State of the Game, 2021

Hello all. As the year closes up shop and I get some time to myself, I thought it'd be nice to reflect on the year and how I think the game's done, as compared to my expectations at the start. It's very long and not especially cheerful at the end, so don't read it if you don't want to see how the bread is baked.

Successes

After a period of pre-planning and organising in 2020, 2021 was the first year I wrote full-steam on the game. It wrapped up at just over 110,000 words, which I am satisfied with. In prior years, I was capable of doing around 250,000 words of writing a year, but that was more typical fiction which allowed me to wax lyrical in long descriptive paragraphs that don't exist in a VN. Plus, writing for Ren'Py requires additional overhead that slows things down somewhat.

• After some initial experimentation at the start of the year, I settled on aiming for writing 15,000 words a month for the game. I'm satisfied with this goal, and will continue to use it going forward. I was able to hit it every single month (except for November) without having to sacrifice all of my free time, which was a big goal for me. I know from experience that spending all free time on a project just leads to exhaustion and burnout, so I set up a schedule that gave me at least one day a week off to do what I like.
• I determined that every fourth month would be taken off from game work (and not billed on Patreon) to give me an oppotunity to properly relax and recover my energy. This system worked very well for me, and helped me keep my motivation throughout the year.
• Alongside the 15k word goal, I settled on a "tick-tock" cadence for builds, whereby I spend one month writing more, but without editing, and the next month writing less, but doing a full editing pass at the end. Editing is very time-consuming, and only doing it on alternate months saves me a number of days that I would otherwise just lose (in terms of writing new words). The tick builds are only provided to patrons, thus avoiding confusion from people on Itch who might otherwise try it and find it lacking.
• The Itch page has provided a successful additional avenue to reach more players. In general, players seem to enjoy it, though of course the current lack of sprites holds it back from catching the eye of most people. When they start being added, I anticipate a jump in interest.

Challenges

It is difficult to iterate all the challenges that have come and gone (or, sadly, often stayed) this year. Some will be familiar to us all, while others are unique to the sort of country I live in.

• By far the biggest challenge this year has been access to electricity. My country has experienced the worst rolling blackouts in 7 years this year, and concurrent with that, the infrastructure in my local area has repeatedly caught on fire and burned to the ground. A total of 40 days were spent without power, plus an additional 20+ with intermittent power. When power would return, I would need to prioritise the requirements of my day job over writing, leading to often not being able to write on a day I should have. I was able to keep to my schedule with minimal delays for most of the year, until November when a triumvirate of disasters meant I could essentially not work for two weeks straight. I thus shelved the November build until next year. Multi-year plans to get a solar installation to obviate the worst of the electricity crisis were supposed to come to fruition at the end of this year, but were torpedoed by various other factors outside of my control, leaving me bereft of my hoped-for solution indefinitely. With writing now on hold until February, I am hopeful I can resolve things by then. Or that power cuts will simply stop (ha ha).
• Deaths in my family resulted in emotional distress that made - and, to some extent, continues to make - it difficult to write a fun, upbeat story. Only time can address this.
• The rise, fall and rise again of Covid has battered my country's economy, causing massive spikes in exchange rate that have affected costs of all kinds. This adds an additional layer of worry to my day-to-day, and the arrival of Omicron and the unjust travel bans knee-jerked upon Africa in response have done nothing to improve things. Costs will only rise, which makes me fearful for my employment status in future, and fear is not a great sauce for writing. Only vaccination can address this particular worry, but too many people across the world have decided that lifesaving medication is "not for them", so I guess the suffering will continue indefinitely.
• Unexpected eye surgery early next year may result in downtime of indeterminate length due to lack of vision.

The Future

I expect to continue to hit my 15,000 monthly words next year. That is all I am aiming for right now, since aiming for anything more than the bare minimum feels like tempting fate. I am pleased with how the story is shaping up and how the characters are coming to life, and that is all I can really ask for as a writer. The comments from those who've enjoyed it have been a pleasure to receive, and I shall revisit them often when hope and motivation temporarily flee.

Onwards to 2022.