quiet blog year

someone asked on twitter a few weeks back if i was planning to update this blog ever. i guess i have been pretty quiet on here, last year had the fewest posts since i started. well i've usually written some kind of "summing up" post for the start of each year, so here we go.

i released Cinco Paus on iOS at the end of 2017 (appstore link), and on PC in May (itch.io link). since release i've been continuing to update it, fine-tuning the balance and fixing rare special-case bugs people find, there will be another update soon and it will be even better than it already is. i'm really proud of it, i'm still playing it quite a bit, i'm glad i made it. it's sold 2185 copies on ios and 163 on pc.

imbroglio: i released another expansion pack, Phlogiston, it has sold 606 units which is in line with expectations of diminishing returns (the game itself sold 13184, first expansion 2059). the game design is very flexible for adding more stuff and i still have a bunch of ideas implemented and partially tested which i'd like to get into releasable form sometime, the expansion model might not be the best way to fund this, probably there's no way, anyway i'll just do it sporadically when i feel like working on that game at times.

so, a quiet year financially. watch my career as a game developer grow from total obscurity to the merely quite-obscure 868-hack, then gradually sink further back toward nothingness with each subsequent release. but somehow i'm still here? it's actually slightly confusing, my partner is also earning significantly less than at her previous jobs but somehow we are not running out of money. like it would be nice to have more but we have everything we need. i try not to question this too much.

vivafringe started a discord channel for discussing my games: brough games discord. there's some really nice in-depth discussion there, particularly of imbroglio and cinco paus but a bit on 868-hack and others too.

i went through several prototypes that showed initial promise but had fundamental problems and didn't quite come together. this happens, sometimes an idea just works but there are a lot of things that you try and they just don't come through, for every game i've released there's several failed attempts; but here there were many in a row and i've been working more slowly than i did a few years ago so there weren't as many successes to keep me motivated and i got a bit demoralised. but now i've solved the problems in one of them and so i'm building it up into a complete game, it's not very complex so it shouldn't take too long. it's different from what i've done before so don't go expecting another deep roguelike thing, but i think it's a good example of what it is and i hope people will like it. for a while i wasn't playing a lot of games by other people (trying to reduce my screen time) but recently i played a few (i won't name them) which are popular and successful despite having fundamental problems and never quite coming together, so maybe people don't mind if you don't solve these problems if you just polish things up anyway? maybe i should reclassify some of my failed prototypes as "good enough". anyway i have something to work on for now.

when i was feeling bad from prototypes not coming together, and maybe some other things in life not being clear, i decided to just take some time out for self-development and not feel any pressure to produce work for a while. this didn't stop me producing work (during this time i came up with this new game) but it let me feel good about spending more time doing things that don't directly lead to work. i felt that a lot of the things i was making were just variations of what i've done before and maybe i need to grow something new in myself to be able to really make something new again, but i have deliberately not set this as my goal - i'm expanding my self for my own sake, not so that i can be more productive, this might be a side-effect but it's also okay if it's not. making games is just a part of my life, and its place in my life can shift over time - it would be very surprising if it ever went away completely.

since i got into dancing a few years back my relationship with my body has changed a lot (even that phrasing doesn't seem right anymore - i identify myself as a complete organism, rather than as a mind who inhabits a body). dance has for me been a powerful window into self-awareness and growth (different people find different windows work for them, find your own). i never before was able to keep a sufficient exercise practice, but now i'm continually becoming fitter, stronger, softer, suppler, now i'm effortlessly running and climbing just for the joy of it too. i'm changing shape, my posture is completely different from five years ago and it's still improving. some change is slow and gradual but for me more often it's sudden insight, the visualisation of how things want to be aligned becomes clear and then they shift very quickly and overnight i move completely differently. and with this there's sometimes emotional release, i am my body and how it feels to be me is a reflection of who i am, tensions in the body correspond to tensions in the mind and opening either one will open the other. some things very weird but i trust; maybe for a few moments i can't walk or i can't breathe because something deep realigns itself but always it comes back and everything functions better than before. and the freedom of working by myself lets me exercise when i need to without having to conform to office convention, i'm balancing on a ball right now, if i'm stuck working on something maybe i roll on the floor for a bit or i get up and dance or just shake it out, if people see me maybe they think i'm strange but it feels a much healthier way to be than always looking normal. and i realised when i was living in scotland i was walking the coastal path every day without thinking about that as being an important part of life, it was just something i did without needing to think about it, and then it went away because i wasn't there anymore. now i've implemented this again in my life as a deliberate daily practice: i go over the road into the abandoned property and climb trees, walk, make noise, sometimes i balance on a branch and do tai chi. overall i feel amazing, i take joy every moment in the simple experience of movement, the everchanging sensations of embodiment, even a couple of weeks ago when i got food poisoning and felt awful i was still able to find some delight in the uncommon experience of my gut wisely doing what it needed to do to cleanse itself.

in some ways a difficult year, but a year of internal growth and becoming always more myself. not sure what comes next but good processes are continuing so i trust good outcomes will eventuate.