Hey everyone! I wasn't really expecting to come back to this dev blog in 2019 and make another blog post again. I have been away from blogging for so long. I decided to just quit doing it because it felt like a waste of time and I wanted to focus all my energy on just making the games instead of talking about them. But you know what? I was wrong. Blogging isn't a waste of time. I built this thing up over the years and it's a great way to keep everyone updated in detail on what I have been up to. I don't do youtube vlogs or really keep track of my "evolution" as a game dev really well. And posting tweets on Twitter about progress and whatnot can't really fill that role. Also, I have a lot of history on here and this blog kind of fills as my personal archive and journey as a game developer. I still can't believe I started this way back in 2011. I have learned so much and changed a lot as a game developer and 3d artist over the years. It's crazy to look back at my older posts, artwork, and games.
Anyway, let me just get right into it and give you guys an update on what I have been up to all this time. First, I would like to say that I am not dead. I'm still very alive and very obsessed with game development. More obsessed with it now than when I first started.
I know that 2019 has been a pretty dry year for me so far. At the beginning of the year, I launched my official website and ported my most recent game "Giraffe Town" to Xbox. That's it. Other than that, I kinda disappeared. By the way, Giraffe Town originally came out October last year. It's pretty old now for being called "my most recent game". That was the last game I made. So, it's been almost a full year now and I haven't even hinted at a new game. Nothing new on my Youtube channel and I haven't been very active on Twitter lately. (But then again, I have a special rule for myself when it comes to Twitter. And that is to remain secretive and not post screenshots, footage, teasers, early wips, dev images or anything from my new game project(s) until they are finished. I don't like to share any of that stuff until after a project is finished or released. I'm just weird like that.)
So what gives? Why haven't I done anything this year? Did I just get bored with game development and decide to quit? Did I run out of ideas? Did I get a new career as a hot male model instead? No to all of those things. I know 2019 has been a pretty slow, unexciting and dry year for "Snowconesolid Productions" aka the "greatest independent game dev of all space and time" so far but, that doesn't mean it has been an unproductive one. As a matter of fact, I feel like this has been one of my most productive years ever so far. But a different kind of productive. Not the kind of productivity I can show publicly in an end product like a new game release. It's more like, "behind the scenes" or I guess "under the hood" kind of stuff.
No, I haven't been spending all this time just working on one new game or my next "big idea". Instead, I have been working on all areas of myself as a game developer and an independent studio. I feel that I have made it pretty far as a small-time game developer from when I first started years ago. This is something that's actually my career now and I would like it to remain so for as long as possible because I sincerely love creating games and have so much respect for the art form that is video games. I'm really fortunate and grateful to be where I am today and have the opportunities to do what I love doing. So, if I want to continue to pursue this thing, I wanna do it right. While I'm proud of my previous game, "Giraffe Town" and it was a major step up from my first game on Steam, it still showed a lot of my weaknesses as a game developer and designer. Giraffe Town showed a lot of flaws and many areas that I could still improve in. I've really started to take my career as a game developer more seriously after that game. Giraffe Town was a big milestone and a major turning point for me.
Instead of reusing assets or mechanics I have made for that game and just quickly cranking out another new slippery controlled game in a shorter time to ride off of that momentum, I decided to take a step back and rethink how I approach making games and completely just rebuild myself as a game developer. I've said before many times that quality and polish are super important to me. I don't want to be seen as another hobbyist developer that just threw a game together and put it on Steam but, instead, more of a professional who knows what they are doing. I really want to deliver cool experiences and games that are enjoyed. I'm trying to step things up and I think rebuilding myself (I am a machine) is a good first step.
So, what have I been doing this year so far? I have been planning and becoming more organized. I have been learning and re-learning, researching and experimenting with new approaches to game design, game techniques, optimization, improving my skills, trying to create my own unique 3d art style (I think I have found it). I have been building a pipeline for my own style of production instead of just being all over the place so that I actually have a good format to work off of so that I'm not always confused and lost about what I was doing. I have notepads full of ideas I want to create and I have started several new game projects. I created a ton of brand new 3d art such as new characters, environments, and props that I have never shared and so much more. So, pretty much, I have just been setting myself up for the future and getting ready to really operate like a game developer. I haven't been thinking about my next game (that will come in time), but instead, I've been thinking about where I want to be and what I want to accomplish as a game developer. Just really putting in a lot of thought into everything, how I can accomplish creating an idea a certain way and so on. I have so much cool stuff planned and things that I'm working on. I really feel like I have come a long way and really improved a lot since creating Giraffe Town and hopefully, that will really show in my next projects. I've really invested a lot of time into rebuilding myself and I think it's all worth it if it means my creative output will result in better quality games.
So, although I might have been a little quiet this year with nothing new to show so far, I promise you will hear a lot from me down the road. I haven't abandoned game development and I'm really excited to eventually start putting out new content. If you read this far, thanks so much for sticking around and listening to a crazy person ramble on. This has been a super long post and I normally don't like spending time typing up big blogs that are just all talk like this but, I feel like I had to post an update. From this point on, I probably won't ever make another blog post like this again though. And, I still probably won't post updates here very frequently. Just going to keep hammering away on the actual projects from now.
Before I go.
I shared these screens on Twitter a while back, but here they are again in case you didn't see them. A couple examples of some of my newer 3d work and what you can expect my next game projects to look like. I'm very proud of this 3d style. If I had to describe it, I would say that it's a weird mix of cartoony/stylized and early uncanny "realistic" computer graphics. Think early 2000's (maybe a little earlier) 3d game promotional art. The renders of promotional art you would find for Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie or Donkey Kong for example. I loved that kind of look and that's really what I'm kind of trying to go for.
Alright, that's all for now. Thanks, everyone who still visits and reads the blog!
