Next project

I've decided to work on the mario/sonic style game. Once it's done, I'll go back to Noaika full-time. and stop the patreon animations.

To give some context, this game was more or less started because I made some sprites for fun, and added basic controls to test gamepad settings while I was working on Noaika. Stuff slowly got added after that whenever I was bored.

Once GMS2 came out, I used it as a guinea pig for testing the new Tile-based collisions, the benefit of which is that tiles dont slow down the game, which makes things like this possible with little performance impact.

https://i.gyazo.com/d32c8ddedbdd29bcce0f78ba7dca0da5.png

It also speeds up collisions quite a lot, which is why I'll be converting Noaika to GMS2 as a first order of buisness, after this game is done.

As for the game itself, as you can probably tell by the fact that I keep calling it mario/sonic, it's an attempt at a movement based game, with some inspiration taken from each. It will include an  rpg style world map, with some metroidvania elements.

There have been a few snags here and there in finding the game's identity, which I guess is to be expected when you rip stuff from two entirely different games. Luckily I "think" I've mostly sorted those out for now. The two main problems were basically "what happens when you roll into an enemy" and "what the hell are coins going to be used for", both of which conveniently had the same solution which was "depends what item you have equipped".

At the moment, messing with moves is still an active process. Many enemies and level mechanics are done, however they will be changed as the player's moveset gets refined and added to. Being about movement, it's important that I have most of the elements complete before finalizing levels or even a demo.

Anyhow, that's all for now.

Thinking

*dusts off blogger*

While I'm waiting on some stuff to get Aster on DLsite, I'm trying to figure out what I should work on and release next. Always the question..

Needless to say, my main goal at this point is to work on Noaika. My mistake over the past couple years has been saying "I'll release a quick side project so that I can work on Noaika without worrying about money!"

Enter feature creep, uncertainty, and the usual health problems, and I've done a ton of work on various projects without any of them being released. I'd start a project, get a ton done in a week or two, and then the project would blow up into something bigger. I'd work on it a bit before thinking "this is going to take too long", and off I'd go starting another side project, honestly believing that I'd be able to hold myself back and make something small in a month or two.

Hell, Noaika itself was initially a side project taking a break from this



In fact, let's take a look at the trainwreck so far.

Crimson Blue
    > Got too big
         Crimson Brave as side project
               >Got too big
                           >  Kurovadis as side project
                           > Finished Kurovadis.
X Crimson Blue
X Crimson Brave
Try some stuff
Unnamed Metroidvania
   > Was unsure of direction
         >Started Eroico to take a break with lower res sprites
         >Finished Eroico
X  unnamed Metroidvania
Martial arts game
   > Too high res
X  Martial arts game      
Low res metroidvania
                > Cant even remember why I abandoned it
X Low res metroidvania

Umbrella girl
         > Got too big, almost die from health problems.
                    > Noaika as small side project. Behind the scenes demo       
                    > Upsize Noaika due to feedback
                          > Collab side project while working on Noaika
                    > Public Noaika demo
                   > Health,  money problems.
                   > Noaika Pre-orders 
                  > Work on Noaika,
                  > Patreon animations start
                                               > let's make a side project to get out of this rut.
                                               > Nope
                              >Slow work on Noaika
                                               > let's make a side project to get out of this rut.
                                               > Nope
                               > Patreon animations get harder and slow down                           
                               >Slow work on Noaika
                                                > let's make a side project to get out of this rut.
                                                > Nope
                             
                                 Eroico RE
                                         >  Finish Eroico RE
                               > Work on side project
                               >Pick up previous side project, Aster
                                         >Release Aster


That's a lot of red.
                                
To count them up , I've worked on about 12 projects, 3 of which have been sold, and 5 of which are anywhere from 40 to 70% done in dev limbo, and the rest will never see the light of day. Noaika itself is basically a game and a half given that it has three versions at this point that are totally different.

Patreon worked well initially, but has slowed me down quite a bit. It's become harder and harder to come up with animation concepts that dont feel like I'm repeating myself, and a lack of focus and uncertainty in ideas turns into procrastination. I'm always left with the thought "I wish I could just do 5 game animations instead of this one big one"

So what now?

All that said, working on Noaika without doing something else is still not an option at this point, financially. Do I try and finish one the many side projects while doing patreon animations so I can pay off stuff and get back to Noaika with no disctractions? Do I work on Noaika and switch to working on a seperate weekly patreon game instead of animations so that I can have more frequent, consistent patreon releases?

Or do I abandon games altogether and work on like 8 patreon animations in a row and....actually nevermind that sounds horrible.


So, what do you think I should do? I could work on pretty much any of the side projects (which you can see a little more about in the projects tab up top) Could even get the umbrella game out of the way before it becomes any more outdated, graphically. If I start talking about making a new side game and tell you I can finish it in 3 monthes though, just give me a good slap.