17/07 Patreon Devlog

Hey guys! 

So this was a tough week. If you've been following the blog, you know why. If not, essentially Caleb's existence as a love interest was kind of put on the balancing scales as the complaints about him finally made me start questioning whether I should cut him from the roster.

I made an offhand remark about it in response to one ask and it kind of snowballed from there. It was just really stressful and overwhelming tbh. (No one was rude, there was just a lot of conflicting feedback and people pointing to various things that "crossed the line" for them. And by the end, I think nearly everything Caleb does in the demo was called into question by at least one person which gave the feeling the entire character was a problem.

Fortunately we had some good discussions on Discord and I think it's all resolved on my end now. But it was rough. Not gonna lie.

Anyway, on to the updates!

Summary:

• Writing - Paused forward momentum and started editing both Caleb and Caissa. Did some writing on Jack's route as well, but mostly focused on editing. Edited up to Ch.4 of Cale's route, and am maybe about ⅓ of the way through Ch. 4 right now. 
• Art - Got two finished backgrounds this week and worked on another flower wallpaper.
• Coding - Did some more sprite coding and also started doing the alpha coding for Caissa's first chapter!

The Ramble:

More writing rambles this week!

So my plan for a while was that after I finished Caleb's route, I would stop focusing on writing new stuff and do my full edits for Ari, Caissa, and Caleb - so I could begin coding them in moments between writing other characters.

Caleb's route isn't complete yet - it's at about 85%. But I decided to go ahead and start my structural edits and stop focusing on new content for the time being, just focusing on editing what's written so I can start coding it so we can start alpha testing.

Part of this process involved my going back and re-reading the start of Caleb's route. I mentioned this on both tumblr and Discord, but I was really taken aback by how funny and silly some of the early chapters are (in a good way.) A lot of times, as I write, I sort of forget what happens in early chapters. Between art, and managing composers and BG artists, and coding and community...it's just a lot to keep in mind and I forget a lot of stuff.

Caleb's route has a ton of banter and funny moments early on. And then in about chapter 6...you can start to see this gradual shift where the humour stops and Caleb slowly begins to obsess over his behaviour in the common route. He repeatedly expresses feelings of guilt. And apologises over and again (Even though he also apologises earlier on).

It's like staring into a reflection of what was going on in my mind as I wrote him and was absorbing all the conversations and complaints and bashing (sorry - "bashing" is a dramatic word but some of it...really felt that way).

I shared a lot of snippets from Caleb's route on Discord and was delighted that people found them as funny and charming as I did.

But it was a really eye-opening moment for me because I realised how bogged down I'd gotten by perceived negativity about Caleb and how "mean" he is. Because the route went from all this funny banter to Caleb's non-stop self-loathing. Every conversation he and Morgan had was about how he ruined her life and how sorry he was for it and I remember struggling, at times, to find other things for them to talk about (despite that there are tons of things for them to talk about!).

Back when we were doing Changeling, our audience was really small - I think we had like 150 followers on tumblr. We didn't really start getting heavy feedback until beta testing and even then, there was really only one "I don't like this LI" incident. Now we have well over 1200 followers on tumblr. Having a much bigger audience really changes that developer-community interaction dynamic, and it can be overwhelming as often as it is completely amazing.

We get a lot of feedback from a lot of sources. This is kind of an example of that.

Sometimes feeling pressured by the community happens so slowly you don't realise that's what's happening.

I know a lot of people probably feel like "Why can't you just ignore all that?" But I do think there is a lot of pressure to listen to feedback and be receptive to criticism at all times. We're always told that "criticism is how you grow" and while I don't actually fully believe that, it's a pretty ingrained mentality mentality. You must be receptive to feedback, you must listen to feedback, you must *apply* feedback and you're a bad and unprofessional creator if you don't. 

I always feel really guilty if I don't sit down and carefully consider actionable responses to all feedback.

