Recent struggle and a new direction (or rather back to an old one?)

Hey everyone, hope you had a great Halloween if that’s your thing.

(Just to be clear, I'm not going anywhere, and I AM releasing content this month, in case the wrong impression is being made here!)

I’ve debated with myself whether or not to write this post as it is making me feel very incompetent and guilty, especially after October was a shit month frankly. I understand if you don’t want to read yet another long self pitying post (it does end on a positive though!)

I’ve been struggling HARD lately, creatively speaking, and I couldn’t figure out why. I’ve been feeling guilty because of it because I consider myself extremely lucky that I am able to do this thanks to you, my wonderful supporters, and yet I’ve been failing to put out consistent content as if it was some boring office job I don’t care about.

This guilt and frustration with myself has put me on this downward spiral that just piles on all the negative thoughts which in turn makes me struggle more with making content and around and around I go.

To be fully transparent about what happened with October’s content; it just kept falling apart. I’d get half way through an idea and it would just suck, it just completely collapsed into a pile of shit and it would happen to each map I tried to do.
My previous post was looking for feedback on a multi level trap map. That didn’t work out. I tried a bunch of other ideas, none of them worked out and I couldn’t figure out why I was struggling so much.

I eventually gave in and looked for advice from a community of peers and after many hours of conversation I believe I’ve figured out why I’ve been having so much creative strife that has been getting worse over this year.

And that reason is that I’ve lost my way, at some point I’ve diverged away from what I truly enjoy about making maps and wandered off into the overgrowth without anything to cut my way through (I’m not good at analogies!).

I started making asset brushes for myself nearer the start of the year and they have been very useful in filling in the detail on my maps but in a misguided attempt to make things easier for myself and produce more content for you guys I’ve ended up leaning far too heavily into asset brushes, and now it feels like I’m just making maps in my own personal dungeon draft rather than making an actual piece of art. I’ve started to turn EVERYTHING into an asset and that REALLY doesn’t lend itself to cohesive maps or satisfying art making.

Another major factor is that I’ve been worried that the content I was putting out wasn’t enough, that I needed to one up myself each time otherwise y’all would get bored because I wasn’t able to keep up with larger creators like czepeku or such like who have whole teams making their stuff now, incredible maps with animations and huge multi levels dungeons and all that that I just can’t keep up with as one person. I feel boring and unworthy by comparison.

So those two things combined had me spiraling out of control and becoming someone I don’t want to be, causing my art to suffer and in turn causing the content you pay for to go downhill (at least that is how I see it).

I had a recent exit survey that said ‘Preferred older direction’ and I wish to god that exit surveys weren’t anonymous because I would love to chat to the person that wrote that because I am in full agreement! On the off chance you are the person who wrote that (or share the same thoughts) please let me know.

Anyway to end on, I’m going to be sorting my head out and trying to find myself again and hopefully get back to producing content that I’m proud of and hopefully y’all are too. Sorry for the long boo hoo post rather than useful content, I felt everyone at least deserved to know what has been going on lately.

Also my thumb is almost fully healed for those wondering!

Thank you, sincerely.

- Krane