Big Kitty Games, Solace Crafting, and myself

I recorded a video in January to welcome in the New Year with, and to update the community on myself and the game, but I really wasn't happy with it and over the course of January I re-recorded it twice. Eventually I uploaded this video to YouTube, and thought that I set it to unlisted as I still wasn't happy with it, and started to realize I wasn't really even sure about what it was I was really trying to get across to our community as a whole.

It's now been over four and a half years since I started working on Solace Crafting back in 2017. It's required me to repeatedly refine and reduce the roadmap. The developer that I was in 2017 simply didn't have the hands on experience required to properly weigh the difficulty of the scope of the game and it's different systems and features, of which there are many. This is the underlying main reason that development has carried on this long, which is in turn the main reason that I've become increasingly burnt out on the solo development of Solace Crafting.

Burnt out or not though, I've never once been interested in abandoning Solace Crafting, that's just not how my mind works. I don't think that serves anyone any good, and in wanting to at least get the game to a more "complete" stage as a prerequisite to leave early access, I've tried hard to stay motivated over the past year and finish up the few remaining features, but it has been a long slow dredge through muddy waters. One option that always sits before me is to simply say, "this is good enough," and release the game as no longer in early access, but some mix of my ego, my standards as a multi-decade gamer, and my long term interest of building a successful game company keep me from doing so.

A couple of weeks ago I finally came to an understanding that Solace Crafting isn't necessarily as important as Big Kitty Games, and is rather it's first title, of which I hope there are yet many to come. One thing that I've always been afraid of is being open about my use of time on another title, given that Solace Crafting is still in early access. Lately however, it's slowly sinking in that anything good for Big Kitty Games is ultimately good for Solace Crafting. I know, as a gamer, that what we really want is just plain good games. It's nice when they come sooner than later, but to quote the famous Shigeru Miyamoto from Nintendo: "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever."

I think it is primarily in my best interest, to reduce the amount of time I actively spend developing Solace Crafting, but ultimately is a long term important decision that I am correct in making for Solace Crafting itself as well. I have for the past two weeks been primarily working on a second title, and the speed of progress has shown me very clearly just how much I have grown not only as a programmer and Unity generalist, but as a game designer as well. I think it's safe to say I've already completed somewhere around 30-40% of all the code the game will ever need as it's much more based on content than it is a long list of complicated and intertwined systems. If I am able to release a successful second title, that will mean more resources available to Big Kitty Games, which of course means more resources for Solace Crafting.

Movement in this direction of actively and openly working on a second title brings up some new questions. It is, I know from experience, going to be taken poorly by some percentage of players, but honestly anything you do is always perceived as a poor decision by some percentage of players. Should this Patreon account be changed from "Solace Crafting" to "Big Kitty Games"? Should the Discord follow a similar route. These and other questions will need to be answered in the coming months.

Having just under two weeks of development in my new title it's definitely not something I'm ready to show off yet, as first impressions do carry weight. This is not a "let's make a game" tutorial series, so I want to get it a presentable vertical slice stage before I make a website and a Steam page for it, but progress is going very well, and I look forward to being able to present it in particular to our community, as there are certain aspects of it that pull from things we've talked about doing Solace Crafting, but never were quite able to get implemented.

All-in-all, this is a far overdue update and I apologize for the lack of of anything posted here since the start of 2022. We had a massive earthquake here in Japan last week that has put several energy production facilities offline until they can be thoroughly inspected, followed by a nation wide blizzard today that is now straining the energy grid. We're being warned there may be blackouts starting tonight, and the virus is ever present, but I promise to keep moving forward as long as I can and can't thank everyone enough for their continued support here through Patreon and elsewhere.

I hope you are all safe and warm wherever you may be.

Kyle Postlewait