Back to the Drawing Board

Saturday, December 24, 2016

After 2 long months, this VR Jam is finally over. I put more effort into it than probably any project in years, if not ever. With my $0 budget and limited time constraints I was stretched all over, digging deep to find new levels of talent I had never seen before from myself. I had to do scripting, 3D modeling, shader coding, texture creation, animation, logo design/creation, menu creation, design new original game mechanics, scene composition, design a consistent aesthetic, create story/premise, design and create a trailer, come up with humor for everything, testing with limited to no proper hardware, and probably stuff I'm forgetting. It's an insane amount of areas I have to have skill in and divide my limited time between.
In the end after doing my best to step up to that kind of challenge, I was quite proud of my end result! For a Jam game, it was quite complete. More so for one doing EVERYTHING by one man on no budget. I never expected to win, but I always felt I had a good chance of doing so. I was certainly going to have my game be a standout entry due to its character, originality and style. And that's all I wanted.

And boy... how I failed...

I'm still utterly baffled. Not only did I not win anything against a pool of mediocre entries, some how I didn't even make the top 20 of 40? Due to bullshit, because I didn't make that top 20, people aren't even allowed to vote for my game for the community choice prize! That's right, the community choice prize isn't actually up to the community! It's instead the "Community's Choice Among the Judges Choice Prize". FUCK YOU MSI/WEARVR! They stacked the deck, and showed massive bias and corruption at every step. The Jam was a complete dishonest pile of horse shit.

In the end, I wasted 2 months on a game that was rendered completely invisible and unappreciated. Beyond that, the community didn't give a shit about my game either. Few downloads, no comments or talk. I utterly failed, hard. This is what hurt the most. I spent 2 months working really hard on this demo, I was really proud of it, and not one fuck was given about it. The world was speaking and telling me to fuck off. I'm not wanted. My game isn't wanted.

So needless to say, all plans for continuing the game into a full commercial release or a sequel have been completely scrapped.

I've been completely crushed, and embarrassed. I was THIS close to quitting the dream of being a developer at all. It's honestly a miracle that I didn't. I'm used to trying and failing. Trying and succeeding, well, that would be new. But NEVER have I tried THIS MUCH and failed so hard. I felt I was about due for a Win once in my life, and felt the only chance I'd ever get that win is if I committed everything I could to succeeding. When you do that and still fail miserably, then what?

I don't know. This is all I have. This is the only path I can see for myself. So even if it doesn't make sense, I have no choice but to move forward. How is the next project going to be any different? I have no clue. How can I have learned from this? What mistakes did I make? I have no idea. How will I find the motivation to follow through with my next project and make it the best it can possible be? I'm drawing a blank.

The only thing I can take away is a couple things I could criticize myself for. Even then, it's mostly just things I didn't have the time to invest more attention on, or prioritize above other things. It's not like I messed up, but instead just didn't do perfectly.

But I'll have to work with that. And also try looking at other games and asking myself "Why is this shitty game made mostly of asset packs and ripped off game design more popular with judges and players then mine?". "What did they do or prioritize that I didn't?". Maybe I was trying to hard. Thinking to hard. Limiting myself somehow by wanting to make something good and original, instead of run of the mill familiar. Maybe I have to assume players are idiots and only attracted to pure the Eye Candy of unoriginal purchases art assets.

That's kind of what I attempting right now. Come at development and design from a completely different angle. Low ball peoples intelligence. Lower my own. Stop thinking how I think. Grab myself a brain off the assembly line and crap out ideas with that.

Oddly enough, I already have a project or 2 in mind. Ideas I thought of a couple years ago and didn't do anything with because they were to dumb. I'll say this now. If this path ends up being an opened pandoras box of popular shit you wish never existed and would just go away, the Justin Beiber of games, it's not my fault. You asked for this. I wanted to make GOOD games. Not pander to the lowest common denominator. My concise is clean because, damn it, I need to make money! I need to succeed! I need to be done wallowing in the shadows and poverty.