I'm Making a Game (Patreon)

Okay, so the video sounds a little flippant, but I don't have particular high hops for the value of the social media platforms to promote my work. However, those of you on Patreon actually really care about what I'm doing, so let's dig into this!

You may have caught a little while back when I made a video of a robot walking along while music played in the background. I called him "friendbot", and before that video he was just a character I drew for a roleplaying game among friends. Well, I really liked the design and wanted to do something with it, and I've been trying to get some new animation work done.

But then the situation with COPPA rolled around, and it became apparent that Youtube negotiated to throw users under the bus and offload responsibilities for their data practices on their consumers - the people who use their service to host content. Since I've done My Little Pony videos, I have no idea what that means for the channel's future or my liabilities, and it scuttled my desire to make anything sincere for site. What can I do knowing I'm holding an irresponsible corporation's responsibilities when I can't control them?

So I simplified the rig, and I decided it's time to take a plunge into game development. If I want to animate again, and really make things that require a production cycle and a lot of rewarding effort, it can't be Youtube video. It needs to be something that competes on the merits of those qualities - something that isn't promoted by sheer volume, but by how much fun it is and how much people like it.

Video games are also a saturated market today, so I'm not super hopeful this will get noticed or gain traction, but I'm really excited to get into it. So far, there's not a lot of substantial work to share - I'm still working on the user interfaces and the basic bones of the game, but as it comes along I'll update here and elsewhere, and of course take feedback wherever I can.

Additionally, I'll claim one post about the game per month - a big project like this demands a lot of my time, so it'll be harder to meet deadlines on stuff like Stebe and Radio Skyline while I juggle this, so I need to say it counts for at least one "thing", provided I can demonstrate progress is being made on it.

Let me know thoughts and questions! Down the line I might consider adding Patreon rewards related to the project, and if I don't release the final product for free anyway I'll ship an executable out to those of you I can identify as having been on the Patreon for a long time!