2024 Steamberry Retrospective

So here we are. Another year nearly finished.

It's hard to believe 2024 is looming at the doorway.

I was reflecting on how I started Changeling at the tail-end of 2015. 2016 was when I really started running with that project but 2015 was the beginning of the work.

This year I will have been doing game dev for 8 years. It's mind boggling that it's been that long.

Working on game #3 with a host of other projects squirreled away and waiting to be dragged into the light when there were times I wasn't sure I'd even get through Changeling...

It's funny how you can be doing something for the better part of a decade and still feel like an impostor.

This year was tough. It feels like it's been tough for a couple of years now. But this year has been terrible on a personal and global level for a lot of people. But I went through some major real life stress this year. There's been a lot of turmoil and stress...but...even so.

I finished Gilded Shadows this year.

A four year journey winding to a slow close with only the loose ends left to be tied. I released Reuben's route early this year, followed by Yuu a few months later. All that remains are the remnants of Kickstarter - books and stickers and wallpapers.

Finishing Gilded Shadows feels monumental.

I will never make another game that size, I don't think.

I will still make big games, of course.

WSC is going to be large. But I think Gilded Shadows will remain my largest project most likely. It wasn't a magnum opus or anything like that, and I hope I continue to improve my writing and drawing skills as time passes and I work on more games. I hope to make each game better than the last still - just not bigger.

To be fair, even Gilded Shadows wasn't originally planned to be as big as it is. That came through adding additional KS backers mostly. That said...

Gilded Shadows being complete is meaningful in ways that Changeling was not.

For one thing, Changeling was a much more stressful project, being my first. I was so ready to be done with it - I hated that project by the end. I was ready to be done with Gilded Shadows by the end, but I didn't loathe the project the way I loathed Changeling (don't worry to all the Changeling players out there - I don't hate that project any more! I had an intense hatred for it for a few months and then gradually learned to love it again. I love those characters and that project. I was just severely burned out by the time it was over!)

I met so many of my developer friends - AlwaysJMB, Jeneara, Windchimes, Crescence, Ayael, Feniks, the gals at Best Laid Plans, Aerie and others - while I was working on GS. For some of them, Gilded Shadows is why we met rather than just something I was doing at the time we did.

For a lot of us, though, there was this one thing that was always present in our conversations day to day and suddenly it's not there in the same way any more. That's really strange.

Gilded Shadows was also a step up from Changeling in a lot of ways. It was bigger, it had more of the features I'd wanted to put into Changeling. It had a larger budget. I got to work with a phenomenal composer.

It let me experiment with new things - flow charts (which I had wanted to do in Changeling), character customisation as well. And it was really great to see that my next project was a *genuine improvement* over the first.

Working on the art book and, now, the lore book, shows me just how monumental Gilded Shadows was for a solo project. The supplementary content is *huge* - it's taken months to pull them together because there's just so much content to organise and format. It was a massive game - more so than I ever imagined it would be.

Finishing GS and wrapping up the loose ends is just...an interesting experience. I'll be carrying some of those loose ends with me into 2024 so I'm not quite ready to move on yet, but still.

I also released the first snapshot of When Stars Collide. Somewhat unplanned.

When Stars Collide is a project that, like Changeling and Gilded Shadows, pre-dates becoming a visual novel. WSC is actually older than both Changeling and GS as a concept. But I started conceptualising it as a VN in 2020/2021.

I had wanted to do one more science fiction project, a "space" game, before returning to fantasy.

I had been working on it late at night and on some weekends for a while. But when Amare Festival 2023 came around, my friend Jen talked me into releasing the snapshot to the public as part of the festival.

The reception was pretty good and there's been a lot of interest and new follows.

When Stars Collide is another petri dish that is letting me play with things I've never done before, learning new boundaries for myself and new skills.

Rather than the exact same type of customisation I did with Gilded Shadows, I've opted to try some different things balancing redrawing and recolouring. Now, more than ever, I am aware of how the high demand for art for visual novels of this size can cause physical damage. So I'm much more keen to have my art hand/arm not get worse with subsequent games, which means being a lot more careful with how I approach the art when it comes to things like customisation.

Since the end of August, I've written 150,000 words of additional content for When Stars Collide, getting it really close to the 466,000 word goal I had for the end of the year.

When Stars Collide is going to be another project that is bigger than planned. Partially because scope creep is an evil beast and partially just that I really can't tell simple stories.

It's been fun to move my main focus to something else but it doesn't feel like a new project since I've already been working on it for so long.

I was hoping that the draft would be finished by the end of the year - while I will hit my writing goal, the project has somewhat expanded since I first thought I might be able to finish. An additional LI, new chapters, etc.

Additional features too - the music room and maybe even additional customisation.

I will continue writing into 2024 and then hopefully be able to start releasing game episodes. I'm really looking forward to seeing how that goes.

Overall, it was a tiring year with a lot of frustration and a lot of victories as well though. Here is hoping for an even better 2024.

One that's hopefully more peaceful and better for everyone.

Plans for next year

So where are things heading for next year for Steamberry. 

Obviously I will be staying quite busy with game development. I have a lot to get done and a lot to accomplish. Here is a short list of things I plan to be working on.

1. Finishing up KS rewards for GS. I'm nearly done with the two remaining ones that the most people get access to. After the lore book and art book, only a few people will be waiting on stuff.
   I'm really hoping I can find time to mail out the physical rewards at the start of the new year. Finally.
   
2. Finishing editing Asher's route and then drafting the remaining ending sequences for WSC. Then editing the rest of the routes.
   
3. Hopefully starting to get the additional WSC features coded. The programmer helping me with these things is pretty busy so it can be difficult for them to find time. I would like to get those things squared away little by little though.
   
4. More lore posts here on Patreon.
   1. Spicy profiles
   2. Spicy stats
   3. Character interviews
   4. More language dictionaries
   5. Planets and species lore

I am, of course, hoping to start releasing WSC at some point in the first half of next year. Some of that relies on other people but my goal is to begin releasing episodes as soon as I can.

It's going to be another really busy year and I can't wait to see where the road takes me. 

Thank you to everyone who has been with me thus far and to everyone who sticks with me for the future journey! 

I will see you all in 2024!