that front (some videos are starting to come consistently in Polish), though the situation in Russia throws some potential complications with my main guy for it depending on how payment services get barred. I'm also still trying to get through emails, which are down to a few hundred but still pretty damn hard behind to where I really need time to properly sit down and do tons for some days. I stopped pinning the game list in the videos for a while just to try and hold back the tide while I play catch up but it's still an overpowering amount. Plus upcoming art/collab stuff for some videos which have been cooking a while.

Still, frankly I don't feel comfortable charging for that. The March cycle will be more than enough to keep regulars paid and some upcoming stuff in sync. I usually take a smaller break between December-Januaryish since December has always been horrific for my schedule. I didn't do that at all last year, and barely took proper time the last. I'm basically trying to force myself to take a vacation from editing completely, and possibly video stuff entirely if I end up being able to make phenomenal progress on backend cleanup in March. It's definitely surreal feeling like I might make some smaller videos on my own because it's become such an ingrained hobby, but I'm gonna at least try to focus on picking up some more real life work instead that I'd usually poke at pretty slowly. 

I've gotten a lot of emails over the years from people trying to get started on the website and how they feel stuck in a project, and I've sometimes told them that the best thing they can do is step back for a while rather than bang their head against the wall trying to force it. I don't think I'm at that stage yet, but I'm definitely feeling like something might slip and this is more of a preventative measure. A great friend of mine once told me that "it's better to decide to take a break and 'won't do it for a while' before it turns into 'I can't do it'". It sounds counterproductive, but I'd rather stop when I'm still wanting to be doing it rather than keep going and end up burning that out too fast if I'm starting to feel a tingle of it. The Warhammer 3 video turnaround was absolutely insane, but this was planned before that and that project only cemented this being a good idea.  

I'm absolutely not close to the danger point if I'm wondering how much of a break I'm actually going to take, but regardless it's not going to be a charged period even if something does come out in April. I wouldn't be okay with half-assing my work schedule if people are being generous enough to pay for it, and I wouldn't want my off time paid for by crowdfunding either. The idea forming the page was that people would pay for videos and if those aren't the focus of the month and I'm not scheduling around it, I shouldn't get paid. Getting paid when that's not happening can start a very dangerous mindset slope I don't even want to toy with the idea of approaching. 

This gives me a chance to catch up with a lot of other stuff outside of this too like getting my eyes fixed up and a few other mundane meatspace things, so I think it'll be for the best. I'm not vanishing off the face of the earth or anything yet. There's still a lot of emails to get done and there might be a stream or two, but I'm going to avoid active editor time. I might explore new options for software and that kind of deal but we'll see.

I'm incredibly thankful for all you've given so far, and I don't blame anyone at all if they want to pull before March or wait to see if things get regular again. I still can't believe how many of you from all over the planet have been this damn nice to me, or how many names I've come to recognize from some brief back and forths. It's gotten harder to keep track of it all as well as I used to, but that feeling has never gone away. I've gotten to show people a lot of cool and weird shit over the years, and some of it I never would've found on my own without viewer outreach. I'm eternally thankful, and there's really no proper words I have for it. 

So that's it for now! If you have any shorter game recommendations, double so if they're not on the list, do tell them in the comments. I've been playing a ton of those sub-hour things you find on itch and I'd love to find some more of them to try.

Below is Stars Die which is . . . interesting? 

THANK YOU! The videos will return.