April 2014

April 24, 2014

Month 43 Report

In an attempt to break the long creative drought I’ve built a ”one-a-day” website focused on putting words to paper. (I converted that site into the 365 section of the present site. –Ed.)

It’s a writing journal of sorts, a forced-march repository that requires something, anything, to be published on a daily basis. The work there is more often than not first draft, raw, unedited garbage straight from the sludge swirling around in my brain, so don’t expect much. I’ve already noticed a benefit, though: the words are coming more readily and easily than they have in a long time. Now whether I can take them & fashion them into something worth reading & selling remains to be seen.

On the game development front there hasn’t been as much progress in the past 4 weeks. I’ve started to notice a trend in small-scale high-quality independent videogame developments, one that further confirms a pronouncement I’ve made time & time again in the past: good videogames take a crap-ton of time. I’m seeing more & more solo & small-team developments that I’ve been following for ages come to fruition that have taken 3, 4, even 5+ years to get commercial-ready.

I’ve a feeling that these other developers have gone through the same stages of productivity that I have. An initial burst of small-form work that very few people care about, nor should given the overall quality, followed by a long period of fits & starts while building up the confidence to tackle a larger scale project. Work typically starts on the “big one” with gusto, supplemented by a public development log somewhere, then varying lengths of silence. The closer the project gets to actual completion, the longer the periods of silence until a build-up & marketing push.

So it would seem I’m in decent company. With a stubborn refusal to seek collaboration I’m perhaps in a bit of a harder place than others, but I’m still leading a life where my hobby has become my livelihood. While it may be true that over the past few months the consumption side has overshadowed the production side, it’s been the pursuit of fun & enjoyment that’s taken top priority here at the Acre, & the fact that that’s even possible is something to be grateful for.

Thanks for your continued interest in my work, & I hope to have have something exciting & interesting to show in the not-too-distant future.

2014.04.01 – 2014.04.30


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