Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2024-08-02

It's the Friday Rambles. As they say.

Life stuff

Not much, besides the usual. My sleep schedule has been regressing, but it's not my fault! But I'll try to get it back under control. The thing I talk about below in the Gamedev Stuff section might not help, though.

Merch stuff

I sold a bunch of Skye Plushies.

Above: The plan if Skye didn't sell 400 plushies was that Endless Monday would become a swashbuckling space adventure starring Penny and Tiger-chan

Above: At this point there were 395 plushies sold, so I needed to hurry up and post something where Skye accepted her upcoming demise before we hit 400, so I rushed this out in like 10 minutes. Art imitates life, as they say.

Above: The End

Anyway, Skye Gang has pulled through, and the total tally of Skye Plushie was 471 sold, comfortably beating the 400 sales goal. When I started up the story about Skye having to sell 400 plushies to save the world, I was really not sure if it would reach it, and was fully prepared to destroy the world in the Endless Monday canon. Or ask Makeship for an extension or whatever. Anyway, this long nightmare of selling plushies is finally over. I can't wait til Good Smile Company notices me and makes a Skye Nendoroid, whereafter I will have no further merch ambitions or wants, ever again. That being said, I told Makeship I have another plushie idea for next year. lol

Gamedev stuff

I was very distracted by Skye plushie sales for most of last week and this past weekend, which was terrible for gamedev productivity. It did give me some time away from the story I've been stewing in for too long, so it might not be all bad.

I decided on a major story thing which involved a lot of changes to existing text, but it's making the game suck less, so I guess it was worth it. Long story short, the solution was to "just add Tiger-chan", a lesson I thought I had already learned the first time around. Well, and I also thought of a good use of the new "inspiration" mechanic.

Above: "The new inspiration mechanic"

So, yes, I've had a breakthrough and momentum has recovered since the big narrative crisis of last week, and it feels like I can finish soon again. Which is good, because:

Above: A large game event overseas

Not 100% finalized so I'm not gonna go blabbing about it to the general public just yet, but something happened this week and it's likely I'll be showing the game off at a large game event overseas in late September. Seeing as how I should have something new to show or announce for then or I'll look pretty stupid, I'm going to try to get the new chapter done (or done enough for a playable demo build and a release date, which is looking more likely) before the event starts. The main issue being I need time to localize the thing to the local language.

I've never exhibited a game I made at a trade show before. A thing I'm fairly concerned about is whether 10 minutes or whatever for a demo is enough for someone to play my game and be like, "oh I like it". I guess it's enough to see what the art is like and what the premise is. At least I'll be able to give away prints and business cards and stickers so visitors follow me on Twitter for the art. Hopefully enough people will show up that it'll be worth the trip. Maybe there will even be some people who have already played the game and would want to play the extra chapter. Maybe I'll even be able to "network" or "attend meetings". Feels weird that I'm going on a business trip that I'm paying for using my business funds. Am I... professional...?

Above: The answer is No

Anyway, regardless of how successful it is (and it'll have to be pretty freakin' successful to be worth it in a purely financial sense), I'm going to consider it a learning experience and a sort of "checking off a bucket list item" sort of thing this time around, but hopefully this will be the first of many once (if) I get deeper into my gamedev career.

If nothing else it's lighting a fire under my butt to hurry up and finish the content update. Nothing like sheer terror to get the creative juices flowing. Wish me luck. Time to crunch.

No more screenshots this week, because otherwise it was mostly just brainstorming and writing new text and deleting old text and moving nodes around.

Above: Okay, just this one

Also, I scheduled a Steam discount for Dreams and Deadlines for next week. Time to make another discount post. Penny: "Gee, Miss Whiskey! What's the reason this time?" Whiskey: "Because otherwise we'll never financially recover from showing our game at TGS for some reason, Penn."

The End

That's it for now. Thanks for your support, as always! I don't know what I'll announce next week. Hopefully the new "inspiration" mechanics will be properly implemented. But I don't know. The event has thrown a wrench into the schedule and now I need a proper "vertical slice" as they say for the event demo, so I might just be laser focused on the first 10-15 minutes. So maybe I'll announce that I'm done with the vertical slice. Who knows. I have no idea what I'm doing, after all.