Friday Rambles 12-30-2022 (Patreon)

It's the last Friday Rambles of 2022. Which is weird, because I feel like 2022 didn't start that long ago. Wow! Time is fast! I thought it was still 2021! And other things people say whenever time passes. (But it's all true!)

As I have been doing for the past 2 months, I've been working on "game dev" which has been a surprisingly (not surprisingly) lengthy and time consuming process. The game that I was "making for fun" to "take a break" from the first game I was making as a "shitpost" has become the main game I'm working on and putting all my effort and hopes and dreams into. Of course, the subject matter of the game is still stupid, which at least gives me something to blame instead of myself if the game is a horrible failure.

But... while the subject matter is stupid, it's no more stupid than any of my Endless Monday comics--The game is basically an hour long playable Endless Monday comic, so the people who liked my comics will also like this game. Probably. I hope. But I've also tried to make it so that you don't need to have read any of my work or be familiar with any of my characters to be able to play it.

The reason it's taking so long is because I've put a lot more narrative and gameplay than I originally planned into it -- because if I'm gonna call myself a game dev I'm not going to release some kind of 5 minute joke VN for my first ever project. Then I'd just be an artist who dabbled in game dev once and doesn't take stuff seriously.

Anyway, now that I'm done justifying myself for some reason, I want to share what I've completed this week. tl;dr: We're on the home stretch! I think!

1. All story and objectives are done - There is now a narrative purpose for going through the story from beginning to end and several routes based on what objectives you complete for several different endings. And that's it! No more story to add. No more additional things planned, now I just gotta finish all the assets and all the other game stuff like UI and settings menus and other polish. Anyway you should see the flowchart lol. I'd post it here but it's just all spoilers, and I don't want to give away stuff too early :)

2. I made a list of achievements to add to the Steam version of the game. And then added them to the Steam version of the game. The achievements sound cool and makes it almost look like the game is cool and interesting. Man, putting a game on Steam, can you believe it?

3. Now I'm drawing sprites. Finished the sketches for a character's sprites today, which is probably the last of the main character dialogue sprites. Once the base character sprites for all the characters in the game are done I'm just gonna shove em in and (finally) have RL Friendo playtest it.

4. I made a big ol' todo list of all the assets and game functionality (like... settings menu, controller support, Steamdeck support, etc) I still need to add. Well, at least I can reuse the game functionality stuff for the next game, if there is one.

5. I've decided on setting a price for the game, because free doesn't accurately reflect the amount of effort I put into the damn thing, and I know there are at least some people who are excited about Endless Monday stuff and are willing to support me so I can make more of it. It'll cost less than a sticker from my shop. lol.

I've done a bunch of math, and if a decent percentage of the people who have ever bought something from me buys the game (a tall order, I know, and I shouldn't expect it), then there is hope of me being able to do this for a living, which is like, what's fueling my drive right now. Which is kinda funny, putting all my hopes and dreams into a game that started as a "shitpost" but... /shrug emoji

Maybe in the future I'll be a grizzled game dev with an actual back catalog and an established audience and all that (or not), but for now it's fairly terrifying to do this new thing, even though I know I have lots of amazing supporters who are awesome and have supported me so much for every new thing I've tried so far even to now. Like, I still think back to how so many people bought the Skye plush, and realize, man, this is not a normal occurrence that just happens to any artist. And reading gamedev forums and stuff, even selling one copy of a game on Steam is a huge deal that not everyone can pull off, but the fact that I can be confident I'll at least sell a few copies is a tremendously fortunate place to be.

So idk. whatever. All I can do now is just put all my effort into this thing and get it out before the end of January after which I can finally start applying to real jobs and just do the best I can to get a fun and enjoyable game out for the awesome people who care about my work.

ANYWAY...

Thanks for your support, as always! I love you all.