Even if someone says something offhand like "There's too much lore!" and I initially laugh it off or reject it...I find myself ruminating on it and considering if I should change things later on. What can I change? How can I fix it? It's almost unconscious. If someone makes a grammatical suggestion I disagree with, I feel like I have to at least explain to them why I'm not going to change it and prove why I shouldn't.

I've noticed this kind of guilt and pressure over feedback is prevalent in nearly every indie developer I know.

This isn't meant as a complaint at all - just an observation of the whole feedback situation. I think it's natural to want to share thoughts and express opinions so there is nothing wrong with the community doing that. 

I don't think it's bad to take feedback under consideration but as much as we crave feedback, it can start to become...stifling. It can create a cloud of self-doubt that sends us into creative limbo. This is especially true for "unintentional" feedback. And what I mean by that is…

Sometimes people in communities where the creator is active have discussions that they aren't intending to be "official" feedback. There are so many little remarks and jokes that people make without thinking - but as the creator, I see them and they immediately go into the feedback file in my brain. When I start seeing multiples of the same comment, over and over...

It becomes something I have to address. But it's easy to get bogged down trying to perfect and tweak every little thing. It's a delicate balance of wanting to be actively involved in the community and getting a lot of good energy from that...but maintaining enough distance and objectiveness to not get stuck in the stream of "unintentional" feedback.

This week was an example of just how delicate that balance can be.

My decision to move from the active writing stage to the editing stage for the completed (and near-complete) routes largely stemmed from needing to step back and clear my head a little. I actually have been working on editing Caleb's route specifically. Editing and revising the early chapters where the route is still funny and Caleb is being charming instead of self-loathing is helping me remember who he is as a character and get my mind in a spot where I think I'll be more readily able to complete his route before moving on to edit both Ari and Caissa. 

I'm hoping by the time I'm finished with editing the first 3 routes, I'll have more of the Endgame backgrounds so that I can actually code these routes to a alpha stage and ship them off for alpha testing, then start working on actively writing the next three! 

Editing/Revising speed really depends a lot on just how extensive the revising needs to be. Sometimes it's about 1 to 1.5 chapters a day and sometimes a chapter may take a couple of days if it needs extensive fixing. I imagine that once I hit Ch. 6 for Caleb, the editing will slow down as I'll have to do some extensive revising. Then, of course, the final three chapters of his route are still in synopsis form and have to actually be written. But I'm hoping it'll be easier once I smooth out all the issues I hit through the mid-section! 

Sneak Peeks and Previews:

As far as art this week, we got two non-spoilery backgrounds from two of our artists.

First….a lab! 8D A faaaancy lab.

And, uh...an elevator. LoL It amazes me how often we need simple BGs like this - transition spaces, I call them. I really dislike games where it feels like we only see character pop in from place to place with no transition between scenes. Hallways, elevators, bathrooms and the like are spaces that let me transition more smoothly from major scene to major scene instead of just moving the characters in and out of those scenes like chess pieces.  They aren't exciting BGs but they are useful when writing.

Upcoming Week:

So what is in store for the upcoming week?

Editing. LoL

My plan to get further in Caleb's route didn't happen at all as the Calebpocalypse descended on us. But I'm content with where I am right now. Revising has to happen anyway so it's not like I'm losing time by shifting focus. I'm just working on a different spot. It's like when you're painting an entire house and get tired of painting one room so you go work on another room for a while.

Both rooms have to get painted so it doesn't matter which order you work on them in.

I'm hoping that by the end of this upcoming week I will have edited up to Ch. 12 and can start finishing the three unfinished chapters of Caleb's route so I can finally...FINALLY complete it and move on. 

I swear, I am so over this route already! LoL

I will also be working on Coding the assets into the Crimson Interlude and first chapter of Caissa's route over the weekend, so I can ship that out to patrons as their sneak peek (I'm also contemplating if I want to include chapter two or not.)....CONTEMPLATING! 8D

I'll let you guys know how that decision turns out! OwO