Weekly Update #4 2018.02.12

Roughly six years ago someone I knew put a game on Steam. It wasn't just "someone else," it was someone whose house I had been to as a child, who grew up in more or less the same environment as I did. I lost my excuse for not getting into game development, which up to that point had seemed "out of my league." But I was not a game developer. I had no formal education in the subject and of course no professional experience either, nor did I need them. I had 30 years of gamer frustration, and a fierce belief that I could do better.

I started out writing in notebooks what I thought made games fun, and what a game would be like if I were to make it. I watched tutorial videos on programming for hours every night. I made, and remade voxel engines and mesh generators over and over. After years of trial and error I had a rough outline for a game I knew others like me could enjoy, I only needed to make it.

I'm inclined here to say "unfortunately, I spent almost a year and half trying to work social media and crowdfunding campaigns in my favor," but I'm confident the experience I gained from that time was necessary and will serve me well in the years to come.

Today I punched my time card for the last time at my job as a CAD Operator in the manufacturing industry. Tomorrow I start my first day as a Game Developer, and Owner of Big Kitty Games. It was a long road, full of strangers and kindness and coffee, lot's of coffee.

Over the next 5 months I hope to improve Solace Crafting into a stable and robust game worthy of increased sales. I hope to in time generate enough revenue to put together a small team of dedicated developers, so that we can bring Solace Crafting to a level of performance and content that it would take me years to achieve on my own. My long term goals for Solace Crafting are many and we've got a lot to do even before version 1.0, but the path is clearly defined and I am ready.

Tomorrow is day one.