Remy's June 2020 Newsletter! 🌄🏷🎨🕹🎶 (Patreon)

Hi everyone!

I can't say I've been up to much this month. With the confinement lifting up, me and my partner went on to finally go buy some furnitures that we needed and set it up, find cats to adopt, go see our family, and then go on vacation in the mountains. And aside from that... Well no that's it, really. I've been working a little for Castle but I have nothing to show for it. I also worked a little on Sugar but there again, nothing to show yet. I barely oppened Pico-8 this month. A lot of my time was spent in stores, or enjoying the outside world.

Here's a mountain picture.

But even though I didn't produce much, I have been thinking a lot. And so I'm going to try and articulate these thoughts here.

I've been thinking about changing things up for a while. Well, I'm always thinking about changing things up, because I feel I have yet to find a satisfying and sustainable workflow. But I'm thinking about more drastic changes here:

Rebranding

I've been going by the name Trasevol_Dog ever since I started building an online presence. At the time it felt like using a nickname rather than my actual name would be a good thing because people would remember it more easily. When I thought of Trasevol_Dog, I liked it and I kept it, hoping that people would indeed remember it well. In case you didn't realize, Trasevol_Dog spelled backwards gives you "god loves art". But I've come to a point where I identify a few issues with this nickname.

For one thing, I don't believe in god. I'm not going to go any further into this here, I just don't hold religious beliefs at all. And so, upholding the word 'god' in my nickname feels wrong, even if it is spelled backwards. When I chose this nickname, I was ok with it because I simply meant it as art being of divine nature, as important and right. I still think art is extremely important and I love it very much, but the message hidden in my nickname can be interpretted in a wrong way, maybe giving me an image I do not want.

Something else is: I love dogs, but not so much as to ever own one. I am not a "dog person". The dog I used as model for my logo is my sister's and yes, she's adorable! But still. Maybe more importantly, when I chose this nickname I had no idea just how much furries were a thing. That's a realization that came through the years with Twitter, and I don't have anything against furry communities, but I can see how someone could identify me as a furry based on my nickname and profile picture, and that is not something I have ever intended. I do not identify as a furry, and even if I did, then I would identify as a cat and not a dog. Dogs are great, but cats are incredible. (just my opinion of course!)

And finally, it has to be said that most people don't know how they should pronounce it. To be honest, even I don't know. I've pronounced it both "trahsevol" and "traisevol" over the years and I've never really cared much about it. But I think something hard to prononce can also be hard to remember, defeating the original purpose of having a nickname that people would remember. And I can also see how people would read "trasevol" as gibberish since it doesn't even come close to an actual word that exists.

And so I am thinking of switching everything to my actual name, Rémy Devaux. And changing my logo to my face in pixel-art, so that people have a better chance of recognizing me at conventions. I also intend to use the candy symbol a lot more, as it reflects very well my graphic style of colorful and citric.

My name is as memorable as anyone else's, and it has the advantage of being short and rather easy to prononce. It's also very french which is not necessarily a bad thing! And besides I do think I have a graphic style that could be recognizable beyond my credentials.

Working differently

I've been hit by a few sentences in different media, resonating in what this 1953 graffiti by Guy Debord expresses extremely efficiently:

Translation: "Never work."

The way I've been working has always been rather chaotic, but a lot of the time, I've been pushing myself to "get things out" and to get positive feedback.I am an absolute sucker for positive feedback. I blame my education: as a (privileged) good student I've always been met with extremely positive feedback at school, most of the time for barely any effort at all. When I hopped out of the education system, I found back positive feedback in the responses to my work, and I loved it. Too much.

I have come to recognize that I am way too dependant on external validation. I tend to work for others, or at least so that others praise me, but this is not sustainable. My addiction to positive feedback has sucked me into the "attention economy" thing, where your goal is numbers and you're never really happy, because numbers go up and down and they are simply out of your control for the most part.

A more sustainable and reasoned way of working, I believe, is simply to love what you're doing, and doing it because you love it. I remember knowing that feeling when I made my very first games: I was stupidly proud of what I made and tinkering at them was simply my favorite occupation. It's what I did after school and I was getting a lot of fulfillment from it. Now I still appreciate making things, but definitely not as much as then, as my focus is always on the finish line and on the tediousness of actually getting there. I don't think about how I'm building something I'm proud of, I only think about all the work that I still have to do before I can put the thing online and get my positive feedback and get on to the next thing.

