DEVELOPMENT

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Weekly Update

4 years ago2,118 words

Another disappointingly unproductive week again, sorry! Here's me venting about that a bit. Also some thoughts about the replies to last week's post regarding what a 'standard RPG' is.

Well. Last week, I talked about how disappointing my productivity had been, and how I hoped this week would turn out better. And I did! Hope that! If for no other reason than to test out some additional aspect to my task tracker which I'd just added to hopefully aid my productivity (essentially it now gives me a letter grade for each day depending on how much work I've done and some other stuff like steps taken, and I was eager to aim for an A).

But when I woke up on Sunday (after insufficient sleep due to insomnia), I noticed that my wifi wasn't connecting. Usually the "turn it off then on again" thing works, but not so this time. Customer support detected a 'fault' somewhere and sent out a technician to fix it... who wouldn't get there until Wednesday afternoon.

We're all cyborgs, in a sense, these days; our phones are almost like an additional limb - even an additional brain - and our connection to the internet is like an additional sense. Losing that connection for a prolonged period - especially when not planned as some kind of 'technology detox' or whatever - isn't all that much different - psychologically - from realising you have to somehow pass the next few days while blind.

...Or at least that feels like a convenient excuse. Honestly, I could have done work, since most of what I do during my work sessions doesn't require being explicitly connected, but... I don't know, I still feel like I'm in the depths of a burn-out period, so I seized something like that as a reason to shirk work rather than seeing it as an obstacle I felt determined to push through to meet my goal, as I might during the more motivated phase of development.

I've worked on a bunch of long projects over the years. Usually I start eager to the point where I'll spend entire days working, days which I'm reluctant to end because I don't want sleep to get in the way of BRINGING MY VISIONS TO LIFE. But there's only so long that enthusiasm can be kept up, and soon it all starts feeling like a gruelling chore. I've given most of them up when I just can't tolerate working on them anymore.

I suspect most people only work as much as they do because they're compelled to; they don't exactly have the option of just not turning up to the office if they're really not in the mood. Being my own boss means I can just take weeks off at a time if I'm so inclined, though... which isn't great, since as important as it is to not push myself beyond a breaking point, I'm the one who most needs this thing to be completed because I'll hopefully get money from it when I do.

Though that hopefully is an important thing. When I'm relatively well, it seems like a challenge; there's a ton I need to learn about earning from an indie game, sure, but I can do it if I put my mind to it! When I'm not feeling well, though, it's just discouraging. Why am I doing all this work when I might not even get anything at the end of it, since it requires promotional skills I'm no good at? I think.

And I'm really not any good at those skills. I notice most indie devs on Twitter have more followers than me? I don't really engage with anyone at all, though, so that's probably it. Doing a Kickstarter seems like a good idea, but will I even be able to promote it? All that stuff, which I've thought and written about a bunch of times but which I'll only find an actual answer to once I push through and actually do it.

Speaking of money and Kickstarter, have you ever played Friday Night Funkin'? I haven't, though while searching for 3D model inspiration earlier in the week, I noticed a model based on that in ∞ the Best Selling section on SketchFab ∞, and noticed some familiar Newgrounds characters in the mix. I didn't know it was a product of Newgrounds! I looked it up on Wikipedia, where its gameplay didn't sound like it was a million miles away from Sindrel Song's, but it earned $2 million on Kickstarter?

Obviously there are many factors at play to make that the case - it also said it was released free-to-play or something, plus there's the nostalgic connection to Newgrounds maybe, and any long connections between creators behind the scenes - but it made me think - not for the first time - about the relative palatability of the more cerebral, spiritual, feelingsy stuff I make and the rough, militaristic, or memey kinds of stuff that's more readily embraced by gamer culture...

I don't know. I've ranted about all that a bunch of times before.

But yes. I barely did anything this week, again, and I feel bad about that! Doing these weekly updates does seem to be keeping me doing something each week though, so on Friday I thought "I need to have something to show for the weekly update!!!" and made this thing:





It's the transport that Savitr and Collie would use to get to travel across the seas. I talked a while back about how I was uncertain what it could be, but I decided on a summoned-up monster which was a combination of a horse - or rather a chess knight, to go with Pawnite (pawn) and Psyclop (bishop) - and a manta ray (I like those) and an angel. It ended up looking like some kind of dragon though; interesting how a horse-shaped head reads as draconic. Oh, and it has a boat-like bit in its back where they'd sit:




(That's a crude concept image from before I made the model. Having essentially a chair on its back just felt weird!)

It'll probably only be in a brief scene at the beginning - as Collie awakens with her head on Savitr's shoulder and he says "we've arrived" - so it seems like a lot of work for something like that. But how they travel is the sort of lore thing I - and probably at least some others - would wonder about, so it's nice to have an answer to that, at least.

