Why We Pivoted, And Why We Need You With Us

$10 iteration vote results at the bottom

I won’t lie. This release had us very nervous. SR7's said the day of the release "There's not much there but I think people will like it"

Let's go back to May, SR7 and I decided it was time to pivot. For almost ten years we kept saying we wanted to try new ideas. Every year we promised we’d make time. Every year the “right moment” never showed up. It felt like it would be another year with few wins, and even more misses.

There comes a moment you can keep pushing through the same path, or you can pivot. Hoping for a perfect window is a trap. You need to take any chance that presents itself.

There’s a draft post I wrote and never found the courage to post it, called “Technical Debt.” The point is simple. When you choose the fast and easy way all the time, you build up mistakes. That debt comes due later. The only way to avoid it is to pick the hard, long path more often. We have 10 years of fast easy decisions.

At the start of Project Evolution, I asked SR7 to do what we don't. Take the hard path, every time. We had so many calls where we caught ourselves saying, “Next time let’s do it easier.” But easier isn’t always better. Easier makes you average, easier piles on mistakes. We’re done with that.

We’re building systems now. Not the buzzword kind. A real playbook we can use again and again. The goal is small fun experiences that we can get out in a time frame people will be happy with.

We believe this niche of games is missing small, fun, interactive games we can actually finish. We want to make those. Little games that are tight, punchy, and a blast to play. Great entry points for new players to discover h-games, and help us form an identity as being the best cape shit creators on the planet.

Your feedback so far has been way better than we expected. Thank you.

Here’s the plan. Get Project Evolution to a solid 1.0. Then try this again and build BoB2, getting better along the way. Then another small game. And another. Over the next 10 years, we want to make 10 sharp, exciting games that push what a VN can be and define who Gunsmoke Games is.

And we want your fingerprints on all of them.

The only way we accomplish doing all this is with support from patrons, and their great feedback. Our release post has over 100 comments and we have carefully read them all. Project Evo is already better today because of all of you.

There will be an exclusive SU sneak peek for all $10 patrons and higher on Sunday!

Thanks for riding with us.

Gunsmoke Games

Iteration vote results: The Checklist will be the focus of Patreon posts.

Thanks for everyone who voted. We already shared early mock ups with the $20 tier. Keep your eyes out in the $10 chat on Patreon to help us iterate not only the checklist but a lot more!