An Update About the Development and Updates
Hey everyone,
Today I want to talk about the games I've been developing—and a few upcoming changes. And no, the plural wasn't a mistake.
I'm having trouble starting this post. I don't know which angle to take, how to explain what I want to do, and what led me to this conclusion. Don’t get me wrong—nothing crazy is happening. But I still struggle with how to express it. So, I’ll start by telling a little, mostly boring, tale.
What’s wrong with Mondays?
Last week, I got my wisdom teeth removed and thought to myself: the perfect opportunity to take the week off and get some rest. The operation went great, I had almost no pain, and I really got to unwind and relax during the week.
Then came Monday, and I realized—I wasn’t ready to work yet.
Luckily, I’m a self-employed game dev, so I decided to take the week easy and only do fun work. Work on a project I haven’t revealed to the public yet.
That’s when it began. All of a sudden, I was stressed out! Instantly, I began to feel a crazy amount of pressure, and the reason for it all... the Monday Update. I kid you not.
I realized that while I had done work, I had nothing to show for it in the Monday Update—and that really got to me. So I sat there, unsure what to do. Ruminating in this fear of having to tell everyone I had done nothing. And fearing—really fearing—that this would be my financial ruin.
And that’s when it dawned on me.
For a while now, a lot of my work has been focused on not losing money. On not upsetting the status quo. Like a big company past its prime that slashes production costs instead of improving its products—trying to appease investors. Always thinking short-term.
I wasn’t having fun with it. I wasn’t giving myself the space and time to have fun with it. I made decisions to save time, not to develop what I actually wanted to make—and it slowly but surely eroded my joy in developing games.
But the moment I realized that, I also realized something else: this was frighteningly easy to change. Easy—and frightening.
Developing for… fun?
This should be obvious, right? Of course developing a game should be fun. How else could the game be fun?
In the past, my development style was: play the game, feel out what’s missing, develop it, and repeat.
Nowadays my style is: plan it all out, develop it separately, combine it all—done.
I don’t play the game anymore. What’s wrong with me?
I’m not giving myself the time. I feel stressed to deliver content and, paradoxically, that stress is slowing me down. I’m not delivering more content than I did in the past. And when I play the game, I do notice the areas that could be improved or changed—but I never allow myself the time. Because then I’ll have nothing to report. Then the next update will take longer to come out. And I’ll lose money again.
I feel a bit silly.
I don’t want to develop for money anymore. I want to develop for fun. Every day, I want to sit down, play the game, and feel out what’s missing. Not follow some lifeless plan that looks good on paper but doesn’t work in reality.
All I need for that is to trust myself.
If I set one foot in front of the other, I’ll reach the goal. Doesn’t matter if I stare at the checkered flag the whole time, or marvel at the scenery—I’ll reach the goal.
I don’t even think it’ll slow me down.
It already changed.
Not much will change. It already did—inside of me.
I’ll keep developing Covenant of Morn and I’ll keep developing a secret side project that I’ve been working on for a while now. I’ll also keep working on a teensy tiny content patch for MIST that I have in the works.
But from now on, I’ll take off the pressure and communicate more openly with you about what I’m doing. When it’s fun to develop CoM, I’ll work on CoM. When it’s fun to work on the side project, I’ll work on the side project. And when it’s fun to work on MIST… well, you get it.
And I’m getting rid of Monday Updates.
I fucking hate Monday Updates.
Here’s the new plan:
There will be a post every two weeks, just like right now.
But once a month, I’ll give an update on what I’ve been doing—similar to the current Monday Updates. And once a month, I’ll write something more like my past dev logs: picking a topic—3D graphics, writing, sound design, or whatever else I find important—and sharing some behind-the-scenes insight into the development.
In the meantime, I’ll just be developing games for fun.
Starting with the side project has been a blessing. It’s really shown me where CoM is lacking and where I want to improve it—and vice versa. I’ll soon share more about the side project and do a proper reveal. The image up top is a work-in-progress visual from the game. Let me know if you like it.
Thanks to everyone who made it this far.
I always feel a bit silly writing emotional updates like these. I feel like I’m fickle for how often I need to readjust my mindset to stay on top of development—but I don’t want to hide that part from you.
It always feels incredibly liberating to share these thoughts.
