I scheduled a staycation - a workcation? Some time to really sit down and hash out my project and clear my head

I've been getting that hopeless feeling in my day job again. I think it's a mix of frustration, burnout, and uselessness. Not based off my personal ability and skill, and not even based off my immediate team members, but mainly because my equipment doesn't work, and no one really knows why and can't really help during the pandemic. That's all I can really say without breaking confidentiality. I really feel like I need some time off to recharge...

...So I've scheduled a week's worth of vacation for my day job in a few weeks (June 8th-12th) to knock out a significant portion of Selatria's progress. A hardcore Selatria game jam, if you will. I aimed to do this at some remote location but due to COVID traveling that far to an unknown location is just too risky to do this time. So I plan on being in the San Bernardino studio just knocking out tasks going off a priority.

1. Reviewing content in Testing column and doing whatever it takes to be marked as Complete
2. Knocking out In-Progress tasks I can't do in a normal workday or too tired to do without stopping.
3. Giving a LOT of detailed feedback if the task involved is not something I have the skills to do myself.
4. Start throwing in tasks from backlog that I never had time to get to if I really want this done by November.

The goal is to try and get a first draft of the entire game by year's end and I might be swinging an axe to cut things down or change it as needed. I'm really excited for June and seeing how this is going to go, and really moving the needle on getting the game done and rid of a lot of tasks in the backlog.

I know it's weird to say that work is the one thing that'll really clear my head, but I feel like these mental blocks to get the game done is one additional thing hampering my personal growth and getting a whole week to sit down and work on it without having to wake up at ungodly hours in the morning or walking around for a convention will really allow me to recharge and flourish.

At least I hope so.

Indie Developer Rebranding/Company Image/Acquisition/Buyout Ramble

So I saw the news about the rebrand of Mojang Studios today, and it has me reflecting/reminiscing  on how much their studio (and ours... and me) has evolved. The year Notch released Minecraft to alpha was the same year me as a college student decided to work on games under an (at the time) unofficial "Whim Independent Studios" label. That year was 2009. Due to the original founder's racist, sexist, and homophobic thoughts and opinions (and he has long since left the company), Microsoft made the move to largely downplay the founder's involvement in making it the success that it is, and I understand their decision on that. I would have done the same thing. That being said, I still wonder what he thinks about his indie creation blowing up into this giant phenomenon. While Mojang Studios is now a money-making machine for parent company Microsoft, whimindie is a small indie studio still done largely in our moonlighting time while we work our day jobs.

With the cross of indie games becoming mainstream successes, bigger companies are making pushes to buy out the indie and call their successes its own successes. Well, that's how most acquisitions are supposed to work, anyway.

Some background: As a gamer, I was really saddened by what happened to Rare when they got purchased by Microsoft in the early 2000's. (Rumor has it that Microsoft was even initially celebrating that they got the rights to Donkey Kong. Oops!) Either way, the Rare that existed after Microsoft's acquisition no longer had Nintendo's golden hand in creating the franchises that brought them to the fore-front, and it definitely showed in what I feel was a large decline of their games quality in the years passed. A lot of their awesome talent left, some of them went freelance or banded together and spun off into what's now known as Playtonic. And their games have gotten a lot better and I feel they're underrated. (I'm a huge fan of Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair BTW)

My initial thoughts when forming "Whim Independent Studios" in 2009 was not that it was after my last name or even that we were an indie game developer. Nothing was thought out like that. I gave it that name because I just thought of games on a whim and started creating them, and if one of them became enough of a success that a company would want to acquire the company, good luck, because we're independent. No one was going to take my company and my games away from me and ruin my franchises and company the way Microsoft did Rare. Can you tell bitter 18-year-old me didn't have the long-term business mentality?

It's been 11 years since then, and now I feel like I'm in a crossroads. We're making awesome games, we're making awesome content. What if we were offered a buyout in the future? Would I be willing to part with my stake and have a big company muddy my original visions of my games?

Maybe that viewpoint is still a bit unfair. The Microsoft we see today is a lot different than the Microsoft that existed in 2002. They have had many successful acquisitions since then and know where to leave them alone. They've also embraced cross-platform even more than Sony at this point. I really appreciate them allowing 'Cuphead' and 'Ori and the Blind Forest' on the Switch. Two really awesome games.

