An improvised rambling message about Realm Invader. A freestlye, if you will.
You must be registered to see the links
How do I start this? I'm making this post up as I go along because I'm not entirely sure what point I'm trying to make. Consider this as me thinking out loud. I'm guessing there'll be a TL;DR at the bottom.
I had to take a long break after releasing episode 2 part 1. While it isn't ruining my life, Realm Invader has a very tangible effect on my mental health. For those of you who don't know, this is a solo project. Almost everything you see is done by me. Very rarely I'll have the opportunity to outsource some simple but time-consuming work, such as dedicated supporters providing me with crowd-filling npcs. But other than that, writing, wardrobe, rendering, animating, coding... all fruits of my labor. The effects of taking all of this burden by myself are exacerbated by how much quality I'm trying to pump into this project.
It's not for nothing, however, the feedback I've received has been astounding, to say the least. In general, I believe that Episode 2 was an upgrade in every conceivable way. The dialogue is fuller and more fleshed out, you spend more time with characters getting to know them, and the visuals towards the end of the update are far better than what initially thought possible with my skillset.
This all comes as quite a shock for me, as for those who don't know, I've never done any of this before. This is my first time trying to seriously write a story, my first time working with 3D graphics, my first time animating, and my first time in any kind of directing role. All of us are watching me learn, develop, and refine these skills in near-real-time.
Anyway, I think it's time to end that long break. I'm going to gradually start easing myself back into the production of Realm Invader. I'm not sure how long this update will take. I'm under the impression that Ep 2 Pt 2 is shorter than Pt 1, but we'll have to wait and find out. My writing generally tends to evolve as I put it through production, it's one of the reasons my updates are so large.
A lot of Pt 2's production time hinges on the first chapter, Hugo's birthday party. I have some quite ambitious things planned, and far and away the most "gameplay" the game will see so far. Of course, I can't always guarantee that ambitions can be lived up to, but I've surpassed my own expectations before. The downside is that this chapter is by and large the most difficult writing challenge I'm going to have to undertake. I know what's going to happen, but haven't figured out the "why" and "how" of it. It's going to be a hell of a lot more difficult than the swim meet, though less non-linear.
What this means is that I'm going to have to spend some time planning this chapter before I can even begin writing it. I don't know how long this will take, obviously, but I sincerely hope it takes less than a week. Spending a week just figuring out what happens in a chapter sounds extreme, but I feel like you'll understand when you see what I'm trying to do. It's worth noting that this party arc is going to be my longest story event yet, and honestly, if it ends up being significantly long, I may split the release of Ep 2 once again. This is all speculative, and the results remain to be seen. A tiny thing to note is that my new PC
may speed up production a little bit, but rendering times pale in comparison to crafting the animations themselves.
In other news, I'm adding another week of pre-release to the Prime Specimen tier. Gatekeepers will also receive this benefit. I feel like someone's going to complain about this but I don't really care. I deserve to monetize my game's releases. I did a little napkin math and calculated that I probably lost about 2 weeks of production to fulfill Gatekeeper customs. The unfortunate truth is that the amount of support I'm receiving right now is far too little to
not do this. I plan on retiring the custom requests one day, but as of right now, I'm making about 50% of the money I need to consider making this my full-time job, and about 25% of my current Patreon income comes from my gatekeepers.
Thank you all for your support and overwhelmingly positive feedback. I'm genuinely beginning to see great things in the future for me and Realm Invader. Most, if not all development updates will be restricted to Patrons only. I also won't be able to give out previews for a while due to the aforementioned hurdles I need to get over before I can even make any renders. So that's it, Ep 2 Pt 2's production is already going to start by giving me a headache, but regardless, I
am beginning to put in the work. Wallpapers will go up today as well, probably. I've got one more to make.
TL;DR - I'm beginning production on episode 2, Hugo's birthday party is going to be difficult to plan out, and it may take a while before I can get the ball rolling. Prime Specimen tier is now going to get the game 3 weeks before public release.
See you. Thanks for caring so much about this stupid game I'm putting too much effort into.
