On the 7th day of Tumblr: New Year Plans!
Hi everyone! New Year’s Eve is a great time to touch base and update you guys on projects I’m working on as well as reflecting on this year’s accomplishments. Please take the time to read through all of this if you can, I have a lot to say regarding how A Hollow Harvest went (in development and post-release) as well as some more insight on what I'm working on now!
Things I got done in 2023:
Released A Hollow Harvest!!!
Things I’m working on now:
Two games, each in different series than Jesse’s universe!
Learning TileD to make better maps!
Things I want to do this year but haven’t started yet:
The 5th game in Jesse’s universe!
For that matter, come up with series names!
Make some more youtube videos!
Maaaybe open a merch shop if I can?
Alright, now for a deeper explanation!
A HOLLOW HARVEST RECEPTION AND MY CURRENT GAME PROJECTS
So, I finally released A Hollow Harvest in October—my longest game in play time (roughly 3 hours depending on reading speed to get all endings) and development time (2 and a half years, where my others were each made in about 1, 3, and 6 months respectively).
Why the long development time?
First and foremost, each game I’ve made so far has gone up in scale and production value. Each has more levels and more art than the last, and with every project I get a deeper understanding of the engine and features I can add. Whether it’s a better script for an enemy or cool plugin feature (I’m super proud of the Gallery!), I’m always pushing for more out of my games.
It’s a double-edged sword, however: the scale of this game got so big (relative to my intermediate skill level) that it became overwhelming to work on. Each “day” looks the same but actually uses completely different copied and edited maps for every single room. I couldn’t find a smarter way to handle the dialogue portraits, so I had to manually change every single one for the outfits. I had a lot more dots to connect for the investigation segments. With these factors and more, I burnt out badly. I missed the deadline on the 4th Luigikid Creepypasta challenge (game jam I was originally making this for) and lost the urgency to work quickly, as well as a lot of motivation and faith in myself and my games.
After that it was always late, and always a chore to work on. What’s more, I lost my working copy three times to massive glitches either from my hardware (computer problems) or from the RM software itself crashing on me and corrupting the files. The first one was the worst—then I learned the hard way what everyone talks about: make backups!!! The second and third times I lost roughly a month of progress each time. Not devastating like the first one, but very discouraging. I didn’t talk about it much at the time though because I didn’t want to blame everything on it as an excuse. I kept trying to throw myself at the game and just get it done to show people (and prove to myself!) that I could finish what I started, but I lowkey started to hate my own project. Thinking about it was genuinely stressful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of how it turned out, and glad I finished it! But still incredibly burnt out on it.
As a game, great! I play tested it a lot more than my other works so there weren’t any horrible glitches on release (like the menu crashing the game in TWSTM or the ending blacking out the screen in TWFTW). I added a lot of lore to the story and it’s resonating with the players, with many calling it my best game yet! I also grew a lot in the process and built some pretty cool scares and a rudimentary choice-based system with a few different endings. While not a standout in the genre, it is a huge improvement to my former pumpkin key ending system (or not having alternates at all).
By the numbers, not as great. I’m getting some, but not many, new players and hardly any youtubers are playing it. I say this not to guilt trip anyone—my games are a passion project and I’d rather be a “friendly neighborhood spider man” kind of indie dev than a lucrative but soulless success. That said, however, the ‘numbers’ do matter for a couple of things. One is the pipe dream of whether I can make this into a career, or at least a side job, and clearly so far not. As a full-time college student I’m on a shoestring budget so I have to think about these things when it comes to how much time I can invest into developing it and how much money I can spend on assets. The other is that the main thing I receive in return for putting out free games is audience interaction—videos, fan art, things like that. As the developer I can’t surprise myself with the story so fan content gives me that fix! Getting larger numbers of players/interactions/video coverage is how I get more fan art, fanfictions, donations, and of course people to talk to and bond with over the passion of my stories.