Now I wish everyone a great rest of the week and a great weekend.
The next time you hear from me will be with a new dev log—or whatever I’ll call that new format. :D
Have a great evening!
Comments (7)
Not a problem to de-stress, to figure out what works for you. What doesn't work is non-communication. I've seen too many situations where the game author fades away, communicating less and less until it's months since we've heard from a guy who's still happy to take our money. I haven't seen anything to make me believe you would do that. So as long as you keep letting us know you're still interested and still working on the game, I don't need any strict progress report. I'm a supporter and a fan, not your boss. We're here supporting a creator more than buying a game. By the time one of these games gets developed I've typically given more than I would have paid if I had just bought a AAA game outright on Steam, so if I just wanted to pay $ and get a game I would go there. Here I get to be part of the process. Maybe even to effect the outcome. And to see that game take shape before any of the guys who are just looking to buy.
Hi Dev....I understand the pressure of what you're going through and believe me you're not the only Dev thats has this problem. When doing these gaming projects it comes like a second life....money, investment and time. Everything else in the Dev's life is literally pushed aside when creating these projects. Once reality catches up such as problems with financial status, school academics, job related stuff, family issues and personal life these adult games would be delayed or abandoned. So I understand your situation and I don't blame you. But always do things for the passion and love otherwise you will never really enjoy or be satisfied with what you're doing. Remember to take care of yourself first...us supporters will always be here for you💯
From one aspiring game dev, to one of the dev's that inspired me to leap into creating my own story, you got nothing but my respect and support :D I strongly agree and sympathize with your words and wish you the best moving forward!
As serious as you think it is, I can't help but be a little amused looking at the AVN scene as a whole. You fret about losing support if you don't do weekly report pie charts and dev breakdowns, while so many other devs regularly go radio silent for months and seem to be just fine doing that lol Don't worry so much. Make the game what you want it to be and everything will be fine. A side project might not be the best idea if you already have anxiety about not delivering enough on CoM though 😉
Agree with this - self-imposed communication deadlines only serve to help you stay disciplined. I support you for the game, not the Monday Updates - give me a game that's fun to play and that you enjoy creating. Oh, and image above looks good!
Well-being comes first, take care of yourself, you don't need to overdo it. You don't need to overwork yourself to give us news about you or the game, you've got plenty of time on your hands. If you want to do something, do it, but if you don't want to do something, don't, we're not forcing you to work. As always, thank you for the great work you've done so far, and I can't wait to see what's next! (The MIST patch is very nice to see, thanks in advance)
This is feeling somewhat rich, coming from someone who is only a free member (which surprised myself a bit tbh, I like your games so much I thought I'd be in the boat already, but alas), but I just wanted to say that it's great to hear you came to this conclusion :D Almost all the creators I follow, of which most are AVN creators, but amongst all fields have at some point had a similar situation, where self set deadlines led to self-induced burnouts. While it may feel like you need to deliver something because of the obvious influx of money, I don't think the vast majority of supporters joined because they *expected* something from you, but rather to support what you're already doing. You should know that if you patronize an artist, that the outcome is unpredictable. But that's part of the beauty of it, is it not? To give someone the ability to do what they and you love, without necessarily having to worry about most of the struggles of the job market or some other worries. Almost like watching over a child, excited to see what they'll be doing next :D I feel like I drifted off a little here, but my point is, don't stress anything out, in my experience everyone on Patreon would rather the artist take a break and focus on themselves than standing over them with a whip, forcing them to deliver exactly that thing at exactly that point. That's just not what this platform is about. Having said that, I'm glad you caught onto what's going on in your brain this quickly, before going down the deep end and causing unnecessary harm :) Also, having joined only recently and only now having heard of your weekly updates, I can say that you'd have been the first on my feed to be this forced with how often you do what. Yes, giving updates about what's going on is quite valuable, but they don't necessarily have to contain anything, at least in my humble opinion. I'd be fine with a text saying "took a week off for inspiration and health". As long as they don't string on for weeks on end, of course, but that's never happened yet :D Long story short, I just wanted to be one of the people saying this, I full-heartedly support your decision, and you will find that most people on here do. Art is random, and that’s the beauty of it. Please don't force it or yourself <3