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Looking Back at 2020

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago4,026 words

Well, we survived 2020 somehow! Or at least some of us did, myself surprisingly included. I've also been quite productive this year, so - as is my tradition - I shall look back on all the stuff I've made here!

It feels weird to talk about anything other than how apocalyptically awful 2020 was... though honestly my own life has barely been different really! I just reread ∞ my Looking Back at 2019 post ∞, and my physical and mental positions in life haven't significantly changed. I still spend the vast majority of my time alone in this bedroom in my parents' house, never going anywhere or seeing anyone, though I suppose the odd thing about this year is that so many other people have been compelled to live as I'm already used to. My hope is that there'll be a better understanding from now on how badly this can affect the mind.

Last time, I talked about coming to terms with being solitary, and I think I'm still okay with that. There are still stabs of loneliness every so often, but maybe everyone gets those regardless of whether they Have Someone or not. I also wondered whether the guilt I felt every day then about some drama in university would ever subside, to which I'd say... maybe it has, a bit? It's still there in the back of my mind, and it still flares up every so often, but I suppose I've just become habituated to it. I did try to reach out to that person a couple of times over the course of the year, hoping to transform poisonous memories into something more amicable, but I'm still being ghosted. Oh well.

I'm still depressed, and that gets in the way quite a bit. And as I said, I still live at home. But those things and others feel like they've been held in stasis by the pandemic. It's hard to really make big life changes when you're not even really allowed to go outside!

There's a person I regularly text with now, who I met back in my third year of university (it's not as if I have opportunities to meet anyone nearby). She's currently doing a master's in something neuroscience/AI-related here in the UK, and has very similar mental issues to me, which combined with the pandemic restrictions have left her lonely and isolated. It's nice to talk with someone who's understanding of my issues, and more importantly who I can help with theirs (I can also help with some programming-related stuff, apparently), and I've told her I'm interested in going to find a place to stay near her, even if it's just for a month or two, so then we can go for walks like we used to and both benefit from that. Plus I'd have a place of my own, which I desperately want. But even though I could technically afford it (at least for a brief stay), I'm forbidden from doing it by COVID regulations that prevent all travel. So that's frustrating! We're both single, though I don't think either of us feel a spark of attraction. Makes me wonder whether I'm even capable of that anymore; maybe I'm too old, too depressed, too cynical and beaten-down, or maybe I'm just more aware than I ever was about what women actually want, and how far I stray from that.

I've also been in touch with my ex from years ago, kind of; we exchange long messages every blue moon. It's amicable, though, and that's a really nice thing to know too. That she doesn't hate me and hasn't forgotten about me. I think I'd rather have these distant, in-depth, rare exchanges with someone than be in an actual relationship with them, probably! Gives me more time to focus on creative stuff. (Or maybe I'm just deluding myself to cope.)

It's still tricky making money from that, but I feel that this year I've become a whole lot less naive about profiting from indie games than I was just last year. Gone are the days when I thought just putting any game out there with no marketing would earn easy millions! There's still a whole lot that I don't know, but I've been looking into the indie games scene quite a bit - mostly by following a bunch of devs on Twitter - so that feels like progress. Plus I finally managed to play Undertale, after putting that off due to professional envy for years. Feels like I've overcome a lot of mental barriers, actually, though many remain.

Porting MARDEK to Steam earned me more money than I probably ever have from games, so that was a pleasant surprise! I'll look into and talk about how much I've earned from that and other sources in my 2021 goals post, since I think I set a goal to earn a certain amount so it seems relevant there.

It's so strange thinking that I had major brain surgery in late 2018, and I only stopped having radiotherapy in early 2019! It's not something that affects my daily life in any major way anymore... though it's not as if I'm fit and healthy in general anyway so maybe it's left me with more subtle lingering defects that just blur together with all the other issues!





Looking at the year as a whole, it looks to have been split down the middle, similar to 2019. The first half was spent rather frantically making swift progress on Divine Dreams, which culminated in a demo video, though I was hit by doubts and insecurities about the financial feasibility of its future and redirected my focus to a related, quicker-to-complete offshoot, Atonal Dreams. The second half of the year's been spent on that, though progress has been slower and spottier. I suppose you could say they're essentially the same game, though, which I've refined through several stages over the course of the year, with my energy draining over time as it always does when working on long projects.

