A Year in Retrospect
Hi there,
It's halfway through December already! And 2017 is almost over, and it feels like this year has lasted forever and everything has happened so much but oh well.
First things first, some announcements: I have a blog now! I updated my entire website the other day and opened the blog as a side-effect of that, so I'll start writing there as well. The way that works is that I'll still be using this list the way I always have (with updates and some loose thoughts), and every now and then I might refine some of those thoughts on the blog. This list will still be bi(?)weekly (or at least monthly...), while the blog will probably only update a few times a year.
Also, there's going to be a bit of a different format this time, where I talk a little bit about the whole year, and what's to come. So, let's get on with it:
A Year in Retrospect
It feels like I didn't do much this year, though I always feel like I don't do much, and it turns out I did do a lot of things??? A year is a long time, people.
I spent the first half of the year in my last year of college. I graduated from Princeton! I wrote a novel as a thesis! And that's pretty much it, because I had virtually no time for other projects.
I actually did name the whole thing 'K'.
I'm not quite sure what to do with that novel yet. I might go the traditional publishing route, or maybe I'll turn it into a game at some point? But writing it helped me figure out what kinds of stories I want to tell and what worlds I want to make, so it is what it is.
I decided to take a few months off after that, and spent the summer...doing very little. I slept a lot (because I didn't do enough of that in college). And traveled a lot, despite my persistent dislike of any kind of transportation (I get motion sick).
I started working on game development again (aka Farsider development) after a long pause in late summer, and got more into it into the fall. Looking back, I got a lot done in those few months: I made an entire level editor, rethought the level structure, rewrote the script, and implemented curved walls. Most of it isn't glamorous stuff that presents well in screenshots, but that will come shortly.
Also, I moved across the country, and started working at Facebook.
And that brings me to now, I think.
So...all in all, it was a slow year projects-wise (compared to 2016), but a lot more personal stuff happened, and I figured some things out. I spent a lot of time writing. Developing thoughts, writing stories, this email list, documenting progress...etc, etc. etc. I'm not good at journaling, but I think I might be slightly better at that now, and sloooowly I'm getting more comfortable writing about myself and my projects and everything else!
What I'm working on
Uh, sorting my life out, because I:
- need an address
- should probably figure out what I'm gonna be doing at work
but I decided to make another game anyway because of who I fundamentally am as a person. I'll announce it soon-ish...probably also after the new year. It's a desert shooter about grief, broken war machines, and blowing up everything in sight with a grenade launcher.
I don't have much material for it yet, so here's a quick drawing of the protagonist:
In terms of loftier goals, I've plenty of plans for 2018 already. I'm going to be making a real effect to release / publish a lot more things, and get more involved with the game development community (as I hadn't had the opportunity to much while I was living in NJ). And go to more conferences, since I like conferences and I like public speaking for some reason?
My other goal is to actually make some money off of games and stories, whether through selling them or via Patreon / other funding, since making things does end up getting kind of expensive. It feels awfully weird to ask for money from people when I have a day job, but also, to create is to constantly bleed money (in the form of time and supplies, etc.) So, how else can I reconcile that besides asking for money for that work? I'm still figuring out exactly how I'll fund my projects, but I'll let you know as I come up with ideas.
Farsider Corner
For those who are new: Farsider is my big project currently, and is a dungeon crawler about ghosts and teenaged angst. Every email has an update on it, and at some point in the near future this note will also point to a public devlog.
So, good news and bad news.
The bad news is that the devlog is still not public. Mostly that is logistics: I have posts written already, and I can probably launch it at any time, but also I'm not quite sure yet how Farsider would interact with my day job, and I don't want to make any promises until I'm more settled in with work.
The devlog will probably be launched in January. Like with the site blog, the Farsider devlog will not replace the Farsider corner here. Raw updates go here, and then are distilled and refined into updates on the devlog.
In any case, I've been doing some more work with Farsider's game mechanics, as I'm still working to try and figure out what would work. I'm so used to dungeon crawlers being about enemies in some way: defeating them or avoiding them or whatnot, and so the fact that Farsider has no enemies has made it difficult for me to design around. I've been developing environmental puzzles and whatnot, and thinking about how to make them fun vs. how they fit in with the atmosphere of the game.
A particular strange paradox is that the game world should be fun for the player, while being incredibly not-fun, and in fact incredibly dangerous, to the protagonist. The world is not designed in-universe to be a source of fun, and I'm not sure how to reconcile that with the rest of the game.
In terms of the actual puzzles, most of them involve moving elements of the world somehow. For example, these crystals (which may not be crystals in the final version, as the artwork is temporary):
You can lift them...
...telekinetically move them around...
...and drop them back into the ground.
The crystals can block hazardous gases (which is also temporary art)...
...but manipulating the world like that costs energy, and you only have a finite amount of energy.
So in the end, the goal of the game is to traverse each area's hazards by moving things (besides yourself) as little as possible, to conserve energy and venture deeper into the Farside.
The crystals are just one part of that, there are other things to manipulate, other hazards in the works. But that's what I've got for now.
Ramblings
A warning: this turned long.
I've been thinking a lot about promotion and marketing, and how to actually do promotion in 2018 without being underhanded. It's a lot to think about.
Originally, I was planning on opening up a Patreon in the new year. Patreon, for the unaware, is a platform that allows people ('patrons') to make recurring donations, and occasionally get perks from creators for that. Sort of like a subscription, I think.
But recently, Patreon announced a change to how they did fees (basically forcing patrons to pay a ~40 cent fee for everyone they supported), which caused a huge outcry. A lot of creators were hurt just by the announcement, as patrons withdrew their support in anticipation of the new fees. In the end, Patreon backtracked, but it's severely eroded trust in the platform, and those patrons that left may never return. It's incredible, I think, just how much goodwill they erased in a very short amount of time - I'd heard only good things about Patreon as a platform before, and then this happened.
What do I take from that? First, that Patreon (like many tech companies in my opinion) wasn't really sure what kind of community they had created; a lot of patrons were supporting many creators at $1 each, while Patreon seemed to expect that patrons would support one or two people they really liked for a higher sum. As a result, what Patreon thought was a reasonable fee became really harmful for a large percentage of their userbase. Second, that trust is hard to earn and easy to lose: Patreon didn't implement any changes, but it was enough for people to be impacted, and for me (and others) to look at it differently. The implication is that it almost happened this time, and so there's the possibility that it can happen in the future as well.
But at the same time, Patreon had to listen and backtrack simply because it didn't have all that much power; losing all those patrons would have hurt it too deeply. Meanwhile, very large companies such as Google and Facebook break people's trust all the time, whether through security breaches or privacy concerns, yet consistently people return to them because of the great power they wield. It's hard to get your voice heard at these companies partly because it's so hard to get away from them.
So what does that have to do with marketing myself? Uh, nothing, I guess, I got a bit sidetracked. I still plan on opening that Patreon, and I'll announce it along with everything else once it's ready.
Final Notes
This is probably my longest email yet. The next one will probably be after the holidays, and may come with it several announcements. Of course, any new projects will also be announced on the blog, and probably blasted all over social media because I want people to know about them.
I'm opening up new channels to talk to people, but as I mentioned, I will still do a lot of writing here. I keep this list both to write out my thoughts and keep in touch with people. So feel free to respond to anything or ping me on social media, because I like talking to people.
Doodlin'
Have a picture that I drew in the same style I used for inktobers. I was feeling very edgy.