There's also the inevitable comparisons that any weird creative pursuit I have after that initial one will always be compared to the one that was the breakout success. Also the concern that what I'm making is on-message or on-brand as a subsidiary or with someone else pulling the strings, and that's almost antithetical to the mindset of an indie game developer. I don't want whimindie (or myself) to be known to just make one type of game. We should be able to make any type of game we want as long as it's fun and multi-platform. (Or maybe that is our message to stick to those two "defining" principles.)

I see things a bit differently now. If someone was willing to buy out my game franchise/company/ideas, I feel like I could eventually go on leave and try something else independently. When I was younger, I was so concerned about someone stealing my concepts or my games that I wouldn't tell anyone about them. Now I'll freely tell my stacks of ideas and diagrams that I know would be successful but no one really cares about doing them. And I know they won't. The really creative people I know have their own ideas and their own pursuits. I don't have time to do my other ideas/plans right now. Maybe I won't have time to ever get to them. I'm still working on finishing a game that was based off a mentality I had 10 years ago, let alone making a game that matches the tastes and views that I have now. Games take a lot of work to do. If someone were to capitalize on only one of my pursuits, I have many more I can follow.



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Whim Independent Studios - Development Log #51

Hey everyone! This is the 51st development log for the studio. It's been about a year and a few months since the last one. In the 50th development log, I said that I was planning on stopping writing these as we were planning on rolling out more small bite-size updates with the studio through more conventional social media platforms. I've kind of reversed this stance and will continue to add development logs.

In the past year since this last development log we've announced two new games. Spellbearers which we're developing in-house (I'll talk about that a little later), and Corpse Castle which is a game we're publishing by Wicked Cake Games.

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A new look/era for the studio

This week, we had the debut of new look and logo for our studio.

With this new logo, we wanted to have a consistent visual style for different forms of media and a recognizable logo that shows we are involved with making the product. Our new logo and branding was developed by the talented Jessica M. Jacuinde.

Demonstration at Playcrafting!

With the state of where we're at, there's been a large increase in virtual game demonstrations. We were invited to show off Spellbearers and Corpse Castle at the Global Game Night: Made in Los Angeles event. There were a lot of other awesome games there and we are fortunate to have shared the virtual stage with other very talented developers.

You can see the full lineup of Playcrafting games shown at Los Angeles on the Playcrafting website.




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Selatria Announcements

Progress is coming nicely on Selatria. We are currently working on development of the final two chapters. Polishing the second to last chapter and creating cutscenes, boss battles, and dungeon designs for the final chapter.

We are making some quality of life improvements when it comes to the main menu screen. Originally the player would have to navigate to an obscure Exit/Options menu to get to additional Options and Quick Save. We noticed this was being missed by our players who left feedback on Selatria not being friendly to quick/short play sessions.

With the release of the full game, we're making it easier to tweak sounds/visuals in the game and easier to access Quick Save by prominently featuring it on the main menu. Also, features that unlock later in the game will not be pictured in the menu at all instead of being blocked out with question marks. Unfortunately due to the screen size limitation of older RPG Maker games, we had to compromise the size of the area window. For places with large names, we did our best to abbreviate things in a way that makes sense.

Also, it's time to say good bye to "Advent of the Dakk'rian Empire". We released the first half a few years back as a compromise to not being able to hit our funding goals for the full game. We are planning on de-listing the first half to be available for purchase on June 1st, 2020. 

For those who have already purchased it and purchase it before that date, you will be able to play the game indefinitely. We still have plans to allow you to carry over data obtained in Advent of the Dakk'rian Empire to the full version of the game when we announce a release timetable for the full game. The full release will also include all "Advent of the Dakk'rian Empire" scenarios and cutscenes.

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Spellbearers

In general, I think this is the first time I've had the opportunity to really talk about our new game "Spellbearers" on this blog since we announced. Spellbearers is a co-op twin stick shooter inspired by the retro game "Smash TV" but with a medieval Zelda/Castlevania like twist.
Gerren Willis pitched Spellbearers to us as a new game he's been working on after we finished ANTics together a few years back. After hearing the pitch, we were enthusiastically on board and brought on our team's artists, composers, and marketing to help develop the project further!

Though we originally had a playable build at LVLUPEXPO 2020 at the beginning of the year, we kept the first boss a secret... until now.

If you didn't see the Playcrafting show, here's a little bit of what you missed. During the show we showed off the first boss of the game to the public for the first time. The Harlegon! If you missed footage of the game, here are some screenshots.

We'll have plenty more to share about Spellbearers later this year. Please look forward to it!

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That'll do it for this development log. It's good to be posting again. Until next time! Or I'll see you on our Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or Discord! Stay connected. Stay safe.



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