After taking a few months off of working with the RPG Maker version of the project, it was surprising to me when I realized just how close to the end of development it actually is. The final piece it needs are the assets, that's it.
I say that like it's no big deal, but in retrospect it actually isn't. I have spent the better part of three years creating an entire world, writing fourteen playable heroes with unique interactions between themselves, developed a stable framework, designed a pretty fun combat system that I am proud of, balanced said combat system, and learned how to do everything in between, all on my own. I never felt like I was going to leave this project by the wayside, but after gaining a new perspective by working on a new project for a little while it is even more obvious to me that this is an extremely important project for me that needs finishing.
The "but so far away" part for me is that my work in this project is done now, there is nothing more I can do to make it a 'better game'. At least, not until testing begins and my testers discover all the bugs. My time spent in the engine nowadays consists of me reorganizing folders, and making sure the flow of variables and codes are optimized. I feel like a bored librarian dusting off and rearranging books in an unused library.
The missing piece. Assets. What are assets? Artwork, like character portraits, character animations, monsters/monster animations, backgrounds, foregrounds, tilesets, ability animations, maps, menus, parallax images, and audio, ranging from voice acting, music, sound effects, to music effects. Don't get me wrong, I do have quite a large fraction of some of those categories (I have 700 out of 1400 voice lines for battle scenes edited and ready to go! I have a bunch of monsters! I have quite a few character portraits!), but the bridge to the other end of this canyon is still not complete. I can see the finish line, but it's directly out of my reach. It is so frustrating being so close to finishing, but not being able to do it yourself. God damn, so frustrating.
I appreciate the artists I have worked with, and I genuinely hope I will continue to be able to work with them for the next forever. I wouldn't wish for any other artists working on my project with me. This past year has been tough for everybody. Money, work, kids, time, events... literally everything is more important than a video game side-project, and that's okay! I can’t realistically expect anybody, not even myself, to be working on this project full-time, or even part-time for that matter.Â
I want to make this extra clear: I do not feel any negativity or resentment of any kind in regards to my project not being finished by the time I was hoping it would be finished. That game Cuphead that everyone's going on about? That started development in 2010. Stardew Valley? Another game that was in development for seven years. The point is, most games take a hell of a lot longer to develop than anybody wants, but if you care about the project and take the necessary time on each asset and every line of code, everybody will be able to enjoy the finished product in it's purest state.
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