I’m definitely going to have better backup habits! I’m also going to seriously consider the scale of each of my projects. I don’t want to get much bigger than AHH anytime soon. And I’m going to stay very organized so I don’t forget where I’m at in any developing section. The outfits were cool, but I’m not going to do something like that again manually—I’ll try to find a plugin or something like that to change automatically with whatever the player has equipped, or go back to featuring one outfit per game (thought outfits can switch between games). I’m also not going to do a “day” system in the same location for a long time because it got very confusing which doors/entries led where and tiresome to work on. MOST IMPORTANTLY, I’m going to take a “creative break”, so to speak. Not in the sense that I’ll stop developing games—I’ve been working on a project this last month!—but more in the sense that instead of biting the bullet and seeing the next Jesse game from start to finish, I’m going to drift a little between my projects (and series entirely) and work on whatever I feel like for a while. Functionally it’s not the most quick and efficient way to get a game out, but I promised myself after forcing myself to finish AHH that I wouldn’t force anything else for as long as I want. It’s a passion, not a job, so I’m not going to work like it’s a deadline I have to meet.
Without rushing anything or pushing a deadline estimation yet, I do want to make more games this year! If possible I want to get into releasing a game every 4-6 months, but absolutely no promises yet because I’m not going to add any unnecessary pressure. (No way I’m waiting 2 years though! Never again!) I’m working on two projects right now. One is for a character I’ve introduced already: SuperNova from my Rust and Stardust comic! The other is still a mystery for now, and I’ll keep up the suspense until I’ve made significantly more progress. Both games are in my favorite genre: horror!!! But they’ll feature different flavors of horror. Rust and Stardust is a sci-fi fantasy with a lot more superpowers and other fantastical elements than what you’ve seen in my previous, semi-contemporary games, and I want to combine typical sci-fi scare factors (such as robots and isolation) with the very strange and compelling Lovecraftian horror! As for my other project, it’ll be a much more old school medieval fantasy—also with a high concentration of magic, but not like Rust. Think of 80’s and 90’s fantasy like A Link to The Past and the Black Cauldron for now, as those are two of my biggest inspirations for it!
Both of these projects I’m working on have been in my head for a long time, with drawings and writing in personal comics and such dating all the way back to 2015 for SuperNova and 2013 for my other one. That’s slightly under and above a decade!!! There’s a lot of lore I’ve been crafting and refining for a long time, and I absolutely can’t wait to share these new worlds with you guys! I hope my switch from the Jesse timeline to work on these games for a bit doesn’t make you resent them. Worry not, I have some plans for Jesse’s next game (even the 6th one after that!) and they’re definitely on the way, I’m just relaxing for a bit while I recover from creative burnout. The wait from LVBTT to AHH will almost certainly be longer than any wait between installments you’ll have again.
Side note: More drawings, comics and even some writing incoming! Both current and old. I’ll dig up so many old works once you get to know these worlds better (and Jesse’s!), but so far I’ve held most of it back for spoiler reasons. After Jesse’s fifth game releases I’ll show you guys a 20-page comic I made for him before I even started working on TWSTM!
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!! I hope my transparency on the numbers side of things doesn’t discourage you. It doesn’t make me think less of any piece of fan art, or any donation, or any friend I’ve made along the way! I wouldn’t keep making games if not for you guys. I tried it once all the way back in 2019 with TWSTM wondering if it’d reach anyone, and you all have been so encouraging that I decided to keep going! Game dev has grown from an experiment to a fiery passion and a critical part of who I am. Every piece of fan content you create gives me a rush of happiness and thrill I can’t thank you enough for! I save every piece I can find. And while college has kept me busier lately than usual, having you all to chat or hang out with has been and continues to be such a joy. I dreamed of, but never thought I’d be able to, build a community around my stories.
And for those who have been generous enough to donate, thank you so much for helping me do what I love! I just got another asset haul and you helped me with this. You contributed to the quality of my future games!
Let’s make 2024 a great year! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you’ve been wanting to get in touch. From my public discord to my twitter dms, I absolutely want to hear from you! Whether it’s feedback on how I can improve or just to chat, I want to hear whatever you have to say. If you’re working on fan content-from art to fictions to lets plays-please tag me, I’d love to see it! And if you want to help me and my games reach new heights, kindly share them with a friend, rate them, or recommend them to a youtuber. Every little bit helps! If you’ve read through this whole post, thanks a bunch, you’re a real one. I’ve got big things on the way and I hope you’re as excited as I am!
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