This year… I worked on a game.
It’s been pretty rough. In many ways, I feel like I’m still where I was writing my 2012 retrospective a year ago. It doesn’t help that since then I’ve been socialising less to save money and working harder to get things done; I’ve been banking stress and isolation for a while now. I’ve developed regular bursts of depression. Ste Pickford’s retrospective comic cut pretty close for me in many ways, as I’m sure it has for others.
I’ve withdrawn. I’ve posted less on Twitter and hardly posted here at all. My life’s kinda sucked and I haven’t wanted to share that. Even this post’s difficult to write.
But some good stuff’s happened this year too!
- I’ve been working with an artist for the past year, John Attea, who’s been doing a great job redoing and expanding the environment artwork. You can see the general bump in quality in this Let’s Play from May.
- The game got huge. It now has three campaigns, each with new monsters, new environments and an epic bossfight. Even if you never die, I’m pretty sure just seeing the end of this thing is an easy four or five hours of solid gameplay and new content. You definitely won’t have explored all the classes or made a dent in the achievement system by then. I’m super happy with how the game’s come together.
- It now runs on iPhone and iPad and does it pretty well. 🙂
- The game was approved on Greenlight and will, in time, be coming to Steam.
Finally, here’s the big one for me personally. It made most of the rest possible.
Late last year I tried an Indiegogo campaign for CQ2 to fund remaining development – which failed. Things were looking pretty bleak, but early this year Kongregate stepped up and took Cardinal Quest 2 on under their new mobile publishing initiative. They saved CQ2 from being pushed out early and unfinished, so a huge thank you to them! 🙂
This is another reason I’ve been quiet about some stuff. I’m no longer working by myself, the game has a publisher. I’m frankly happiest leaving business and marketing decisions to them and focusing on the game, so it’s their role to discuss release dates etc. I’m hopeful the forms the game will be available in become clear over the next few months, as our plans come together and – if all goes to plan – the first versions of the game come out.
My resolution for 2014 will be the same as last year’s, I guess: make more games, after I ship this one. I should have a chance to act on that soon enough. Until then, I’ll add a second resolution which I can start work on right now: I’m gonna find ways to heal the situation I’m in and make sure the grind doesn’t pull me back down. 🙂