Reflecting and Looking Forward

 It's crazy how stressful things can get. I just made my first steam game and it's releasing soon - I just have to make the damn capsule art etc. I was going to pay some dude to do it, and I believe they could do a better job than me, but frankly I know this game won't make me the $100 or so that I would need to put down for it.

So I'm just gonna do it myself and get it up there.

I'm feeling strangely really relaxed right now. I have just been working really hard on this thing and I got really disappointed with the result. It's basically this unfinished game. There is some things that turned out well, but others that were just seriously bad. Period. No matter what anyone tries to reassure me! 

But the last two or three days I have been refurbishing my office and it gave me time off to think about things. And I realize, man, this was just part of the learning process. Obviously. Like this was never going to make money and I knew that but I secretly hoped it would be somehow a success haha. I guess it's just yet again a humbling experience. 

It's one of those the more you know the more you know that you don't know situations.

Anyway, I'm putting it up, shit I might even just make it free. It was fantastic for learning though that is for sure. I have a much clearer idea of what a process might look like and what needs to go into a game art / sound wise. I also have learned quite a bit about marketing and how to think about game development. I just feel like it was a great experience.

So now I'm looking forward and thinking of what's next. I'm just in the brainstorming period right now. I'm testing other toolsets as well - today I tried out Krita for the artwork. And it was pretty sweet! Nice and easy to use. I like it waaaay more than GIMP. I found GIMP just extremely uncomfortable and confusing. For some reason Krita just works for me. So I think I'll be doing regular line art for my next game instead of pixel art.

I intend to get started messing around with Godot sometime this week. I'm really looking forward to it. It will be great to finally start experimenting with something new after years with Unity. I really have enjoyed Unity but I'd rather not have corporate overlords who can retroactively charge me for stuff ;)

Anyway yeah, I haven't given up. I'm going to keep chugging along. I talked with my Mom today on the phone and she reminded me something - that we are capable of anything as long as we don't give up and put in the work. And Mom you are right. I am not going to give up. 

Here's a little dude I drew up in Krita - it's just the same as the Survive the Squids guys but in a different style.