Friday Rambles and Game Dev Update 2024-12-27

It's the Friday Rambles. The last one of the year!! A very special Year-End Friday Rambles.

Whatever Stuff:

I guess the engineers at Patreon had some last minute impact to push for their performance reviews, because they changed where the drafts are kept again, making me have to spend a bunch of time trying to find them so I can continue writing this post. Apropos of nothing, this article is a good read.

Real Life Stuff:

This week was mostly holiday stuff. Lots of mall-going, gift wrapping, socializing, family events, things like that. Hope you had a good holiday, too.

Oh, yeah. I drew a thing for a low effort secret santa for a discord server i'm in.

I don't know anything about Doremi, but the pic was fun to draw.

I beat Unicorn Overlord. It's a wonderful game, and perfect for playing, like 15 minutes at a time, which is all the gaming I can do nowadays. It took a month or two, but hey, I finished a game for like the first time in a year. I'm playing 13 Sentinels now, but we'll see how good it is for playing 15 minutes at a time, when I'm forgetting everything I know in between sessions. But so far I can tell I'm gonna be pretty inspired by the narrative structure of this, for my future projects.

I also finished Delicious in Dungeon, finally. Volume 14 (the final book) was out of stock at my local Barnes and Noble every time I had gone for the past like 3 months, but it was there this time around. Finally. Closure. What a good manga.

One of my Christmas gifts was the HD rerelease of Chrono Cross, on Switch. I played only a bit but it feels just like the original, but running at more than 15 fps and I can play it in handheld form and also fast forward, which is cool. I've beaten the original on PS1 already, but it's been like, 20something years since I've played it, so I'm looking forward to getting deeper into it after I finish 13 Sentinels.

I've been min-maxing my game time in the 2 hours of total free time i've been having each day. It's been so busy. I can't even relax without getting all stressed out about how little time i have to relax.

Game Dev Stuff:

I didn't do any. I drew a little bit of a sprite I've been working on, on and off, but otherwise, keeping hands off for my holiday "break".

[editor's note] i lied. i spent a few hours just now fixing random issues. working to take a break from my break.

2024 Retrospective

I made the yearly art summary post.

I didn't draw very much. My 2025 resolution is to draw a new Steam Sale pic.

You can check out a thread of previous posts on Twitter, here. It's a somewhat depressing look at how I used to draw for fun and actually talked to people.

Moving on... Last year I made a bunch of resolutions for 2024. Let's see how we did.

Last year's resolutions:

• Release additional localizations for EMDND

  • Great success. Released KR, CN, and PTBR localizations in February and March. And two of these localizations have even made back the costs!

    • That being said, English speaking countries still make up the vast majority of sales, followed distantly by Japan. I'll still do localizations. Who knows. Maybe I won't be able to afford it and will just have to release Game 2 in English only for launch like last time just so I can get something out and pay my bills.

• Release bonus chapter for EMDND

  • Failure. Can't believe it's taking this long. But then again, I was pretty busy with other stuff, and only got really productive about halfway through the year. At least we're mostly finished and I have a solid target date of February 2025.

• Announce EM Game 2, mostly complete playable build by end of year

  • lol.

  • The lesson I learned is: Don't promise a free content update. In fact, don't promise any content updates at all. I am physically unable to help myself from making content updates way too big. Make a new game instead.

  • I have some good ideas percolating for Game 2, though, so I should be able to hit the ground running once I'm done with everything EMDND related.

• Move successfully

  • Success. I moved.

  • It also was a big part of why the previous two resolutions were failures, but it is what it is. As they say.

• Enjoy trip to see family

  • Success. This was my 2+ month trip overseas a week after the move. I did not get any work done.

  • This probably also had to do with why I couldn't finish the content update or do any work on Game 2. Oh well. I also went to Japan during this time, which was my first trip there, ever. It was good prep for one of the big unexpected surprises of 2024.

• Stretch goal: accept offer from Good Smile Company to make a Skye Nendoroid

  • Failure. Good Smile Company did not offer to make a Skye Nendoroid this year. There's always next year, though.

And last year's "vague goals" that weren't resolutions, apparently:

• Be patient

  • I don't know what this means, but I think I did have some cool things happen.

• Stay healthy

  • Success? I still jog regularly, at least...

• Don’t starve

  • Success. I did not starve. Coasting from 2023, I guess. Next year might be a little harder.

• Prioritize what’s important

  • I also don't know what this means. I think it was supposed to be about focusing on making games, which is the primary source of income, at this point. Whatever.

Overall? I guess I did okay. I was pretty optimistic when I made these goals at the end of 2023, and now with another year of full time gamedev work under my belt with no new releases to show for it, I'm feeling a little more realistic, with a hint of dread and terror.

Surprises of 2024

• Tokyo Game Show. I really did not expect to go, but the opportunity came as a last minute ask from AGM. Took a chance, and it was an awesome experience. It gave me hope. I want to go to more game conventions next year.

  • It was also a big surprise that I went to Japan twice in the same year, having never gone before.

• Skye plushie v2? I had this down in my notes, but I'm not sure it really counts as a surprise. I've done a Makeship plushie every year for the past 4 years...

Looking ahead to 2025

2025 is somewhat uncertain for me. I think it will determine whether or not I continue doing what I'm doing now, whether it be due to my own work, or external factors. But I'll focus on the things I can kind of control, at least.

2025 Resolutions:

• Clean my office

  • I haven't cleaned my office properly since moving. It's a complete disaster area with boxes everywhere. New Year New Me.

• Release the Dreams and Deadlines and Overtime update

  • Easy enough. It's already almost done.

• Release Dreams and Deadlines on Nintendo Switch

  • I hope I can do it relatively quickly after the Overtime update release, and I hope it sells good enough to be worth it. It'll be good experience and a nice little thing I can check off my gamedev bucket list, at least.

  • For the most part it seems to "Just Work" right now, but I think I'll need to do some optimizations for some minor stalls that happens when opening some menus and stuff. Maybe I can take the opportunity to refactor basically all the UI code.

• Announce Game 2

  • I think if I don't at least do this in 2025, I'm pretty much screwed. Then it'll be time to look for a new job in 2026.

  • I'm trying to think from the perspective of a fan, who enjoys a game and wants a sequel. If I were a big enough fan of someone's work, I'd be like, "I'll buy everything you make." I'm hoping that enough people will like my work enough to buy everything I make, that I can depend on them to carry me through my gamedev career, lol.

• Be more social

  • I used to be a pretty social artist in the social media artist circles. Nowadays I'm hiding in a gamedev cave, watching everyone else have fun while they forget that we used to do fun things together. Plus it helps that people know I exist, when it comes time to release a game :-)

  • I guess this also comes with "Draw more".

• Don't starve

  • I don't have high standards for my resolutions this year.

• Stretch Goals

  • Show Game 2 at TGS. Prerequisite: Announce Game 2. If possible, gonna try to make it into the Selected Indie 80 (or whatever number it is for 2025) section.

    • if not TGS, maybe some other show.

  • Release Game 2. You know what? Might as well make a real stretch goal. I made EMDND in 6 months, after all.

  • Accept offer from Good Smile Company to make a Skye Nendoroid. This year's the year. I can feel it.

Of course, these resolutions don't include real life things, which are reserved for my private journal.

The End

Okay, I think that's it for 2024. See you in 2025!!