The Plan (Patreon)

First things first, the Patreon will remain open. Amazingly the pledge total has gone up since I announced the hiatus so I’d like to extend a huge thanks to all of you, new and old for the support. In case you missed it, February was mostly spent working on the Teio Form Mod for The Wonderful 101. Despite having only made that post a week ago, I’m once again feeling pressure to provide value so here we are. What I’m about to say should make you reconsider your pledge, if you’re not comfortable continuing I totally understand. My only request is that you think of more like a pause button which you can unpause should I return to making something you’re willing to pledge for. With that said, here’s what I’ve been thinking.

A long time ago I heard about a study which said something along these lines: if you tell people you’re going to do something, your brain releases the same chemicals as actually accomplishing the thing you said you would do. I don’t know if it’s true but it sounds about right to me and it’s easy to see how that would be terrible for motivation. This is a major reason why I’m usually so tight lipped about what I plan to make. While I never managed to output as many videos as I would’ve liked, I think this attitude has been something which worked in my favour. In fact, I feel like the power of this approach increased over time as I gained more followers. It was enjoyable to work on a Breath of the Wild video without announcing it and I’m sure it was a pleasant surprise for most of you when it appeared out of nowhere.

In an ideal world I would do the same thing when making a game. I’d simply vanish from the public eye only to reappear years later with something ready to reveal. This isn’t an ideal world though. I want to make a game and I have a simple problem which has prevented me from doing so: I need time but I don’t have enough money to buy that time.

Since many of you have guessed that this is what I want to do anyway and since I’d rather make a game under less than ideal conditions than never make one at all, I’ve decided to pull the trigger now.

Here’s my proposal. I’ll work on a game. At the end of the month I’ll tell you what I did, similar to the Teio Form post I made recently. Right now I have ideas for 4 different 2D action platformer games. Rather than pick one, I’m going to get some common systems in place which can hopefully be reused between each. Once I have a few basics, I’ll try to make the smallest one first. For obvious reasons I won’t share too many specifics about the games themselves, it’s way too early for that. Instead I’ll share some implementation details and overarching design ideas. If the first one proves not to be enjoyable or not feasible then I’ll move on to the next smallest and so on.

This project could easily fall through so I can’t guarantee any kind of delivery. Maybe I won’t even make it to the end of the month. Whatever happens it will be a valuable learning exercise though. Worst case scenario I return to making videos with more knowledge under my belt. Best case scenario we see how far this road goes, maybe all the way to release.

Some preliminary work has already been done. I’ve chosen GameMaker as the engine and have a functional collision detection system in place. Since the implementation is far more messy than I’d like, my plan for March is to clean that up and move on to something else like a player action system, camera basics or enemy hierarchy. Next month’s post will talk about some fundamentals and maybe collision detection if I feel confident about it by then. If you continue to pledge, your support is going towards those blog posts.

I do have one more thing to say though. The channel isn’t necessarily dead. Granted, it’s not alive right now either but after giving it some thought, I’ve decided I don’t need to abandon it just because I’d like to become a developer. Insiders often give GDC talks, make blog posts explaining their thoughts or even have Youtube channels of their own. I suppose the things I’ll say in my videos run a larger risk of annoying other developers than most but that ship sailed long ago anyway. If you’re curious what the future of the channel might hold, I think it lies less in traditional reviews and more so in other projects. Personally I’m very happy with the microvideo compilations and would like to see those continue. Beyond that I might branch out into general topics or do short videos about individual games. It’s still up in the air and I’m not able to promise that you’ll see another video any time soon but I can promise that the quality of the channel will remain paramount whenever I work on it. Right now it’s still on hold but the desire to return has been building up and I think it will boil over into a video eventually.

Before I wrap up I’d once again like to address anyone who decides to retract their pledge: I understand and am simply grateful for the support I’ve received so far. While I probably couldn’t do this if every single one of you pulled your pledge, I only need a small minority to sustain me for a while. You as an individual don’t have to be the one to prop me up if it’s not worth it to you on a personal level. I only ask that you check back again later to reconsider. If this new endeavor crashes and burns it would be nice to hit the ground running again with the channel.

Lastly, I’d like to apologise if this comes as bad news. I’m thankful for your support and interest in my work so far. Again, putting this in blog form makes it seem far more serious than it feels to me. I'm just trying something else for a while, you're welcome to follow along.