I've spent this week working on this side project I still haven't decided on a title for! The player can create their own character now. Also, what counts as inappropriate nudity?? READ MORE
This week, I've seen the light at the end of the long tunnel I've been frustratingly stuck in for the past several weeks, and have been preparing to face the promotion stuff I've been avoiding. READ MORE
For the second week in a row, this post's mostly just an excuse about how I've not achieved what I wanted to this week, due to general mental illness exacerbated by several situational stressors. Bleh. READ MORE
This week, I made some Atonal Dreams improvements (mostly) based on feedback from the previous test, and intended to post about it on Reddit, but... am I too burned out? Should I focus on stuff like porting my old games first?? Am I just making up excuses to avoid doing something I have a strong trauma-related aversion towards??? READ MORE
I announced the start of the third alpha test of Atonal Dreams on Monday... but so far only one person has provided feedback. It's discouraging, but I blame myself! READ MORE
I've spent this week waiting for feedback for the Atonal Dreams Alpha... or rather, that feels like an excuse to shirk work more than anything, as I find the mere thought of the next big steps - or the alternative severe life changes if this won't work out - so distressing. I should try to play a game for the first time in ages to destress and reinspire myself, but I've been struggling to decide which one! READ MORE
I composed two new pieces of battle music this week... which I can't show off due to technical issues with my composing program. I'm also wondering about other ways of talking about my progress that might be more noticed... READ MORE
I want to talk a bit about money again: how much I'm earning each month, and how the amount that other indie games raise on Kickstarter does convince me to give that a go. READ MORE
I've set myself the goal to finish off preparing the Steam page for Atonal Dreams today, but uncertainty's quite a barrier again so I'm writing a bit about it! READ MORE
I've started putting Atonal Dreams on Steam so then I can start accumulating wishlists and run an alpha test before moving forward, but it's tough knowing how to present it, especially without feedback... READ MORE
I saw this video the other day, in which a just-starting indie dev interviews another who claims to be earning six figures a year from what started as solo games dev, and felt it was worth a post of its own! READ MORE
I've spent the past couple of weeks looking into what the most sensible next steps might be, but it's still annoyingly unclear. Here's what I'm going to do next anyway, though. READ MORE
My intention today was to read a bunch of articles about how and when I should release a demo. I ended up getting through a single r/gamedev post-mortem and some of the comments before running out of steam! READ MORE
Here's a look at some sales stats for my games so far, as well as a couple of articles about the financial suicide of trying to make a living from indie games!! READ MORE
I don't know enough about marketing an indie game, so Atonal Dreams is unlikely to succeed financially unless I learn more. I've written out a list of questions I don't know the answers to, which I'll spend the next week or two researching. Seems more directed than just fumbling around watching videos in the general area! READ MORE
Have you ever heard of a game called Among Us? Probably not. It's really obscure. I mean, it only has 104,597 reviews on Steam. I feel sorry for the developers, honestly. READ MORE
Here's an interesting video by a dev who's been working on the same game (sort of) for five years (do you think I'm slow??), who gets a lot of attention on his well-made Youtube videos, though surprisingly that doesn't seem to translate to Twitter followers, which makes me wonder how well attention on any social media translates to actual sales in the end. READ MORE
To have any hope of succeeding with this games thing, I'll need to do a lot more promotion than I have been doing... as I've said in a bunch of different, fairly scattered posts over the past few months. Things do come up on my radar throughout the week, and to get better at focusing on this, I've made a new category of posts here, and I'll add a new post in this category every Sunday (a new dev post will be every Saturday). READ MORE
I don't follow anyone on Twitter, but I should start following some other indie devs so I feel less alone in walking this path! Any suggestions? READ MORE
I'm doing research into how to make money from indie games! Here's a loooong look (a big chunk of which is quotes) at a couple of postmortems which help shed light on where money can come from, and how similar indie devs' stories often are. READ MORE
Here's another post about my continuing journey into the unfamiliar territory I need to explore if I'm to make anything of this games thing! In this one, I mainly talk about stuff from the comments on the last post. READ MORE
I've been enjoying development, but I do need to focus on some other related stuff - like promotion - for a while! Despite the usual annoying depression. READ MORE
Depression's reared its heavy, leaden head these past few days. I've got stuff done despite it, but it's still annoying! Also, the attention my posts get is reducing over time rather than increasing. How do people - including YOU, dear, beloved reader - actually hear about games and keep up about their releases? READ MORE
Memody: Sindrel Song is out now. The previous post is a quick announcement of that; this is a more in-depth ramble about my feelings related to it. READ MORE
I need to release Sindrel Song on Steam, and I'll be devoting this week to that exclusively rather than getting distracted with MARDEK or Belief or whatever like I have for the past few weeks. Since I don't have anyone to talk with during the process, but it helps to do so, I'm writing out my thoughts and observations in this post. Specifically, here are some observations and thoughts about a Reddit thread where an indie developer announced the completion of their new game... READ MORE
Last week, I talked about how I'm aiming to get Sindrel Song on Steam, but I'm unsure whether to self-publish or get a publisher. I've since read a bit about it, but I'm still not sure! READ MORE
Since the 'release' of Sindrel Song was so quiet due to Kartridge's obscurity, I'll need to do some research that I've mentioned in the past but haven't actually done yet... Maybe you can help, if you're that way inclined? READ MORE
I've just been naively assuming that Sindrel Song will do okay without too much promotional effort on my part. I very much doubt that it'll make millions!!, but I thought $10k+ would just 'sort of happen somehow'. That if the game were out there, thousands of people would notice and buy it. I've been avoiding actually doing research about promotion and marketing though because it's stressful and unfamiliar to even think about, but now that release is upon me (or delayed, if anything), I've been looking into it and... well, experiencing the anxiety I'd been avoiding it to prevent. I'm planning to do more research and to keep updating this post with everything I learn, even if nobody reads it and it's all for my benefit! It'll be useful to have it all in one place. READ MORE
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