Arbiter - Monthly Recap - January 2022 (Patreon)

Greetings, gamers! ✨

Hope everyone's staying happy and healthy! It's crazy to think we're already a month into the new year, but alas, time's a devilish seductress that waits for no one.

...SPEAKING OF WHICH!

I spent the month of January working on my own devilish seductress—only mine's named Scarlet! Or... Scarlet-Ashe. Ashe-Scarlet? Scarlashe?? Eyelash??? I don't know, man.

I pretty much spent the entire month animating, having only just started getting her in-game this week. Animation went super smoothly and I actually ended up being a bit ahead of schedule for once! I'll talk a bit about my animation process for her here, but I'll be saving the juicy deets for an exclusive backer post later on (when I actually start doing these 🌜).

My keywords for this form are floatiness, grace, and rhythm. These contrast Wolf's focus on feral instincts and style, making for a much more smooth and fluid form. 

The way I aimed to fulfill these keywords was overall pretty simple. Scarlet is always floating and quite literally never grounds herself at any point. On top of that, her animations are all somewhat longer than normal, with fast startups and slow follow-throughs. Her attacks are all designed to allow her to move while using them, giving her very fluent control over her movement at any given time. She's also one of the fastest forms in the game as she can freely glide through the air or along the ground gracefully. 

The focus on fluidity comes from her focus on projectiles. Maintaining her distance and continuously firing projectiles make up the core of her gameplay, with every other part of her kit working towards this in some way or another. 

While her projectiles create her foundation, she can also attack with her sword telekinetically when at a close range. This is a short combo focused less on damage output and more on pushing away any enemies who get too close, putting Scarlet back into projectile range. 

All of this stuff works together to create probably the most unique form of the four planned for the game. While I'm simply trying to make another fun set of gameplay mechanics, I also foresee this form as being a good option for folks who find the intensity of in-your-face combat a bit overwhelming. Since Scarlet is focused on range and distance, she'll likely have an easier time dealing with certain encounters over the other forms. I also suspect she'll be a good default for speedruns given how fast she's able to glide around the environment. Suffice it to say she's looking to be a very versatile form with lots of fun tools to work with!

Scarlet's animations came out to about ~107 total, though I'm sure I'll be making a few more as I get her in-game. All in all each form is looking to have about 100-150 unique animations with about ~1.5 months to get them in-game, so I think my estimate for having them all done by mid-year feels about right. At any rate, that wraps up my work for January!

But wait! There's more! 

Everyone, I have a confession to make. As it turns out, I'm actually black. Crazy, right? We can thank dad for that one, but that's besides the point. 

The point is, because of this I was approached last year by Humble Games about a little grant of theirs called the Black Game Developer Fund. 

The goal of the fund is to help black game developers offset some of the obstacles they may encounter in the unfortunate face of systemic bias and racial prejudice. Humble recognizes that a chunk of cash isn't going to solve these problems overnight, but it might do some good to create more opportunities for people of colour and help them realize their dreams. To that end I can say, in my case, it absolutely has. 

I was kind of skeptical at first since the offer definitely sounded to good to be true, but after having some very honest conversations with Humble and the BGDF about their intentions, it became clear that this really is an honest effort to do some good. The conditions were simple, straightforward, and fair, so I decided to take them up on their offer and fund a portion of Arbiter's development!

For the sake of transparency, I'd like to be very clear about how the funds work and how I'll be using them. Usually the money is used to fund prototypes, but since Arbiter's a little further along I was given a chance to basically choose whatever aspect of the game I wanted to work on and then ask for a certain amount of money to fund it. With that, I chose Arbiter's transformation system since it's a fairly predictable schedule but a time-consuming one, so having a justified reason to work on it for a year was honestly a godsend. 

With that, I provide several updates throughout the process to show my progress and receive the funding accordingly. The fund is non-recoupable, meaning I do not have to pay it back in any way. The only real stipulation is that, should I wish to sign with a publisher in the future, I hear out Humble's offer first before I consider anybody else's (but with no obligation to signing with them). All in all it's a very fair deal with extremely minimal oversight, so I'm more than happy with these conditions. If you're a black creator yourself, I'd highly recommend checking it out!

So, how will I be using the funds? Well, I'll be using them just like I use my Patreon funds—to support myself financially so that I can finish Arbiter! While this grant covers a nice chunk of development costs, it is still only a portion, so everyone's continued support on here is still incredibly appreciated. In particular I'll be taking the opportunity to finally move out somewhere I can work more consistently and stress-free. From there I'd be using a combination of Patreon funds and grant money to pay bills and support myself!

I genuinely can't thank Humble and the BGDF enough for reaching out to me with this opportunity. Game's take a lot of work and money, and having people who understand that use the goodwill and resources they've accumulated to help the underprivileged is the kind of decency we should all strive for, and I look forward to paying it forward in the future however I can. 

No pun intended, but this entire thing has been a very humbling experience for me. As a person of mixed race I've had to come to terms with both my racial identity and my privilege over the course of my life. The only times I had really thought about race until recent years was when I was hatefully targeted for it, and even then I don't think I fully appreciated the systemic biases that allowed such things to happen. 

In my adulthood I've become much more acutely aware of these things, and so I can appreciate how this is arguably the first time in my life where my race has actually been beneficial to me. In some ways it feels undeserved, as I am not much of an activist outside of condemning hate when I see it. But on the other hand, I understand that a lot of my ancestors and brothers and sisters fought (and are still fighting) specifically to give young people of colour like myself these kinds of opportunities. With that comes a lot of responsibility, because to take this opportunity and not share it with others like myself would go against what our people fought for. It has to be paid forward. 

With all of that said, I'm going to use this grant to make Arbiter a game worthy of receiving it. Then, once Arbiter's all finished, hopefully I can offer others like myself similar opportunities. 

Thanks for reading everyone! I'd like to personally thank Humble, Justin Woodward, and John Polson for reaching out to me with this opportunity. It's a genuine life-changer. I'd like to also thank you guys here and on Twitter and Discord for spreading word of mouth for the game as much as you have. I quite literally wouldn't have been on their radar without it, so you're all just as responsible. Thank you so, so much!

Cheers,
Jordy