Dev Blog - Reflecting back on 2021

At the time of writing, we are one day away from entering the new year. 2021 has been quite an interesting year for me, maybe even one of the more interesting ones, given how the year has proven to be one of the most challenging years I ever had to put myself through. As is usually the case with game development, or any job really, there are plenty of things that could be improved. I would like to take a moment to look back and reflect on all of the things we have managed to do this year, both good and bad, and discuss how I would continue moving forward in 2022.

Patreon

We launched Patreon on April 2nd 2021. While it had a relatively slow start, nowadays I consider the Patreon to be successful, and I could not have been happier about that. Straight from day one the goal has always been to use 100% of the funds towards the development of Selaco, to pay the artists involved and ensure that things kept moving forward at all times. I never took any of the money for my own and will continue to do so. My share comes from the sales we get when releasing the game, which is partially done to encourage myself to actually release the game within a respectable time frame, but also because the team deserves it. Their insane amount of hard work surprises me to this day and the positive energy from everyone involved certainly shines through in this game.

I notice that I often go on and on about my thankfulness towards our patrons in each and every blog post, but that comes from a genuine place. I always wanted to use the funds to make the best possible game I can make, and all of you allow me to do so. All of you have put faith in me and I want to honor that. Thankfully, it won't be long until I get to showcase Selaco to all of our patrons. We are targeting a Q1 2022 release date for our demo which will feature 3 different levels, lasting roughly 40 minutes on a normal playthrough without collectible / secret hunting.

Additional Level Designer

One of the funding goals on Patreon was to get a new level designer on board once we hit the $2000. I assumed this would be do-able, but I quickly learned that that will not be the case. Given how “large” (for my standards) the team is, it is simply not enough to keep everyone well funded. I am raising the Patreon Goal to $2500 as I strongly believe that is a much more realistic goal.

The other goal of 35 million dollars a month remains the same, as I am confident that that is more than enough to warrant an additional couple of subway sandwiches.

During some of my spare time I have been searching the internet for a level designer, but as discussed in a previous post, it’s a tricky one to figure out. Mainly because I think Selaco has a unique style going for it which I have not yet seen replicated in the Doom Engine. Not because my level design is overly complex or anything, but I do try to put a lot of time and effort into the soundscapes and lighting. There are some crazy mappers out there, but finding one who can join me in making levels and environments that match the style of Selaco is not as easy as one might think.. It is not impossible however! I will find someone who fits and can join the team.

Wishlists

I put Selaco on Steam on April 16, 2021, 2 weeks after the Patreon launch. While I do not feel comfortable releasing exact numbers of how many wishlists we’ve got, I can confidently say that we are in a very good and comfortable spot for an indie developer. Especially given how it has not been more than a year since getting a store page up. I consider this number to go further up as we start handing our preview versions to a select few people in the media. Civvie11 and Gman both got to play a janky unfinished version (also known as the Pre-Demo) and provided me with their thoughts, but I’ll allow them to (hopefully!) share their thoughts themselves through a twitter post or a video in the near future.

Development

Phew, where to start. I definitely made some missteps here, mainly on the ‘mental’ side of things. Let's start with the good things first.

Holy shit did I learn a lot this year. After announcing the game at the end of 2020, a lot has changed for me. I always took Selaco seriously but never quite to this level. I never wanted to consider myself a ‘true’ game developer for some reason. Before announcing Selaco, seeing all the things other developers are making always made me feel inferior and intimidated. That feeling of being inferior still chews at me from time to time, but to a far lesser extent than last year. The indie field of game development has so much talent going for it that I never felt quite up to their level. I consider myself creative, but not that creative. I think I can create something that is fun to play, but nowhere near the level of <insert random talented developer here>. If anything I always considered myself painfully average which put an endless pile of doubt onto my faith with the project.

However, this year was the first time I actually felt like a hard working developer. I was more eager to learn than I ever was before and rather than feeling intimidated by fellow developers, I actually started feeling inspired by their work. As far as creativity is concerned, I think that part of my brain kicked into overdrive this year. The inspiration was everywhere and diving deeper into the world of indie developers has had a positive impact for me. A lot of fun ideas came to be and many other fun ideas are still on the backburner to be implemented at a later time for Selaco. I am much more confident than I ever was as far as the game is concerned and the kind words from our community managed to keep my mind in a mostly healthy place.

