A lot has happened since my last blog entry–which was more than two months ago–and considerable changes occurred–both the good and bad kind. I'll go through all of them in detail below, explaining the whats and whys, and share one of the most important announcements of my life. So strap in, as this is going to be one of those long post. There's a lot to go through, so let's get started!

The Sword of Damocles

Life and aspirations do-not-go-well, as far as I can tell. One will always rule above the other, but not in equilibrium. And judging from my own limited experiences, usually the prior one comes in first. But why? A question I've been asking myself since the dawn of time. Simply because when your dreams and hopes don't align, yet I should say, don't overlap precisely, than there's little room left to navigate. If I were to be materialistic about it, I'd call this being privileged.

Not sure if any of you remember, but back in May, I wrote a piece (linked here), where I expressed my growing concerns of ever being able to land a job in the video game industry, and that my time, energy, resources and hopes were also running low–after years of hardship–in a situation where my path was clearly set to loosing what little I achieved, and essentially borderline close to become homeless. As there was only so many things I could do, in order to prevent this (especially years prior). But due to the fact that my skills and expertise are technically useless in today's environment (as far as I've been told by life), juggling between not starving/rationing food and/or paying my bills became the norm. Sadly I think I'm not the only one out there, but man that stuff scars you for life and leaves you with horrible marks; especially if done for years. Then there was the fact that shortly after the last post, my last grandparent have died, which further upped the tally. It also became crystal-clear that things had to change. And change fast. It also didn't help that the little family I had technically denounced me during these past months/years. Which is fine, as I can handle that, but sometimes I think for a moment and wonder: Could it happen differently.

Holding back EOTH (for indefinite, for now), and searching for answers

So you can imagine that my efforts for continuing to develop this prototype (EOTH) dropped drastically, especially as more and more rejection notices arrived in my inbox. That's why I decided to temporarily freeze production of EOTH in the end, and concentrate my last breaths/efforts on doing something that might evoke the sense of others: namely to participate in game jams, to create small games and experiments.

Unfortunately, in order to do that semi-officially, you need to think ahead in advance, or the very least sign up for one on the web that is currently running/or going to be. I've looked into places such as Itch.io, but unfortunately I chose a time when there wasn't any to join, solely because either they were about to end, or not yet started (at least what I could quickly find anyway). There wasn't enough time, and I couldn't possibly tackle, and devote myself to a 2-3 month long jam. I'm sorry, but I don't think those would fit in the category of the traditional game jams. But that's just how I feel about it (or what the dictionary told me to). Haha! Anyhow, this idea of joining a jam on Itch also came after the fact that I've started one on my own; which you can't retrospectively add . . . Blasphemy!

This was the time when Sudokuu was made (something that I also briefly blogged about here, in the form of a postmortem; a somewhat polished puzzle game, where you have to match patterns in order). A project that came out of nowhere, was not prepared for, and I pushed too hard in: namely I borderline risked my health (having constant red eyes, and racing heart, etc.). The sheer anxiety/panic felt like I drank 4-5 cups of coffee a day: You know the kind of ones that make you run 100 miles without stopping. I knew it was going to be difficult, but wasn't prepared how much worse it'd be, as this was the first time, where the schedule was this tight, and I had to do all development from scratch, with a game that required custom coding; not just grabbing some prefabs and calling it a day. And of course, keeping in mind that it all had to be exceptional, and mustn't look ass; as I was planning it on releasing to the public on Itch (for free of course).

In a way I'm generally "used to" these kinds of living/working conditions–acknowledging the fact that this-is-not-the-normal in any shape or form, and is highly detrimental–where the "work with nothing, creating something presentable, whilst a gun is pointed at your head" kind of struggle is common. I just wished that for once in my life, this would come to an end: apart from the obvious implications, this constant pressure also hindered my ability to be creative, and be more expressive, and create value that worth something, and perhaps could be enjoyed by others. From time to time, I tried to convince myself, and reset my ego that there were people who were either in the same shoes, or in worse.

That being said, I was overly relieved when the jam ended, however the work didn't quite end there, as I decided to create an animated trailer; which took some doing as well (mainly learning a lot from scratch, in just under a couple of days, whilst producing). Then an another older project of mine resurfaced (a grandiose sci-fi 4X game), which prompted me to create a(n other game jam) demo (this time inspired by the original XCOM) of a small (presumably a hyper casual mobile game) called space defender. And as such, it inspired me tremendously, and went on expanding the concept a little, and quickly tested out some of the engine features in Unreal (more so to learn about it): the capability of the "supposedly" infinite maps (see link for more). And then moved on to create an HD version of it (being keen on how it'd look), it the case this small jam would've gone further, and to test out the new (not yet fully supported) planet atmosphere toolkit as well. It was both a success, again as this more lighthearted jam was still created under a few days, and a failure, as scaling maps (as in working with great distances) doesn't quite work in Unreal Engine 4, due to the limitations of the 32bit engine itself (interested to find out if this will change in EU5); which also rendered that amazing planet kit useless (for now). Once again I was back at square one, and had no idea what to do, as most of my plans thus far, either called for some gaming company to employ me, or an imaginary team to work with. I found it really challenging, well technically impossible under these restrictions, to come up with a game that can be done by one person and is small enough to handle (both in terms of scope and schedule), original, fun, looks really-nice (this is a must have), and perhaps becomes mainstream. The latter has its importance, even tho' you shouldn't aim for such a thing in the first place, as unless you are able to come up with something unique, chances are that your game will be forever lost in the void as soon as you publish it online (there's just w-a-a-y to-o much noise out there). You need to have money to make money (I utterly despise this), especially when it comes to marketing. Nowadays, I find, the number of platforms that allow advertisement, for FREE, can be counted on one hand. This is a pressing issue, especially for an aspiring indie/solo developer . . . Then I started thinking about what could be a thing to do that's within my reach and could become something more, besides a game jam: that's when Fight! Live. Or Die! was born.