It's not finished yet though; I'll need to clean some things up next week. The texture, mostly; I always start by blocking in colours like this, but paint a few bits with more detail, which I'll need to do with this.



So yes, that's disappointing. I'm sorry to disappoint! Though I feel it's me that's more disappointed than anyone. I'd really like to run the next test and get more feedback!!

I've been falling behind with a bunch of stuff though... There are a bunch of DMs I have on Twitter, for example, or at least it seems to be the case from the notifications number, though I haven't even checked my inbox for ages because it's apparently easier to just ignore it. Then I end up wondering whether it's been too long and it'd be awkward to reply now, and... ehhh.

A lot of indie devs I see when I occasionally bother to check Twitter seem to be constantly socially engaged, and I wonder how anyone manages that! Maybe it's an age thing? Or it's easier if you're socially engaged in your daily life in general? I just spend most of my time alone with my thoughts, making stuff, and it's easy to just get lost in that. I haven't been in my discord in ages either!

Oh, actually, I'll maybe be seeing a friend in person next week, which will be my first meet-up since before the lockdown. Maybe that'll help? Something I want to talk about with her is moving out, and it might be easier to look for somewhere with another person even if it's not to live together. I don't know. I feel having my own space could help too, maybe.

I'm determined not to give up on Atonal Dreams, though! I absolutely can't afford to at this point in my what-feels-comical-to-call-a-career. So I wonder whether taking things slowly while getting over this hump in the development cycle is best, rather than forcing myself and growing to deeply resent it (which is what happened with MARDEK).

I'd still like to do enough to reach the next testing phase though, so I'll do what I can to move closer to that point next week.



Last week, I asked "What, to you, is a 'standard RPG'?", and that sparked some interesting discussion! I haven't replied to most of the comments for... well, those reasons (I also took days to approve them because of the no-internet thing), but I did read them all, so here are some comments of my own to what people said:


- I asked the question, to be clear, because someone the week before had mentioned that Atonal Dreams didn't seem enough like a 'standard RPG' to them, and was potentially off-putting (or something, I forget).


- I remember when 'has RPG elements' was used to refer to games with any kind of visible numerical stats or item collection, which I was particularly drawn to when I was younger.


- I'm glad some of you see Atonal Dreams as fitting in the RPG category, and I hope others will too since that seems crucial for getting people interested.


- The expectation of - and focus on - violence does seem to be important for a lot of people. I saw a Reddit thread the other day though (can't remember where) where someone was explicitly asking where they might find some nonviolent RPGs, so there are clearly some people interested in that (not that AD is nonviolent exactly; you still attack, it's just that the things you 'murder' are solid hallucinations, and you use your mind to do it rather than getting your hands dirty).


- I'm wondering whether or not to advertise AD as a 'monster-taming' game, since that might create the expectation that monsters are kind of like pets that you keep with you. This not being the case is explored a few times in the dialogue I recently wrote for the intro section. Maybe something like "with monster-taming elements" might be a better fit.


- I remember a game called Legend of Legaia that I played during the PS1 era, which was a fairly unusual RPG in that you fought with your fists and chained together combos for every attack. In that, you fought some special kinds of monsters called 'ra-seru' (I think?), which could be acquired in some sense and summoned later as an attack. I remember being particularly excited about these at the time (it was at the height of the Pokemon craze), and always eager to find more. I suppose it's things like that which have (subconsciously) influenced Atonal Dreams' monster-skill system.


- Mania mentioned that a female character swooning over a male one is the quintessential image of the objectified female character, which is interesting and surprising to me. When thinking of a 'sex object' female character, I'd imagine either someone either silent, bikini-clad, and lounging next to something or someone as if she's just decoration, or some porn-(or hentai)-voiced busty bimbo making bedroom eyes and cringeworthily unrealistic suggestive comments. I see Collie's awkward oversharing as distinctly different, but maybe other people see it in the same category as those manipulatively sexual mobile game adverts!

Thinking about it a bit, I suppose there's a certain attitude I'd call 'sultry' in Western depictions, or submissively cute in Japanese ones, which I'd consider necessary for a character to register as a sex object. But it's interesting wondering about the variation in perceptions here.


- Mania also likened the monster-skills to Final Fantasy's Blue Magic, which I like as a comparison, though it wasn't one I'd thought of myself. I remember loving the idea of Blue Mage classes in those games, while always feeling disappointed that many of their learned skills were of limited usefulness. I suppose my love of the concept was another subconscious inspiration for this! In many ways it seems I'm combining a lot of ideas that really excited me as a youngling. Gives me ideas about how I should present it.