Friday Rambles and Gamedev Update 2023-12-29

It’s the last Weekly Rambles of the year. 2023 will soon be no more.

It was probably the shortest year I’ve ever experienced. I seriously don’t know where the entire year went. I blinked and it was gone. Really!

I just got back from my weeklong holiday trip to the family home in the country, which was a long drive, so I’m tired, but I’m also full of good food and holiday cheer. I also got Super Mario RPG from Santa Claus. I love the original so much. I played it and they changed the name of a few bosses and enemies and retconned Bruce Lee existing in the Mario Universe, which was a bummer, but otherwise it’s really a fantastic remake.

above: the new triple moves are so cool

One day I want to make an RPG game like Super Mario RPG, with the timing based battle system and light-hearted feel. Maybe after the Endless Monday Trilogy becomes a breakout hit and I can afford to spend 5 years making a game.

For the last Ramble of the year, I’m gonna do a little year-in-review and goals/resolutions for 2024. Maybe it’ll feel like I did something while the year just sped past.

Before we go into the wall of text, I need to (that’s right) sell some stuff.

The Shop is back! You can use code 122023SUPPORTER15 to get 15% off. And I’m doing a thing where if you buy 2 or more items by end of today, I’ll include a “Baka” postcard print in the shipment. Pumping up the numbers before the year ends, as they say.

Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines is discounted on Steam for the Winter Sale! Buy it for your friends.

Tiger-chan plushie is only available for 3 more days! Buy 2 more of them to sell on the secondary collectors’ market, after the Endless Monday Trilogy becomes a breakout hit and the only merch I make are Nendoroids with Good Smile Company.

Okay, whew, that’s it for now.

2023 in Review

The first half of the year was mostly spent on making Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines. I originally planned for it to be a quick li’l joke game that was like 15 minutes long, to show a short story vignette in game form. It would serve as like a kind of test or demo or something to dip my toes into game dev without any real commitment. But after I kept working on the thing, I felt like it had potential and just needed to be fleshed out more. And I didn’t feel good about releasing something short and unfinished as a joke, lest people not take me seriously as a gamedev for my future works.

above: and in the most productive week of my life i made the entirety of lumber lass and the rest of penny’s phone ui menu. i’m glad the phone became so important so early on in development, because a lot of the game revolves around it as a thing you use to progress in the story

So something that was gonna be released in January or whatever evolved into a full game that I was barely able to finish in time for my self-imposed drop-dead date of May 4.

above: at this point i had been sleeping 3 hours a night for like a month

The rest of the year was, idk, mostly a blur. I worked on bug fixes, and a Japanese localization with the cool JP translation team, which I was able to do in between real life obligations. The game kind of shattered my dream goal for units sold (which admittedly was fairly conservative in hindsight, but then again it was my first game ever, it’s not like i had anything to base any numbers on).

Well, enough to support a solo dev through making another game, anyway, so when I had time I also prototyped and experimented with a few Game 2 ideas, which all kinda sucked. But I learned a lot.

above: i still want to do something with this idea at some point

above: I went through a short 1-bit phase after playing obra dinn. i gave up because i like color too much and also it’s hard to do the half-tone dithering stuff

above: desperation led to an attempt at a standalone lumber lass

Also during this time I was sad about the lack of progress on any work and took a break from beating my head against the wall to play a bunch of games to hopefully inspire me and kickstart my motivation. There are a lot of good games out there. I loved Return of the Obra Dinn a lot. And it’s 5 years old! Maybe people will keep playing EMDND 5 years after it’s launched too. Maybe if I had set EMDND on a 19th century merchant ship instead of a current day 2023 office.

I also drew a lot of comics to sell Tiger-chan plushies.

above: i made like 10 tiger-chan comics this year

So, basically, the second half of the year was not super productive as far as “new” “game” “content” goes. Luckily EMDND was well-received and apparently complete enough that I’m able to keep plugging it every Steam Sale without feeling too guilty, but I’m feeling the pressure to hurry up and make something new so I can have another thing to sell before I run out of runway (or whatever you call “money to pay for rent and food”). But I don’t think it wasn’t well spent, like I did a lot of other important stuff, and learned a lot, and hustled in other ways. Like with the Tiger-chan plushie. Buy a Tiger-chan plushie.

above: 3 days left!!! for real this time

Anyway, what’s my point? I guess 2023 as a year for me, was a year of “confirmation” - it confirmed that yeah, indie gamedev as a career for me may actually be possible, that working on my art had a purpose, that it was a good idea to take a break from my professional career that i spent years building up to just recharge and work on whatever. being able to launch a game, and having it be enjoyed by as many people as it did, is not a thing that happens to every game dev. then again, it’s not like i didn’t work hard over my entire life to get here. i’m old, you know, i did my time in the corporate world.

back in 2014, i was stuck in traffic, hating my job and being miserable, listening to a comedy podcast, when the guest interviewee was talking about his path to becoming a comedian. he talked about how he was 40 years old when he decided to pursue a career in standup. he got there doing what he wanted to do, and it led to new opportunities, and led him on a path, and eventually he was like, hey, i’m a standup comedian now. and his dad worked as a mechanical engineer til he was 60, and then decided to go to art classes and actually became a professional artist. i was like, man, maybe it’s not too late for me after all. that was 9 years ago. 4 years after that i made a twitter account to post my art and here we are now, i guess.

recently i saw a twitter post about how the game dev who made lethal company is like 21 or whatever, and that i guess means that anyone who hasn’t sold a gazillion copies of a video game in their 20s is a big failure? huh? i mean, it’s cool that the guy did that, but why does that make everyone else a failure. when i was 21 i was playing 10 hours of world of warcraft a day. i drew (badly) maybe 3 pictures a year. i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life. i mean, i can’t say i’ve figured it out still, but as far as my real life goes, i think i’m doing okay. trust me, i’ve sold enough copies of my game to make, um, a lot less than the average yearly salary in my previous field. ………okay, ask me how i’m doing in another 9 years.

okay okay, get over yourself. enough with the sentimentality, let’s move on to next year’s goals.