FLD is an old take/rehash on something that we all know, the roguelike RPG genre, but with a twist. You see, over the years, I've became tired of the same old game mechanics of mainstream (top-down) RPGs: technically they all solely rely on the same old click-with-mouse-to-move scenario, which really takes the fun out of the game. I don't find it exhilarating, nor engaging anymore. Furthermore, now they all appear as if those were just a simple cookie-clickers, where you do nothing for 2 hours, but stare at a browser based game, with a massive, rendered chocolate cookie sprite in the middle, and click frantically, to increase some numbers on the side (who remembers those days of flash games? lol). Heck, that's why I started developing EOTH in the first place, to move away from all of this, and prove a point in re-invigoration (as I think that the Top-down RPG genre has more to it than that), and implement new features that aren't so linear (like using mouse gestures for spell casting). That was the main reason why I chose to drastically alter the controls in FLD, and made it so that you had to use both of your hands in order to move and attack (something that I've fine-tuned in a later concept, and patched the game client as well, by reintroducing mouse control for directional targeting). Something like this:

Wanted it to be more action oriented, be more visceral, and have more stakes to it: hence came the idea of sticking more to roguelike games, using one life and one life only (perma death). Also made it so that you were under your own "timer", as in having a score to beat (which now I'm thinking to incorporate into the lore), while hoards of enemies ran at you, and you had to battle with limited resources (increasingly getting more difficulty out of the game as time went on). That being said, as FLD was only a 2 day long game jam project, a lot was cut from the final release; and was definitely rough on the edges (like the art style, which I had big plans for, as I wanted similar graphics that of Diablo 2, etc.). That's why, after some thinking, and deliberate, mature assessments (heavily considering my position in life, and other factors), I've decided to go for it and do something that could potentially become one of my biggest achievements in life:

Announcing FLD's kick-starter campaign

I always find that in great times of need, you must look forward, and work hard towards something, rather than licking your own wounds. That's just what life told me: no matter what you do, or what happens to you, life goes on, with or without you. The video, and the full campaign you'll see before you is the product of this ideology and hard labor of love, and was created to the best of my abilities and equipment I owned at the time of recording and writing this post (which I bless its soul that it still works, even-though it's on its last legs!). I truly believe in this project, otherwise I would've not dared to take on such a tremendous task, and risk my name and reputation (or completely remake the game from scratch, in preparation for the campaign). Furthermore, I know that there are others, who wish to see a(n alternative) reincarnation of Diablo 2 (or tried, or did their own version before), but none managed to rekindle those feelings I had back when I was playing D2. I think the reason why most fans been waiting for something similar to happen has to do with the fact that it's not easy to do, and individual experiences may vary from person to person as to what made the game fun: However, I think I've a solid understanding of it all (having sunken a portion of my life into it), and know where the game could use improvements . . . Of course, I'm also biased of my views. And in addition, the scale of LFD is totally different in this case (for now anyway), heck minuscule compared to the original, but also has redeeming features (such as new mechanics, or the familiar art style, decent story, etc.) which honestly I hope others would definitely enjoy as much as I did. Making a game, similar to this has been a dream of mine ever since I could remember; bit clichéd, but I'm just trying to be honest about it! And as such, I'm hoping to finally make that dream come true, with hard work and love. I'm also doing this, despite what everyone told me prior (that this is a seriously bad idea, and I'd be better off doing something worthwhile), or how others tried to actively stop me from reaching to this crossroads. I wish to prove to the world, and others that dreams are worth fighting for, and with enough dedication and perseverance, anything can be done.

Link to the campaign page: https://www.ulule.com/fightliveordie/

My feelings of the project

Suffice to say that it took me a great deal of perseverance and hardship to get to this point, and a lot of effort and thought went into having to challenge myself to even to consider such a momentous task. But as I said earlier, I wish to make a difference, and often the only option is to pave the way yourself. Of course, it goes without saying that I'm terribly horrified and thrilled about this announcement, and spent a lot of sleepless nights prior; and I'm sure I'll be having a lot more, especially of those nightmares I've been having for the past. All in all, I hope that my love and care will show through every inch of the pre-production (material), and convey others of my just cause. Now I only wish that my inner struggle of years would die down a bit, and would give me a fighting chance to have a breather. I guess, only time will tell if this will be one of my greatest achievements in life, or one of the biggest disappointments. To escape the latter, I'll be doing whatever I can, within my power, to stop the latter from happening. Just as I've been doing it for years . . .

Future of EOTH

And as to what will happen to EOTH? I've no idea. The project is still there, but now it became a(n exclusive) passion project. Maybe one day I'll return to it, as it-is-THE-game I've been wanting to do, when I've the budget/manpower to pull it off. Until then there's little hope for me to continue, despite my heartbreak. Anyways, I've hope you enjoyed my blog, and wish you the best. Take care, and stay safe!

Sincerely,

theaaronstory