My mind wandered a lot towards the end of the year, I thought about alternative projects... though I think it's best to just focus on Atonal Dreams to completion before getting distracted by other things. I'll be making that my goal for early 2021.

Like with other years, I'll now look back at each month individually!

January

I wanted to play more indie games this year, and started with one called ∞ GRIS ∞ in early January. I did play a few more over the course of the year, though didn't stick with that as much as I should have!

I also decided to start doing Weekly Updates (again; I used to do them years ago) in early January, which I did stick with! I feel they add a nice structure to my otherwise unstructured life.

I also successfully deliberately had a lucid dream in January... but then stopped the necessary practice after posting about it. A shame; I should have stuck with that too! I keep thinking about getting back into it.

Creatively, I started on Divine Dreams in earnest, and did a lot!

It was still intended as a 'MARDEK Reimagining' at this point. I had a very basic battle system right from the start, plus models for Mardek and Deugan.



I'd been thinking about lore, the layout of the chunk of the world the game would take place in - Numina - though there were objections from people about various details like names because they clashed with what was familiar from MARDEK.



I designed a few of these 'nightmare' creatures, which would appear as big bosses that represented characters' deep issues (an idea I've retained):





Most notably, I did a lot of work on the field system, which started off as these dioramas floating in a void. I've since changed how the field works a bit - rooms no longer dissolve out like that - but I do still find this quite charming.



I also already had a working conversation system (though I'd mostly just carried it over from Belief, which I'd made the year before):



And the beginnings of a menu system:



I also started on the music by composing this Main Theme (which I still absolutely love):



A good start to the year, I'd say! 9 and a half thumbs up, would eat again!

February

I'd decided to release Divine Dreams episodically - a decision I later revised, kind of - and though it best to focus first on a demo, which would be set in a dungeon called the Dreamcave. This month was largely spent designing the areas and monsters for that.

I love the deep, mystical, subdued atmosphere I was going for for this area; I really like how the lighting turned out:



I'd made the major protagonists' models:



I was also in the process of working out battle mechanics and talked a lot about that.



I spent a lot of time designing - and then making models for - the first monsters:





I also grew to level 32 this month, after a whole year of tedious grinding. My nethers are so, so sore.

March

Already I was talking about being depressed and needing to take time off at the start of this month! I suppose I had pushed myself quite hard during the first two.

I worked on some more mechanics and concept stuff. I incorporated this idea called concords, which gave bonuses for pairs of characters depending on the relationship between them. It's something I've stripped out of Atonal Dreams' gameplay due to its limited cast, though concords have gained a different role in the story.



I also did some work on particle effects, and designed a unique weapon for Deugan.



Most interesting to me, I composed some more music! This Dreamcave music is probably one of the most beautiful I've ever composed (it's a shame it likely won't be used in Atonal Dreams though):



I also composed the battle music here, which I'm still using in Atonal Dreams (though I might remake it, saving this for Divine Dreams, if I ever get around to that):



I composed a couple of non-game pieces this month too, one of which is my favourite of the year and which I've had stuck in my head for ages, including this morning! I look forward to releasing that and other pieces on an album at some point early next year.

April

I hit a major milestone at the start of this month, and had enough of the game done to make this 14-minute preview/demo thing:



I seem to have spent most of the month working on the Steam port of MARDEK, which was a trickier process than I would have liked. Plus I had some issues with malware on this site, so that was fun!!

I also revised the battle mechanics and UI this month, and started using these 'statue' UI things which I like a lot:

May

Seems I dealt with a lot of continuing site issues and MARDEK stuff this month.

I made this fungoblin monster:



I also made some changes to battle stuff, including adding taming enemies and losing allies, and XP for skills:



I also started wondering more and more this month about straying from the original MARDEK. I wondered whether Mardek could have purplish skin to reflect his alien (Lucen) heritage:



This led to my first thoughts about reimagining him completely as Dayvha; this concept art is apparently from this month:

June

I released ∞ MARDEK on Steam ∞!



