Hi. I know it’s been a while again, sorry about that. I’ll cut to the chase: I’ve been working on two new games!!
I started production of both games in January 2024, right after my daughter was born, so it’s been almost two years of working on them every time she naps and every time she goes down at night, plus whatever extra work time I can sneak into the day. This first game is something I’ve been writing since 2021, so some time had already been put into pre-production for it.
I keep putting off updating my site here because I think: “I’ll make a big post with lots of screenshots of my new games and all this information and pages for each one and new art I’ve been working on, oh but I should really redo all my website theming first to match the new projects I’m working on, and- and-“
And then at the end of the day, I don’t get to any of it. I get so tired from taking care of my daughter during the day, it’s easier to sit at my computer and chip away at the mountain of programming I have to do while watching brainrot slop on my second monitor and spacing out. I’m a slow coder, but as long as I’m not doing anything new and out of my comfort zone, coding is tedious but not difficult anymore. It’s how I relax at the end of every day. Kinda sad programming has taken the place of drawing as my ‘relax’ activity, but at least I’m able to get work done on my games consistently, so I’m going at a steady pace. These new games are unrelated to the two games I released in 2023, but if you played those games, you’ll recognize how these two new games are, uh… sort of spiritual successors to those two. They both have much larger scopes though, which means plenty of work for me.
Why am I making two games at once instead of one? Wouldn’t it be smarter to make one game at a time?! Wow, yeah, it sure would be! Unfortunately, I get too burnt out after working on the same game every day for a few months. Having a second project I’m developing in parallel prevents this from being an issue; I can jump between my two projects at any time and I’m always excited to be working on at least one of them. I did this with Sesame and Aya, and I knew I wanted to do it again with these two games, which is why I started them both in the same month.
The games are different styles, but they do share a decent amount of code. I had hoped to reuse a lot of the code from Sesame, but unfortunately I was such a terrible programmer for the first six years that almost none of my code from that game was salvageable. It’s really a hot mess, quite embarrassing under the hood. And Aya wasn’t much better, if I’m being honest… My programming has improved tremendously from what it was, so I’ve had to redesign all of my major systems; things like my text/diagloue system, my inventory system, my crafting system – everything has been redone from scratch! Most of the major systems are complete in both games. Of course, after all the major systems are programmed and in place… then you have to make the damn game using all those systems! The first 20 minutes of the game in the screenshots above is already complete. Things should go a lot faster now that the core systems are almost all complete and the frameworks needed to create both games have been set up.
[ both games are 2D pixel games but I’m going to draw over this 3D background because backgrounds are hard ]
Speaking of art, I’m making new art! Besides the pixel art I’ve been making for the games, I’m also drawing again. I’ve even filled up a couple sketchbooks this year! I’m trying to get back into digital drawing too. AI really changed my love of digital art for years now. I grew up as a pathetic, chronically online deviantART child in the early 00’s so digital art was formative to me. I’m trying to accept the reality of the situation and not let it taint my love of digital creation anymore. It’s hard. But I’ve got new art I’m working on, mostly related to the two games I’m making!
I’d like to have a better balance between programming and drawing so I could maybe start uploading art again regularly, maybe even posting on social media again. It’s been so long since I’ve participated in social media, and it’s not really the same anymore, but… I still want to try.
My daughter is a December 2023 baby, so pretty soon she’ll be two. I am so looking forward to her birthday and the holidays this year. She’s sweet, smart, silly, independent, and has brought so much joy into our lives. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to work on my art or my games after she was born, but that hasn’t been the case at all. In fact, she has given me so much renewed purpose, it feels easy to work harder than ever for her.
Anyway, thanks to anyone out there who is still interested in my work. It really means so much to me. I know it probably doesn’t seem like it because I haven’t been posting online, but I’m really working so hard every single day. I don’t want to give up. I still have dreams about making things, and hopefully making something special someday. In fact, I want to work harder than ever for my daughter and build something I can be proud of. So… that’s what I’m working towards!
Next steps are to get some art posted, redo my website themeing, and make new pages for both of my new games so I can track my progress here on my website. I’m ready for a new era of creating, and I’m ready to put myself out there again! Thank you for your patience with me, I promise you there’s more to come!!