And so I have a shift to do in my vision when making things. I shouldn't "work" but rather "do what I love". This is of course a rather personal change, but maybe some of you identify with all I just wrote, I do think that coming to terms with it is already a huge first step. So helpfully this can help some of you, if that's a problem you're also having?

Once again I should aknowledge that I speak from a position of privilege. Right now I don't have to work for money to survive. I'm in a position that is comfortable enough that I can actually ask myself these questions, and money I can figure out later. And it is in a part thanks to you, my very kind Patreon supporters, and I will never thank you enough. It is the truth of capitalism that money is freedom, and you are giving me freedom. Thank you!

Make more meaningful things

I've blabbered on about this in the past already, so I'll try to keep it short.

I want to make games, and maybe other things, that convey more than just fun. It seems to me that fun is to games what beauty is to graphic arts. It's the base measure, what everyone is familiar with and generally expect. But graphic arts are litteral millenias ahead of games in that they will make you feel much more than just beauty. Graphic arts convey emotions, messages, and ideologies. Games are doing this too of course, but not enough in my opinion. I often say that video games have an incredible amount of untapped potential. I want to tap into it!

I want to make games that empower people and incite changes for the better. It's still difficult for me to articulate my wishes around this subject for now, especially since I am currently fumbling to find ways to actually do this. I have an experimental journey ahead of me, and it is both scary and very exciting!

Also, I have been educating myself about anarchy. I'm certainly not done yet, I have a lot to learn, and a lot to figure out for myself, but I find it very interesting, and I adhere to a lot of what I'm reading. And it seems to me that the world is ripe for radical changes. So, as I learn, anarchist ideas may slowly make their way into my work as well.

And I think that sums it up pretty well. These changes will be coming over time, as I still have things to figure out, especially with my workflow. Once I am at a more comfortable place, I intend to update the Patreon as well. I can't say what the changes will be yet, but it will be more reasonable than it has been in the past.

I do intend to make things during July. I'd like to make at least one tiny game, and I want to keep building Sugar. Whatever I manage to put out, I'll let you know. But I will make sure to go at my own pace with it!

Moving on to this month's recommendation!

Early in June, there has been a gigantic Itch.io bundle in support of the protests against police violence towards racialized people in the US. If you bought this bundle, here is my game recommendation for this month: look through some of the games in the bundle, download those that seem interesting to you based on their thumbnail and description, and play those.

The bundle contains a lot of great games, but also a ton of hidden gems. A lot of these games will be small in scope and won't take much of your time. And there is so much to experience and learn from. The intellectual value of this bundle, I think, is unfathomable.

Music now! LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER has released a new single: STAND AND DELIVER. LMNC is a mad tinkerer musician. You could hardly make a more accurate description. His music has clear rock influences, but uses exclusively electronic sounds. He has a very impressive collection of hand-soldiered synthesizers and other inventions, and he makes really cool videos about them aside from just the really cool music. In the past he's made a flamethrower organ, a furby organ, and he's currently working on "the Gameboy Megamachine" which gets sound out of 64 gameboys, together. It's impressive and particularly crazy, I recommend you check it out! 

Cactussquid, Jonatan Söderström, most known for being one of the two developpers behind the Hotline Miami games, has blessed us with a new album from his band Crystal Boys! As I write this I actually just found out that there's a whole album out, as I saw just this morning that Jonathan had uploaded a video for one of the songs in the album to his Youtube channel, and that's what I was going to write about here. This "Pilgrims" music video is trippy and good. This is psychedelic rock, it's crazy, it feels good. I'm listening to the album right now, I like it a lot!

And that is it for this month! As you can tell from what I wrote above, I am in a phase of transition, and here that means I'm putting out less stuff in the meantime. Hopefully you are ok with this. But beyond this weird period I expect a sort of renewal, with fresh new things for you all to enjoy and hopefully get inspiration from!

Oh also, Patreon has rolled out a new tax system and I set it up as best as I could (it was somewhat confusing) but you will probably still be paying taxes on top of your pledge, with the amount depending on your country of residence. I am given to understand that the taxes will remain very small in any case, so hopefully it's ok. However if something seems off with the taxes you are imposed, I strongly recommend messaging Patreon's support.

As always, thank you so very much for your support! I hope you have a great month!

Take care!

Rémy 🍬