So that was a big thing. It did okay for what it was, all things considered, despite my initial fears it'd go completely ignored.

In the ~7 months since I released it, it's got about 2100 sales and earned me around £10,000.

I also revisited and tidied up ∞ my Patreon ∞ this month. I currently have 63 patrons helping me with around £250 a month, which I appreciate dearly even though I don't post on there as much as I probably should! (I'm never sure what to post...)

I set up a discord server, too, though I still really need to do something more with that. I'll probably need to make it public access at some point, but I'm still wary due to past experiences. Mostly I've just been scattered, though, not focused enough because of other things and/or depression, so I haven't been able to get around to it.

Overall though this month feels like a great step forward in terms of financial sustainability.

On the creative side of things, this was an interesting month of changes. I fully committed to deviating from MARDEK, and redesigned all of the main characters.



Plus I gave more thought to how weapons and magic would work in this game/world; resonars first appeared here.



I was having some serious doubts about the financial aspects of releasing an epic multi-chapter game though, which was both inspired by and inspired research into making money from indie games. I revised my ideas, and the idea to make a shorter prequel-of-sorts emerged.

In late June, I'd already roughly sketched out the plot and planned the four primary characters.




I made models for Savitr and Collie:



I incorporated them into the game, and wrote a conversation to get a feel for how they might talk:



At the end of the month, I started on making an island area to run around on, with 'triangular' edge tiles that I didn't have in the village or dreamcave areas earlier.



That's a lot for one month! If only they could all be that productive...

July

In early July, I already had most of the game mechanics in some form. Here's a short video that shows the field, some dialogue, and a battle with reactions and appropriate attack animations.



I refined the primary characters a bit:



And made models of the remaining two weird bald men:



I made one of these talking things to practice voices for Ossoum and Pierce, like I did with Savitr and Collie:



I also worked on some technical stuff like a potions system, and some creative stuff like designs for some important side characters that I won't include here since they're spoilers.

August

I set up ∞ the Atonal Dreams info page ∞, which I've not updated since. I should!



I decided to start following some indie devs on Twitter. I follow a bunch now! I don't check it very often though... I also wrote my first post in the promotion research category this month.

I composed musical themes for all four of the primary characters, with unsung 'lyrics'. I'm really proud of these!



I designed and started building Atonal Dreams' overworld areas... though I've since revised them and will have to remake them at some point.



I designed some monsters, first as concept art:



Then as actual models:



My motivation was fading again, so I took a bit off time off Atonal Dreams to make a model of a person. I refined my modelling skills a bit in the process!

September

I made some more tweaks to various aspects of the Atonal Dreams' battle system, such as a dynamic camera. I had a reaction-based input system for music skills, which I later scrapped since it wasn't fun.



I revised the battle arenas to use a kind of round diorama design, inspired by the early work on the field maps. I like the result!



I'd largely finished and decorated this starting island (which I may or make not remake; it didn't take long though):



I added this thing after battles that shows you how many of the area's monster species you've cleared out, which would reward you with equippable essences for completion. These essences can be trained with a 'glitter' currency to improve their power:



I talked a lot about releasing a demo soon... One day we'll get there!!

I'd also started playing around with turning the model I made in August into something with dynamic variation... though I only dabbled for a few hours and didn't get very far with it.





This was also the month when there was buzz about there maybe being life on Venus. I'd forgotten about that!

October

I did some fairly focused research into indie games marketing this week. Honestly I can't remember what I found since I haven't had my mind in the appropriate place in ages, but I surely learned at least something! I said in a post that I should make a habit of regularly doing marketing research for an hour a day. Ha...

Because of that, I wondered a lot about what to do next with Atonal Dreams. I'm still wondering.

It's... interesting comparing the earlier blog posts to the ones post-MARDEK release. The early ones almost always exceeded 1000 views, often getting 30+ comments, while some of these second-half-of-the-year ones have 1 comment, and around 500 views or less. Bleh.

I played Undertale this month, finally. So that's something. I still haven't returned to it, despite saying I would.

I was working towards crafting something more refined here, giving particular attention to the initial cutscene/battle with Pierce, and its features like varied camera angles.



I also wrote a bit about the dialogue editor I'd made for myself...



