Good News, I failed to write a light novel!

So at the start of the month I talked about how I was going to do no gamedev and instead write a light novel as a way to deal with burnout.

Well I failed both!

What actually happened was I got a bunch into planning a really cool story and after a few weeks I REALLY WANTED TO WORK ON A GAME AGAIN. On the one hand, huge fail right? But on the other hand, 100000% success. At the start of this month I was thinking about giving up gamedev because it was pretty much killing me, BUT in the end I couldn’t go one month before I was like “Nah OK I just have to try to make this thing.”

And the thing I started work on was like a dice rolling thing. “It’s not ~technically~ a game!” I said to myself, spending hours in all my gamedev tools on it each day “I’m still totally taking a break from gamedev!”

And then a couple of days ago I figured it was time to get the monthly build ready and picked my maze game as the one I’d release. But ~oh~noooooo~ it needed a little work on it before I could share it with my wonderful patrons. “Oh dear, it looks like I’ll have to do some game development here.” Such a pity, such a shaaaaaaaaaaame.

Meanwhile I’ve been doing other stuff to deal with burnout, you know, the recommended stuff “Eat better”, “Do exercise”, “Master sabre-wielding in virtual reality” – the usual healthy living things. And they seem to be working!

I’m not like, full energy all the time or anything but I think if I can pace myself, catch myself when I’m pushing too hard, then I can keep making games for a much longer time! And maybe even enjoy it for a decent amount of that time too!

Anyway it turns out this month had a TWIST ENDING. I ~did~ finish a light novel story and you just read it! It’s about someone who has struggled to do something that they love and tried to move away from it, but only rediscovered their love and passion and found new ways to go on stronger. THE LIGHT NOVEL WAS THE STORY GROWING IN OUR HEARTS ALL ALONG!

<3

Anyway, if you want to see my notes for the story I was gonna write (and may yet someday, I still think it’s a cool idea) it’s attached (sans research I did for it, but you can just read your favourite demon summoning book and learn the same stuff. It’s cool stuff). 

And as for what I’m gonna do next? I have NO idea. But it’s probably gonna be something you can play! 😀

Anyway, thanks for all your support this month, I was really stressing about it but you all showed me my stress was for nothing, and that always makes it a bit easier to cast off <3

Good News, I failed to write a light novel!

So at the start of the month I talked about how I was going to do no gamedev and instead write a light novel as a way to deal with burnout.

Well I failed both!

What actually happened was I got a bunch into planning a really cool story and after a few weeks I REALLY WANTED TO WORK ON A GAME AGAIN. On the one hand, huge fail right? But on the other hand, 100000% success. At the start of this month I was thinking about giving up gamedev because it was pretty much killing me, BUT in the end I couldn’t go one month before I was like “Nah OK I just have to try to make this thing.”

And the thing I started work on was like a dice rolling thing. “It’s not ~technically~ a game!” I said to myself, spending hours in all my gamedev tools on it each day “I’m still totally taking a break from gamedev!”

And then a couple of days ago I figured it was time to get the monthly build ready and picked my maze game as the one I’d release. But ~oh~noooooo~ it needed a little work on it before I could share it with my wonderful patrons. “Oh dear, it looks like I’ll have to do some game development here.” Such a pity, such a shaaaaaaaaaaame.

Meanwhile I’ve been doing other stuff to deal with burnout, you know, the recommended stuff “Eat better”, “Do exercise”, “Master sabre-wielding in virtual reality” – the usual healthy living things. And they seem to be working!

I’m not like, full energy all the time or anything but I think if I can pace myself, catch myself when I’m pushing too hard, then I can keep making games for a much longer time! And maybe even enjoy it for a decent amount of that time too!

Anyway it turns out this month had a TWIST ENDING. I ~did~ finish a light novel story and you just read it! It’s about someone who has struggled to do something that they love and tried to move away from it, but only rediscovered their love and passion and found new ways to go on stronger. THE LIGHT NOVEL WAS THE STORY GROWING IN OUR HEARTS ALL ALONG!

<3

Anyway, if you want to see my notes for the story I was gonna write (and may yet someday, I still think it’s a cool idea) it’s attached (sans research I did for it, but you can just read your favourite demon summoning book and learn the same stuff. It’s cool stuff). 

And as for what I’m gonna do next? I have NO idea. But it’s probably gonna be something you can play! 😀

Anyway, thanks for all your support this month, I was really stressing about it but you all showed me my stress was for nothing, and that always makes it a bit easier to cast off <3

Spooktober 26th – It’s not a Halloween game anymore

OK so the plan was to make a cool game for Halloween buuuuuut that’s not gonna happen. 

The tl;dr is I’m still making a cool game, but you’ll probably get it next month instead of this month.

The reason is largely because I overestimated what I can do in a short time these days, or rather I assumed my motivation would be reasonably consistent throughout the month but it wasn’t. I ended up trying to push myself to work when it was too much and just stressed myself out unnecessarily.

Over the past few days I had started to move towards having the first half of the game done and ready so I could still meet the Halloween deadline and I do think I could do that, but not without stressing myself out further and making a worse game as a result.

I figure you’d rather see the game as good as it can be and that I don’t kill myself to release it in October.

And November needs its spooky games too, so I’m gonna give it one I guess 🙂

anyway here’s a gif of a work-in-progress location as thanks for reading;

Oh yeah and I’m still uploading a vlog every day, if you really want to see how miserable I get when I push myself too hard (I don’t recommend it tho tbh).

Monthly Build 2019/06 – Pico-8 RPG

Hey there! I’m (just) on time with the build this month, hooray! 😀

This project is just a week old and very buggy, BUT I think it’s cute and potentially cool and maybe you will think so too!

The video above is me talking through it, and the zip file below has all the builds in it (windows, mac, linux, and raspberry pi too)

Hope you’re well! Look after yourself, the weather here is getting to be quite offensive so watch out for it OK <3

Monthly Build 2018/11 – Maze

Do you like mazes? I like mazes!

This one is another project from a while back, and it needed a decent amount of work to get ready for you but the good news is: I enjoyed that work! I don’t think my burnout is “cured” or whatever but I definitely have the energy to work, and more importantly it seems I can work on ~games~ 😀

Anyway I hope you like it and that you’re doing well! <3