Earlier Devlogs
Devlog #1 https://t.co/mXlCZH5jF2
Overview
These past two weeks have been difficult for me. I've been struggling to stay focused. I'm unemployed at the moment so I should have all of the time to get stuff done, but I think I might be burning out. One thing to remember is that being a game designer isn't just limited to developing a game. Since I'm the director, I'm also responsible for researching marketing strategies, directing teammates, and so on. Coupled with a lack of income and the crushing depression from unemployment, it's been very difficult. However, we have made progress!
Writing and Playtesting
Most of the writing has been for the main story. As I've noted in the past, the writing in the demo is all but completed. I've been struggling to complete the current chapter I'm on, however the story will be 70% (not counting alternate paths) once it is finished. So what's the playtesting add-on for? Well this week, I sent out a playtest build to get general feedback. Fortunately, the demo's story doesn't suck eggs! People are still playing it so the feedback and due to spoiler reasons, I cannot elaborate on said feedback.
Art
Problem with being unemployed is that you can't pay your artist. So until I get lucky, with freelance work or a job, I'm out of luck. Fortunately I do have something to show despite this. I completed a sprite and a CG. I cannot show the CG for spoiler reasons, but here's the sprite! Yes, he has no feet! Blame inflation, not me!
Programming and Playtesting
Not too much coding wise was accomplished, aside from the fact that I wrote my draft in ren'py. Again I lack income, so I can't pay for any big UI changes. As for the playtesting….there were bugs I somehow missed. My build ran thank God, but apparently some sprite placements were off. One of the most annoying tasks is testing my game. Since my demo takes an hour to get through, and because if I skip text I might miss errors, yeah it sucks… THankfully my testers were nice enough to pinpoint the bugs for me to tackle, though my sprite placements leave a lot to be desired…
Marketing and Playtesting
Oddly enough, my post asking for playtesting got a lot of traction. More traction than even my biggest reveals. I received a great deal of attention thanks to people retweeting and sharing my post. I received eight followers on Twitter wqithin a few hours. Aside from that, growth has been slow. Pretty typical for twitter, though I didn't post on Reddit yet. I've seen devs get burned alive on r/visualnovel even when they followed the rules, with the mods being all to eager to ban posts they deem NSFW. So why am I not trying other media like Tumblr or Tiktok. Two reasons; one I hate TikTok, two I was lucky enough to get to chat with a popular Marketing director Chris Z. He explained that for a first project, it's better to grow an audience in one area since you lack a following elsewhere. He believed that if I were to gain traction on twitter before switching to Tumblr, that my growth would multiply thanks to people migrating to both platforms. But more importantly, it means I don't have to keep up with multiple social media pages. A hard lesson for any starting dev is that most first games flop no matter how good they are, because no one knows you or your studio. So my main goal is to finish the game first and foremost! Besides I have a mailing list! Most indie devs don't know what a mailing list is huehuehue!
On a happier note, I am please to announce that I will be entering a polished playtest build into SuNoFes jam! This will help with exposure and help garner wishlists on my steam page (whenever they finally decide to verify my tax records). I initially didn't realize that SuNo was happening this year, only for it to pop up in September instead of June like normal. Regardless, it was a pleasant surprise since I had a serviceable build already being playtested. Could this hurt me in the long run? Maybe. See I don't expect any exposure I gain on itch to go very far. In fact, I doubt a lot of these people will even buy Philistine when it finally comes out. What I'm hoping for is that they'll merely wishlist my game. Why? Because Steam's algorithms prioritize games with higher wishlists. This is especially important on Next Fest Festivals. If by some miracle Philistine got over 7,000 wishlists, it'd appear on the "Popular Upcoming" page. I'm not aiming for 7,000 though, I'm aiming for more than zero.
Miscellaneous Personal Crap
On the side, I've been tinkering with RPGMaker. I've been trying to spec into designing maps and have been considering making a small game on the side. It wouldn't be too long and would only reach up to level five, but it would serve as a finished project in my folio. Why does this matter? Because future sequels might be RPGs rather than VNs! RPGMaker has the ability to run VNs just like Ren'py with the RPG engine ready to go. Of course it can't do anything else buyt make RPGs… I've also been considering learning Naninovel on Unity to get some coding experience under my belt. While I will finish Philistine in Ren'Py, the engine itself only goes so far. I'd love to tinker and experiment with new and new programs to expand my horizons and become a better designer. I understand that this isn't related to the game itself, but the truth is I've been struggling to write all day and needed an outlet that was semi-productive.
However I recently sat down and took a lot at my ambitions. Like many adults with too much free time on their hands, I had a lot, so much that it was actually holding me back. I did have all of the time in the world don't get me wrong. I could easily spend four hours a day learning how to code and the other four developing Philistine. Problem is, my situation is temporary. As we speak, I have LinkedIn and Indeed open as if they were Reddit. I won't have the ability to pursue all of these ambitions once I get a full time job. So I sat down and picked three dreams I wanted to complete. You bet your butt that finishing Philistine was at the top of the list. The other two I picked was Finding Love/Improving Interpersonal Skills, and running a Pathfinder game. That means no more dabbling in coding, no going back to school, and no joining the circus, yet. i can always come back later once one of the dreams I picked was complete. So once I finish Philistine, then I can start learning coding since I have that milestone behind me. And I'm willing to bet that learning how to code isn't nearly as hard as directing an indie project.
Conclusion
Overall, everything is coming along nicely. Slower than I'd like, but welcome to game design. As sad as I am to abandon learning how to code, I understand that it's for the best right now. At least my path is much clearer than before. Game Design is a very challenging path to take, and there are many days that I fear I'm going insane. It just goes to show you how important it is to watch your physical and mental health. Future devlogs will focus on the SuNoFes jam demo's completion. I won't be gathering a lot of art assets for a while, and most of my writing will be for the main story, so future vlogs might be a little lacking. Just remember that these slower cycles are natural for a game's development.
I appreciate you taking time out of your day to read through this. For me, just putting myself back out there is a big step forward! I hope to publish a new devlog bi-weekly on both itch and my steam once I get the page uploaded.If you'd like to support me, follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/BigoofStudios and join my mailing list for more personalized updates AND a free game! https://preview.mailerlite.io/preview/484172/sites/91543076880779205/2k8VuW