...and started in earnest on writing out the full script before progressing further.



I also did a bit of drawing this month, though nothing especially interesting. Stuff like hand studies:



Though I also have these studies of how Collie could potentially look, with Moana and a character from Lilo & Stitch sketched from references to practice the styles they used (since I imagined Collie as vaguely polynesian-looking):



I should draw more.

November

I really started to get burned out badly around this point, and productivity waned drastically.

I kept at the script, and coded this tool for myself to help with the process:



That took time and helped me redirect my mind a bit.

I came up with a lot of ideas while writing the script! I don't know if I ever talked about a lot of them since they'd count as spoilers, but I definitely felt the story coming together into something more interesting, gradually. It's an iterative process though, requiring many passes and a lot of time to mull over ideas and generate new ones.

I drew some concept art related to ideas I was playing with for the script, such as these symbols for the Drealm, Blight Wolves, and Seraphim, all of which feature heavily:



And these variants of Savitr and Collie as they'd appear in a dream of hers:



I'd been wondering a lot - based both on general exposure to the Zeitgeist and to specific comments made on this blog - about whether there'd be negative reactions to perceived sexual objectification of Collie, and ended up ranting a lot about that this month. Fun times.

I also wrote again about porting my old games somewhere. I'm still deciding what to do about that!

December

Hey, I remember that month! I'm currently in it.

It's certainly my least productive month all year, to the point where I could even say I mostly took the month off. I've just been feeling miserable in various ways, I suppose, and the whole ~holiday season~ didn't help with that. A big part of me's just been waiting until that's all over and the new year begins, so I can start up again refreshed. Sort of like if it's mid-afternoon and you've not achieved what you wanted to in the day, so you decide it's too late now, I'll just do it tomorrow. I'll do Atonal Dreams and port my old games next yeeeeear, bleeeeh!!

I added this revised roadmap to the main page, at least:



That one should work better than the one I had before, though it gives no idea of completion dates since I have no idea myself. As I said when I introduced it, the steps aren't of equal duration, so I'm not necessarily half way (I'm guess I'm further than that, but who knows).

I feel like the whole month's been about looking back, actually. I spent a long time arranging all my old music compositions, and released a few of the older ones in ∞ an album on a newly-created Bandcamp page ∞.



I've actually listened to that album a bunch of times in the days since I put it up; it's better than I originally gave it credit for, though a big part of that for me is the memories each piece brings back.

While thinking about porting my old games, I got enthusiastic for a few days about remaking Clarence's Big Chance...



Or about making a kind of Belief + Alora Fane Creation (Buildief?) thing, for which I made this model (which is different to - but used the same creative techniques - as the other one):



I also spent a few hours on the very beginnings of a simple map editor:





I always make a 'Summary of Art' compilation to see my artistic progress over the year at a glance. I've been doing them since 2012, initially inspired by artists on deviantART who used them to showcase improvements in digital paintings. At first I showed them off, but stopped once they ended up too cluttered with pervy stuff (since apparently all nudity counts as such) and it was less embarrassing to just keep them to myself.

I've decided to include it this year. I split it into two parts, for my digital art (which I rarely do, and it's mostly just concept sketches) and my game dev work. I've still censored some stuff (all the black squares are deliberately censored), though here it's not because they're embarrassingly pervy, but because they're spoilers (concept art of characters, mostly)!



I think I've talked about everything on it in this post, other than a crappy portrait sketch and a silly picture of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard from April (because I first heard about their ongoing drama at the time, and I saw a particularly amusing photo I wanted to use as reference but exaggerate).

I've also composed a few pieces of non-game music this year (though not as many as I'd like), which I'm looking forward to making available as an album that maybe two people will listen to for ten or maybe twelve seconds before getting back to head-smashing to death thrash K-technocore rap or whatever it is other people apparently enjoy. How exciting a thing that must be to look forward to!!



So yes, that was 2020. What a year. I wonder if 2021 will be better, worse, or more of the same. I'll write about my goals sometime soon, ideally tomorrow but who knows!

Hopefully your year has been at least a not-TOO-unpleasant one, despite everything!! Thanks for accompanying me on this journey of self-indulgence!