A 2021 Post Mortem + 2022 Goals

Heyyo Everybuddy!  

It's been a hot minute. I just wanted to take a minute, look back at the year I just had, some general thoughts on it, as well as my thoughts for what I want to get done in the year ahead.

The Patreon - some updates

My Patreon has grown quite a fair amount in just a year. from just under $20 at the start of 2021, to just under $100 by its end. That is nearly a 5 times increase in funding for what i do! I cannot being to thank you guys so much for the support that gives me, not just financially, but emotionally to know there are people who like the silly things that I do!

I am super happy, and while I hope that it continues to grow, I got a few more incentives to add to the old patreon for anyone interested.

$5+ Patrons will have their names credited at the end of any future Youtube videos I end up making 

$25 Patrons will get a monthly dedicated sketch from me of your choosing. Qulaity level will be roughly of the level of my daily doodles (so line art only). Suggested sketch should be informed to me by the 15th of each month, or else that month's dedicated sketch is forfeit.

anyways with that out of the way, onto the reviewing last years new years resolution, and MBaW! game development.

2021 - The Year that Was

At The Start of 2021, I set myself 4 Goals to accomplish over the year. So how did those go?

1. Do a daily doodle every day in the year - I had a habit of drawing daily in my notebook every day, but had fallen off the habit for some time. So i decided, for 2021, to reinstate it, bringing it back digitally, and sharing each doodle every day with my patrons over on our Discord Server. and I must say this was a shinning success! Not only did I not miss a single day (though some days were quite close), I found sharing them to be quite engaging, and I am sure you all did too! I am sure to be continuing this for 2022, save if any extreme life events hold me up, like having to move again.

2. Do a Monthly Live-stream every Month - Another solid success. my monthly live streams, have been fun, and chill, and i am very much planning on continuing to do this into 2022. the only thing i gotta do is advertise them more, to let people know they're happening.

3. Make a Hypnagogia Prototype for Dream Diary Jam 2021 - a mixed success. I certainly attempted this when it happened. unfortunately it had just been at a bad time, with it coinciding with some time consuming life events, and some poor decisions on my part, ending the jam with not much genuinely playable. but it did help me solidify my vision for Hypnagoiga going forward, and i made a separate mechanical prototype in my own 3-day jam sess a few months later, so I will take this as a win.

4. Make a Youtube Video - another technical/mixed success. when i set this goal for myself,  had a specific video in mind i wanted to make: a Video Essay i had already written the script for, but alas some things have held that project up past the years end. luckily, i had discovered the genre of speedpaint videos this year, found them really fun, so made a quick and dirty little speedpaint video, just to prove to myself i could make one. and it came out surprisingly good for an unscripted first attempt I knocked out in a weekend! XD

MBaW! Development in 2021: In terms of Game Development outside of the Game Jams, I was able to make a new patreon build of My Boyfriend's a Werecat! back in May with more than double the content I had made in the Demo released about a year earlier. But after that, as the year kept going, I found development on the game kept getting stalled at various points, mostly in terms of the edit. Editing MBaW! as been a... challenge for me. not just general editing for it, but editing specific to this being a visual novel. stuff like assigning character expressions for lines in dialog which has proven so difficult due to both the standardize I've been holding myself to, and the general amount of sprite I have per character. Zack has, at time of writing, roughly +55 different sprites and that's not counting stuff like outfit changes, or transformations, thats just normal expressions. And while Zack naturally has the lion's share because he is the main character, it has likely reached a complete saturation point as I can no longer keep track of them all for editing, and I know I am not done making sprites for Zack. there certain scenes or lines I know I will need to make a new sprite for him to capture something genuinely different in his expression. That, and the naturally high amount of Custom art (aka CGs) I have made and still want to make for the game, means I need to change something about how I am working on MBaW! to do things more effectively.

Because of this, I also realized MBaW!'s story is going to need changes and alterations too. the original draft I have been working on for years was always meant to be only half the story. it was Act 1 in a two act story, structured deliberately like a play. This version of MBaW! had you play act 1, have a silly one scene intermission in the middle, then have Act 2 start immediately. and my plan for production was to make all of Act 1, have that completely done, then start the process all over with Act 2. However, since Act 1 is taking literal years to make, and a future Act 2 would likely take just as long, I realized it would be better to formally split MBaW! Act 1 into being a fully independent narrative. basically treat the ideas as less Act 1 and 2 of a singular narrative, and more like Book 1 and potentially book 2 in a series. Basically, What I have of MBaW! Act 1 needs to be restructure at least a little to be a more complete package on its own, while still being open for a sequel, rather than Act 1 of a play. I know that might feel like a weird semantic difference to some people, but It matters to me, to make My Boyfriend's a Werecat!  the best thing it can be. Which of course gets us onto...

