Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2024-09-20

It's the Friday Rambles. Mostly Tokyo Game Show prep, as usual.

Life Stuff

IOS 18 and MacOS Sequoia were released this week, and I took the risk (less than a week before doing international travel) and upgraded my iPhone and Macbook. But everything seems a-ok and now I have a cool new feature called "iPhone mirroring" which allows me to get my phone notifications on my Macbook and use it to control my iPhone without having to pick it up. And my phone is over 4 years old at this point, but with a new battery it still works great.

I read an article about how flying causes people to feel stronger emotions than they normally would on the ground. Which explains why I got so emotionally invested in some in flight movies I've watched, I guess. I'm excited to watch some more sappy movies on the flight to Japan.

TGS Stuff

I'll be leaving for Tokyo in a couple days. The final demo build has been uploaded, and I have it backed up in several locations just in case. I also made sure the game builds successfully on my Macbook (with the new Sequoia update), in case there's some kind of catastrophic crash bug (which I'm 99.9999% sure there isn't) that I'll need to fix on-site. Because I'll be leaving my Windows dev rig at home, I'll have to use my Macbook for any bug fixes. In this case I'll have to set up my Macbook as the demo machine at the booth. Well, this is probably going a bit overboard, but you never know.

I got some packing done. After trying to fit everything into a carryon bag since it's a short trip and the big merch I'm giving out was already procured in Japan, I realized that hey, I might need to carry a lot of stuff home. Like all the clearfile folders no one wanted. So I got a new suitcase from Target, which was a cool new milestone for me (That's right, I have never bought my own suitcase before, just always borrowed from family or used a duffel bag). Gonna slap a bunch of stickers on it to make it look cool. (But not too cool so it doesn't get stolen or whatever).

And I decided at the last minute that my old "business cards" that I give out with merch orders wasn't gonna cut it as something I can exchange in a professional setting (has no email or title or Endless Monday info), so I made some really professional looking (read: boring) business cards in 20 minutes so I could get them ordered in time for same day pickup at the office supply store. I'll be picking them up later tonight. I hope they came out good.

Above: Impressive. Very nice.

Most of the information about the event has been finalized and announced by TGS now, so I've been busy this week doing marketing posts.

There's a TGS event page on Steam! I drew a new sales pic, for the first time in over a year.

Above: But almost no one noticed the difference

The TGS event page looks cool. I'm on the front page if you scroll down 8 pages to the Visual Novel section.

scroll scroll scroll

Above: Ah! There we are!

And the cool banner on the store page:

Above: Lends an air of legitimacy to the discount, don't you think?

Here's hoping we sell a lot of copies.

And of course, the floor plan map!! Or else how will people know where the heck the booth is?

Above: Hall 8, baby

That's right! We're in the main exhibit hall, just a short walk from the Hall 8 entrance. It's the "Graph" area, which is run by Active Gaming Media's PR arm for games not published by PLAYISM. I don't know what the booth looks like, yet, but I'm hoping it's cool. As opposed to not cool, which would sux.

There's not much else to do but leave for Tokyo, now. My expectations are sky high. If I don't meet Hideo Kojima and Good Smile Company doesn't visit my booth and offer to make a Skye Nendoroid, then what was this all even for?

I'm pretty excited and nervous because I've never done a show like this before, let alone one of the biggest in the world, but no matter how it goes I'm going to consider it a learning experience. Who knows, this might be my last show, or the first of many shows. I won't know till I actually do it.

Gamedev Stuff

In between all this marketing work and packing, I plonked away at some minor things for the Extra Chapter. For one, I started calling it the Extra Chapter instead of Chapter 2.

Above: Not "Episode 1" and "Episode 2"

Why? Because I wanted to make it very clear that this is a bonus thing, not me completing an incomplete game. I think even without the Extra Chapter the game is perfectly reasonably sized, and tells a perfectly reasonably sized story. I've seen other games get accused of withholding content for future DLC or being released in incomplete states (fairly or not), and I just wanted to avoid that sort of thing. And to manage expectations for when I make my next game, which I'm definitely not going to make the same dubious choice of promising a free bonus chapter for no reason. Look at me overcomplicating things, as usual. It's not that deep, kiddo. As they say.

That being said, I'm enjoying the torturous process of making this new Extra Chapter, but it's costing a lot of time and money for something I won't see an immediately tangible financial benefit (ie. through DLC sales). I just hope the fans enjoy it :-)

If nothing else, at least it gave me a reason to go to TGS. Anyway, gotta finish this off quickly so I can finally start Game 2 and spread out my emotional investment a bit and also so I can talk about something else for once in my life.

I also wrote a few thousand words for the Extra Chapter script and got sad because the words depressed me. Maybe that's a sign I'm doing something very right (or very wrong).

Above: So it goes

The End

That's it for the week. Thanks for your support, as always! Thanks to the new Patrons for joining, and thanks to the old Patrons for sticking around! This weekend I'll be busy finishing packing and going through the map and putting together a list of booths to visit (unless my booth is so packed with visitors that I can't leave. A good problem to have in that case). Then traveling. Then busy with the show. I'll probably be late with the Rambles. But afterwards I'll be doing a post-show report or "Travel Blog" or something, where I tell you if I'll be doing this ever again, and how many clearfile folders I have to lug home. Okay! Wish me luck!