New Year’s Plans and Resolutions

I don’t even remember what my resolutions for this year were. Let’s take a look. I keep a journal. It’s nice to look back and see where I am at various points in my life. And good for looking up New Year’s resolutions.

Journal Entry 12/31/2023 “RESOLUTIONS”:

No twitter/IG follower goal this year. Who cares. I already have way too much for the quality of my art lol

· Also caring about numbers is cringe and fail

I would say this is successful. I stopped tracking social media numbers and I don’t even remember what my follower counts are anymore. As for my art, I have a different relationship with it now, like, it serves a different purpose than before. I think now it’s more of a way to make the visuals for my games and tell stories, instead of a purely aesthetic or technical thing. If it can do that well, then I am happy with the quality. But on the other hand, I’m always wanting to improve there as well.

Finish "tiger-chan game". Release it

· Man I wonder what future me will have to say about this…

Also done! And future me is so darn proud of you. Now what will future future me think about Next Game…

Figure out how to get a stable income

· Be it game dev, or getting a new job.

· If "tiger-chan game" successful, make another game. :) and merch

Well, I don’t know if it’s “stable” but it’s good enough for now. I’d also say tiger-chan game was successful, as far as my own standards go, so i’m working on the next game :) but i didn’t make one this year :(

Figure out Zine situation. You still owe the readers 9 more issues

Lol. Sorry. Does the weekly rambles count?

Make money

Good enough. I’m also moving somewhere cheaper soon to save money. Saving money is making money, as they say.

Hmm. Okay. I’d say this year was a pretty good year for the goals i set last year. i had a lot of uncertainty when I wrote these down, but luckily everything worked out as well as i could have hoped.

2024 plans and goals

i’m cheating here and listing stuff that’s already on my roadmap.

1. Release additional localizations for EMDND
2. Release bonus chapter for EMDND
3. Announce EM Game 2, mostly complete playable build by end of year
   1. this is super important because i really need a new game to sell soon. i think if i’m able to make EM into a decent series, though, i’ll be pretty set.
4. Move successfully
5. Enjoy trip to see family
   1. i’ll probably be really antsy the whole time because i won’t be able to work on my game       much and this will take a decent size chunk of the year. but i need to relax and get over it and make the best of the trip. I can still probably work on non-coding stuff, and i’ll also be in japan for a week during this time, which will be really cool.
6. stretch goal: accept offer from Good Smile Company to make a Skye Nendoroid

I’m also listing some vague general stuff that aren’t really goals, but things to keep in mind throughout the year.

1. Be patient
   1. good things come to those who wait. as they say.
2. Stay healthy
   1. i will continue to exercise regularly.
3. Don’t starve
   1. i will probably continue to be really annoying in terms of selling stuff.
4. Prioritize  what’s important
   1. I’ve been distracting myself a lot with things that aren’t really helping me finish my next game. Like constantly making comics to sell stuff or packing orders. lol
   2. at some point i need to really focus hard on actually making my next game.

Okay enough of that, it’s late and i’m ready to talk about game dev stuff.

Game Dev/Secret Santa

Last year for Secret Santa (a thing for an art discord server i’m in) i put Kini (sooya’s character) in my game. This year for Secret Santa, I put Pandy (geistbox’s character) in my game. These are basically randomly assigned characters, and i just make up a reason to put them in.

above: as before, i made up my own personality for the character.

above: she’s an opera singer/composer. at least in the endless monday universe

I basically made the entire thing in a day (not counting the bar background, which I had already made). The character sprites, the CG, the dialogue. It’s really interesting how fast i can work when i’m under a deadline. i think i’ll have to enact deadlines for myself to have game milestones done to talk about for the weekly rambles. that way i get content for my weekly newsletter, AND i make progress on my game! two birds with one stone.

above: i also need to make more of these CGs. i didn’t really set out to make them look so wacky, but they’re also my favorite things i’ve drawn

above: probably the most screenshotted CG on steam

The bar sequence is basically an excuse to put in a bunch of cameos, and not really important to the story. it’s like an alternate universe that penny catches a glimpse of when she falls into a rift in space-time in the breakroom fridge while she’s avoiding doing her next project. there’s another cameo that i haven’t shown yet, but it’s been ready since like, before halloween, because it was planned for the halloween update. lol. but i finally have a way to put that character in too.

i think game 2 will be a lot more subtle about cameos. i probably will stop putting other peoples’ characters in my game for future secret santas too. or not. who knows

above: temp art

Anyway, that’s it for now. not that much to say here, because i was mostly doing holiday family stuff at the family home.

thanks for your support, as always! See you next year :-)