2022 - Plans for the Year

So I like to set myself some general goals for the year, as you saw about. And these Goals I feel work best as something super simple an actionable (do 12 livestreams, do X everyday), than some more nebulous things I could do like "Advertise myself more" or, "Get Better at Youtubing". Like, yeah, I can try those things, and I certainly will, but they are not really good at directing me as something simple as "Participate in this Year's Dream Diary Jam", which is clear direct, and actionable. but also i do want to avoid potentially over-stuffing my goals for the year. last years 4 felt like quite a lot, and while i did manage to technically do all of them, I am still using the term technical. I did have to fudge a bit just to meet my own weird mind goals. Additionally, i don't want to overwork myself even on things i like, because, until I make enough of patreon and other silly things I do, all this is still sadly just a side gig unfortunately. so even something like "make a youtube video every month" might prove too much at this point. So I'mma see if i can land on the middle of these.

1. Make a Hypnagogia Prototype for Dream Diary Jam 2022 - pretty self explanatory. I'mma try another hand at making my own little weird game for the game jam this year. learning from the mistakes of last year, and my more focused vision of the game, maybe i can try to make something more material this year.

2. Make More Youtube Video's this Year- both actionable, I will know when i succeeded easily, and also flexible. I can make just 1 more, and that's more, or I can make 2, or even *gasp* 3, and that all counts as "more". Plus, I already have one in the works, another speedpainting video of some popular ships I like, on this time it's have like, a script and a point to it, not just me rambling XD.

Besides those two i will still be trying to make daily art for yall, and get a live-stream every month, but i ain't putting those on as "goals" cuz i already met them, so why put more of the same.

Then there is of Course MBaW! plans and development. As mentioned, I was at a bit of a crossroads for MBaw! development by years end, so I have spent the time looking over the project, and how to improve it. With some help from a new Editor I am bringing onto the project, I was able to "fix" a most of the holes I felt I saw in a standalone ACT 1.

However, in the search for that editor, i realized something. a lot of my systems for MBaW! on a technical side of things are jank as all get out. most of it is custom, so that is fair, but it personally has never been up to my standard of quality, and i simply do not have the ability or the time to polish them up all nice and good. So, one of the first things I am planning on doing is switching my systems over from my various custom things, to a stare bought polished VN set up i have been extensively looking into called NaniNovel.

I think the switch to something like NaniNovel is needed, and the game will be even better to play afterwards, but it will mean needing to go over everything i have already written into the game and edit it to use NaniNovel's syntax, rather than my Ink derived syntax I have been editing it in. So that is naturally going to be a lot of work, at least a month or two, but it does pair nicely with another thing i have been thinking of for MBaW!

See, while I was able to "fix" most of what Standalone Act 1 would have a story, I also realize its not quite the story I want to tell With My Boyfriend's a Werecat! As it stands, MBaW! Act 1 is the story of Zack discovering he is a Werecat. But the story I want to tell is Zack dealing with being a werecat in full, starting with the discovery, and moving into just dealing with it, the fun struggles and adventures that could bring. and so it makes sense to have MBaW! start and play out as it does, part of me wants to just get past it, to get onto what definitely engages me more about the story and the characters. And thinking on it seriously, I realize MBaW! overall would be a better told story overall if it was more Episodic. say, 12-13 smaller (around 1-2 hour) episodes, versus 2-3 longer (6-12 hour) books. So, ontop of Switching over the tech to NaniNovel, I am also planning on shifting MBaW! over to a more Episodic Format.

MbaW! Act 1's script as is can be and will be broken up into roughly 4 distinct episodes. While it would streamline the choices available to the player a bit, thus cutting something from the beginning of the story, it wouldn't be difficult at all to salvage them and rework them into later into the story.  More importantly, it would let me release them sooner. Reworked into episodes, we already have basically all the content for Episode 1, and most of the content for Episode 2 as well. This means, when the switching over to new tech and editing is done, It wouldn't be long after that Episode 2 is done. And when it's done, I could release it to patron's first for ~a month or so, then release it publicly. and then start of Episode 3, and approach MBaW! in a more structured piecemeal way, work on an episode, finish an episode, release and episode, start work on next episode (with breaks as needed of course.

Anyways, so that's a lot of me rambling now, so I'mma stop here.

Again, Thank you all for supporting me, and making 2021 as suprisingly fun as it was. And here is to 2022, being hopefully even better!