As for my workload this year, that has been quite a crazy thing. A bit too much, even.  I have been doing social media & community management, game development, game directing, budgeting, advertising, networking, recruitment, voice directing and much more. While I don't consider ‘community management’ much of a job in my case, because talking with the community is a lot of fun and has resulted in quite a lot of laughs and interesting conversations. It is mainly Jason (aka Re-fund) who has been doing the hard part of community management. About the only thing I consider myself truly good at is the game development side of things; Like level / game design, coding / scripting. Everything else was new territory for me. New things frighten me. They always have. But being out there with Selaco and gaining a bigger audience than I could have ever wished for has forced me to become more skillful in things I have zero knowledge of. I can confidently say that I am proud of my achievements and I have absolutely grown further as a level and game designer on top of everything else. So far so good I guess, but if there is one thing I want to change moving into the next year, it’s reducing the workload to put more emphasis on the game because the side-effects of being far too busy wearing many different hats is eventually going to bite you.

Now for the bad part. While 2021 has been very productive and one gigantic learning experience for me, the mental aspect of game development has managed to negatively impact me in a lot of ways. I’ve mentioned it before, but university combined with full time game development was simply too much for me to handle and even now that I do this full time since I bailed on university, I still feel like I am not taking nearly enough breaks to ‘relax’. I go to bed at 4-5AM every day because I simply try to get an unreasonable amount of things done each day, just to wake up relatively early to make sure everything remains on track as far as Selaco is concerned. Combined with the pandemic that prevents me from doing the things I used to do, like visiting the gym (which I used to do for 3 years straight but currently all of the gyms in The Netherlands are closed and will continue to be so), I’ve fallen into the habit of “laziness”. While I used to be outgoing and active, I currently live in my bedroom, staring at the same 4 walls over a year, sitting on the same office chair and having very limited physical exercise. I’ve noticed that I have become increasingly tired every day and never felt quite as energized as I used to be. I know I am not alone with this, as I have heard similar stories from many other people who are dealing with this pandemic.

I want to get my habits back under control. I want to be more strict about my working hours and get proper daily exercise in 2022 to get my mental state back in a healthy spot. Besides, my weekly subway meals have to feel earned!

The game

Oh yeah, I got sidetracked there. Let's get back to Selaco for a bit and talk about the game itself!

The game is steadily progressing at a faster pace than ever before, not just because of me, but mostly because of the team’s efforts! While I do want to bombard this blog post with work in progress screenshots, that will have to wait for the time being. There’s lots of blockouts going on and most of the maps are nowhere near finished as they are currently in their detailing pass. Map development is part of my responsibility with this game  and there are a lot of ideas currently being worked on. Which includes an all new enemy type who does not bleed purple (HINT HINT!), and levels that are very different in tone compared to other levels in the game. I think, as far as variety is concerned, you will have nothing to worry about. I know most of the levels shown on promotional material are blue in color tones with many tight hallways, but I can assure you that not the entire game will be like this. There will be exteriors, there will be larger areas, there will be different colors and the entire game will not revolve around moving from shooting gallery to the next.

Pre-demo tests with our Admirals have proven to be highly effective. We have been actively reworking a lot of our systems based on the feedback we have received, so that the Patron Demo that goes live early next year is as polished as possible. This includes a brand new Objective display, reworked object manipulation, reworked melee, weapon rebalancing and a few other things.

A lot went right, but if there is one thing I want to improve upon, it’s the ‘directing’ side of things. Currently, I am very involved with each and every creative process. I often talk for hours on end with the artists about what they are working on so I actively provide feedback, provide instructions and bounce ideas back and forth. While very effective, this is a massive time-sink. I think that currently the artists involved with Selaco have a good idea of our ‘art design rules’, allowing them to do things without having me watch over their shoulder as much. I will make sure that everything goes well, but I want to keep it to a minimum. It has become very apparent this year that the team knows what they are doing and I should put more faith into their involvement. It is long overdue anyway, they are amazing and a bunch of wizards.

Conclusion

Am I forgetting anything? I’m sure I am, there’s a lot to unpack when it comes to reflecting on a full year of development, but not all of them are as interesting to write in a blog post. The main takeaway from all of this is that I have to streamline the game’s development process. Get more work done in less time so I have more time available to do things that are not related to work. To relax, watch a movie, play a video game or do some physical exercise.

To anyone out there who has been through a burn-out before, I’m sure you know what I mean. We all want to keep growing, we all feel like we have something to prove to the world and we will stop at nothing to succeed. I get that. I know that I am in no position to tell anyone how to do their job because I have made hundreds of fuck-ups myself, but with another year ahead of us while a pandemic is still out there, all I can hope for is for no one to make the mistake that I made. I have never felt more productive yet emotionally drained than I ever have this year and it all boils down to not allowing myself to take breaks. Being passionate is good but it should never come at such a cost.

I know exactly what I have to work on and I am committed to getting myself back on track.

Happy new year everyone,

Wesley de Waart