2020 retrospective (+ sending postcards out early!)

it's the end of the year so here's a post looking back at everything i worked on with your support.

print-and-play scaredy cat dungeon: i released this at the beginning of january! (this feels SO long ago that i was surprised that it was actually this year - actually, i thought tomato clinic was from last year too... it's been quite the year.)

tomato clinic: my nanoreno game! it was really fun making something with little minigames & this is actually when my pronoun tool started - i had a lot of trouble figuring out a good way to implement selectable pronouns myself, so i decided to try to make a tool to make it easier.

deskspace: i wanted to make something that could help organise my thoughts & be a way to relax - this was what came of it. this was my first game with text input & what i learnt here helped me a lot with the shop of good memories!

a letter of challenge: i think if you've been following me for a while you should already know that i really really like gameplay loops & this was my take on a very condensed version of it haha.

a hero and a garden console version: this i was actually working on since 2019 & it finally got released... i'm really happy with how this went because it's the first time i have ever released a game on consoles under my own name. 

a pet shop after dark: i don't know if i'll ever make a horror game again but this was a great way to learn more python stuff for me! i like file mechanics so i'm hoping that eventually i can use it again (maybe in something a bit less spooky).

space frog: my first (& possibly last) twine. part of it was that i wanted to actually use twine since i always mention it as something that's easy to pick up. in the end i think that while twine IS easy to pick up, it's very hard to go to twine after using renpy which is harder to pick up but is so much more customisable.

a hero and a garden console version japan: this was delayed from the overseas release due to the publisher but it was very cool being able to see the game in the store in my own region! 

the shop of good memories: i tried renpy web again after almost a year of not using it (i made my hyena dressup game with it last year in dec) & i think it's improved a lot! however it's still definitely in beta so i might wait a bit more before trying it again.

pronoun tool: like i said above i've been trying to put this together into something more user-friendly since tomato clinic & i was finally able to release it! i'm honestly very very proud of it & i hope that it can be of use to other renpy devs.  

(and on top of this i was doing a lot of patches & updates for various things.)

overall this year i've just been trying to make things that might make people happy, because it's been a rough year and honestly i also need a bit more happiness too. hopefully the games i made this year could cheer you up a little bit!

for the rest of dec i'm going to be working on putting my spring trilogy together in a bundle (which i've been doing for the past couple of months... it's a lot of work revising everything!!). in the screenshot above you can see how the music/sfx are being fixed up too by sdhizumi (who's doing a REALLY GOOD JOB & i'm excited for all of you to hear it all when it's ready!).

before writing this i was thinking that i wish i could have done more this year - i always felt like i wasn't doing enough, that i was wasting too much time - but seeing it all lined up it helped me realise i actually did get quite a bit of stuff done.

having you all here supporting me through this year means a lot because it's been kind of rough for me. i've lost a couple of friends (some permanently through death, some through covid denial, some through prejudiced views that came up during the covid crisis) & the social distancing has seen me spend most of the year completely inside my flat. knowing you're all here because you want to support my games encourages me to keep making games, so thank you! 

i'm sending out postcards early this year so that i can have a bit of a rest during the end of december - it's a new-year-related postcard, so if you want to keep it a surprise until new years, keep the email unread! the thanks page is up here as well: https://npckc.site#thanks 

hoping that all of us have a better 2021. 

also a little timelapse video of the secret santa i made 👀 (patreon won't let me embed the video directly so here's a link!) https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570847988235108352/790380219545419796/pirate_timelapse.mp4