It’s the penultimate Weekly Rambles for 2023. Only one more after this, friends. Just a couple of weeks till the New Year, and a New Me. This time I’m sending out the newsletter to everyone, because why not? 'Tis the season, after all. Although, it’s, once again, mostly selling stuff and there’s secret supporter gamedev stuff at the end. Because I’m not completely altruistic. Sorry >:)
It’s the time of the year when we start looking back at everything we did and feel good or bad about ourselves. For the past few years I’ve been doing the “Art Summary” thing where you take one pic you made each month and put it in a nice lil grid. Here’s the one I made for this year.
And for laughs, here are the previous years.
Whoa, I’ve been doing this for 5 years, huh. You know in job interviews, where they ask you where you see yourself in 5 years? I don’t think December 2018 me would have been like, “Oh, yeah, the random blue-haired anime character eating a burger I draw next month. You will draw her 300 more times and thousands of people will like that. Then you will make a game with a bunch of your characters in it and release it on Steam.” (TMI: Did you know Skye originally had green hair? Then I paint bucketed it blue and it looked better so I kept it.)
So, as a thought exercise, I’m going to think about where I see myself in 5 years from now, in December 2028. It will be ridiculous and unrealistic. Whatever! 5 years is a long time and everyone will have forgotten about this by then anyway. I’m sure there will be more important things to be distracted by.
Let’s see. The Endless Monday Trilogy has completed. Good Smile Company has finally noticed me and made a Skye Nendoroid. Then, having satisfied all my earthly desires, I will have no more want. Maybe I’d have started a sort of game dev studio and hired more people to help me make games faster. Maybe I move on from Endless Monday main cast and do something completely different for once. Maybe my dream crumbles and I go back to working for a company I hate. Maybe I run away into the mountains and become a hermit. Maybe I dig a big hole in the ground and find a large mystical glowing rock that I trade to a band of bearded travelers in exchange for one fourteenth of their gold and treasure. The possibilities are endless! Man, imagine a Skye Nendoroid…
I think for the next and final newsletter of the year I’m going to do another look-back focused more on individual meaningful moments and lessons learned, with resolutions and predictions for 2024.
Okay okay, moving on to why we’re all really here. The Selling Stuff!
The holiday extravaganza of video games, the Steam Winter Sale, has started!
And of course, Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines is on sale for cheaper than usual!
And along with the beginning of the Steam Winter Sale, the voting for The Steam Awards 2023 has begun! Congrats to the nominees. Also congrats to Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines, which was not selected as a finalist for any The Steam Awards, but is still GOTY in my heart. And also, please, check out the soundtrack of the year, by the ever amazing Chance Thrash.
For me, I think maybe as a solo dev it’s better to just quietly stay in my own little corner of the games world making games for people who really care. I don’t need awards when I have this:
Again, I can’t really say it enough, the fact that anything I made got this kind of reception, let alone my first game, is pretty crazy and unbelievable. I’ll try to keep it going for all the people who love my works and care. Thank you. Thank you.
Anyway, good job, me, you survived a year making one game. Let’s see you do that again for the next year. And the next.
While we’re on the topic of Steam, the Steam 2023 “Year in Review” is out! Let’s take a look at the stats:
In other selling-stuff news: The Tiger-chan Plush Doll Sell-a-thon is still happening! Get it while you can. Thanks to everyone who bought one so far. Love you.
While I was writing this, Twitter just straight up stopped working, which reminds me to remind you to subscribe to the email newsletter (if you’re seeing this in your email inbox, you’ve done that already, which means you’re cool).
And to finish off the triumvirate of selling stuff, my shop will be back next week. I’ll probably have a nice New Year Discount, so stay tuned if you want a bunch of Endless Monday stickers for cheaper than usual.
Switching gears to non-selling-related stuff:
I’ve been catching up on my anime shows. My timeline was all atwitter about Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, so I caved in and watched that. And it turns out I really love the show. I think it’s a total masterclass in storytelling and pacing - it never lingers on a single plot point longer than it needs to, but is also full of quiet moments and subtle pauses and details that add so much characterization and meaning to the events happening on screen. The narrative switches seamlessly between flashbacks and present day to provide context and motivations for each character’s actions, and emphasize how other people have impact on our characters’ lives, even after they’re long gone. The cast of characters all have a unique but interconnected backstory, all have their own abilities and motivations that add something important to the narrative. The little moments and interactions between characters say just enough and are never overdone. And I always love it when the main characters are completely overpowered (which can be difficult to make a good story out of, but Frieren pulls it off). I love this anime so much. I love the characters and the art and the music and the story. It’s so well done. You can bet I’ll be tearing it apart to devour its innards to absorb its storytelling ways into my own wretched being. Anyway, I guess the season’s about halfway over now, so I hope it maintains its quality til the end.
I also watched Spy X Family. I had completely forgotten the second cour was out, so I’m going through that now. It’s more Spy X Family. What more could you want? I’m happy we’re getting more Yor’s-job-focused episodes this time around. She’s so cool…
And this one’s old(ish) but I finally got around to starting Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken. It’s cute and inspiring. The theme (or at least one of them) seems to be about how important every aspect of a creative team is to deliver a quality product, but it was really interesting to see the emphasis on the key role the producer plays for actually finishing the damn thing and getting it out the door. You see it all the time in gamedev, too, and I imagine every other creative industry out there. Just a bunch of creative people working on a thing, the budget balloons out of control, scope creep and focusing on things that don’t really matter in the big picture delaying the schedule, and it flounders around in development hell and eventually dies. Unless you’ve got a Kanamori keeping you grounded, forcing tough decisions, and getting on track, of course. As a solo dev I’ve been having to juggle all roles in one, but one thing I know the importance of is enforcing deadlines, keeping the scope focused and limited, and prioritizing the important things and making compromises, otherwise the game will never be done and I won’t be able to sustain a living making games.
I think that’s mostly it… Before I segue into the weekly supporter stuff, I want to thank everyone who’s subscribed to this newsletter for sticking around. See you next time!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Endless Monday to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.