2022 Re-Cap

This year was a rough year. 

I can't help but wonder at what point do we get to stop saying that. At what point will years be normal again? Even good again?

This was such a difficult year for me personally with so much stress and loss and frustrating experiences. And I really want to look forward to a happier year next year.

But of course, even this year wasn't all bad. Several exciting personal things happened. And I achieved some pretty cool things!

I released Gilded Shadows in May!

This was a huge accomplishment. This game has been so much work and such a exciting thing to see come together that I was so scared releasing it. But it's turned out great!

I had a big scare when, after completing the art, my right hand was left in a pretty bad physical state - and took more than two months to recover to the point I didn't have severe pain from daily tasks. I'll admit that at some point when I was facing what felt like the very real possibility I would not be able to complete the rest of the art for the game and would have to hire someone, I was close to panicking.

But my hand was able to recover and though it's not at 100% (and doesn’t look like it will ever fully recover), so I feel fortunate! But that was a wake up call about this style of game release where I have so much art to do all at once. I definitely have to reconsider ever doing this to myself again.

But even so. The release of GS went really well! The game performed better than Changeling by a wide margin, something I'm really proud of.

I was able to write, code, art, and release Quill's route as the first game expansion this year as well. Surpassing 900,000 words (uncoded) was pretty cool.

I drafted Reuben's route as well and though it's not coded yet, it should push me over 900,000 words coded too (I'm estimating that the coded word count will be around 925k with Reuben. But...we'll have to see.)

Between Changeling and Gilded Shadows (including Reuben's route), I've written 1.6 million words of visual novel content. I never in my life dreamed of being able to write that much. But here we are!

So that's pretty cool!

Another thing I've accomplished in my free time this year is a smattering of things for my side projects. Of course, I don't make as much progress with these because I only work on them sometimes - and only in the evenings or weekends. It's still fun to see those come to life bit by bit.

I started When Stars Collide back in late 2020 actually, but I didn't make it public until mid 2021. And actually the document that had the original story concept is from 2014! So this story idea has been around a while, like a lot of my projects.

I kind of view When Stars Collide as a bit of an experiment and I still have a lot of uncertainty about it and I second guess myself a lot regarding if I'm capable of pulling off this project. It's a little scary to be outside my comfort zone.

But I've written about 200,000 words on this project already and it's been a huge learning experience to try a different game style. Unlike GS, which has fully separate and independent routes, WSC has a overlapping/linked route structure where there's a single plotline and all the routes overlap each other.

And it's hard. It's a game style I always thought would be easier to write than separate routes and let me tell you - it's not. I have so much respect for developers who release in this style because I'm finding it incredibly difficult and it's sad that I feel like this game structure is viewed as being much easier than it really is.

Another thing I did this year was really sit down and write up all my story ideas that I think would make interesting games - When Stars Collide, ASOWAM (which will NOT remain named that), Thornewood, Aetheros, and several others.

I can't know what the future holds, but I do think that I'll be dipping my toes back into fantasy settings after WSC. Most of my idea list is actually fantasy.

(I know that none of them will be in the style of WSC though because it's too hard and I've learned it's not my favourite game structure for sure).

I've learned a surprising amount about making games this year. Funnily, working on a game in a different game structure (linked/overlapping routes instead of separate routes) caused me to question a lot about what I know (or just assumed) about making games. The more I thought about different things like choice types and what it means for choices to matter, and how we label and define these different game structures...

The more I realised that there's a lot I had never clearly defined for myself about making visual novels and what these things really mean. One thing I've done this year is really spend a lot of time thinking about game design and how it applies to visual novels. Because the more I can define these things for myself, the better I can make my games, I think. 

When I'm creating with intent rather than just some nebulous idea of 'this is how you make a VN', I think the results will be better for players.

So that's another thing I consider part of my journey this year.

As a whole, it's been a pretty busy year for me this year. I've done a lot, accomplished a lot, wrote a lot, I've done a lot of art, I've thought about a lot of things.

And I've just...lived a lot.

I'm hoping that 2023 is a better year for me, for the world, for all you. And I hope you'll always stick around to see what I work on next.

Thank you for being here with me this long. I appreciate you all.

And here is hoping for a wonderful year.

~Esh