Solo Dev - Tumblr Posts

(I'm not very good with introductions)

I promised i was gonna do this so... yeah. Hi, i'm ChicDead26, or Chic, which can be pronounced either "tchik", like chick, or "shik", like sheik.

...I'm just a guy in my early 20s, really.

I have a huge passion for storytelling, specially in videogame form, because of how many ways you can tell a story like that, and how you can correlate it all. Videogame stories can be written, can be told by visuals, by sounds, by gameplay... and nothing is stopping you from using doing all of it. Because of that, i decided i would become a Game Developer. Ironically, i am currently finishing my parkour-platformer titled Grow Flow, and it has little to no story. Explaining why i picked Grow Flow to solo-dev is a job for another post, on another day... (Now, the bad part) I'm a little depressed. Y'know, what else would you expect from an anxious little guy that has little to no idea what they're doing *at least* 35% of the time. I'm the king of second-guessing. Still, i push through.

Thats about all i wanted to say, really. Thank you for stopping by!

I lied

Okay, that was not all that i wanted to say. I wanted to talk about just how much i hate that i have no friends in game dev, or professional artists, or anything of the sort. I can't keep up with social media, i struggle to start convos but god damn it, i literally can't grow professionally without these things.

It's so weird. I absolutely have no reach in social media, zero, nada, and i can't help but feel like a dumbass whenever i see someone claim the same, but constantly get likes and shares and whatnot. Of course, i don't know what the hell i can share about my stuff, nothing that i produce feels worth sharing.

Yet, that doesn't mean i shouldn't post it.

The biggest problem with all this is... i really wish i could work with other people. Like, i really, really wish. I don't see myself solodeving again this early after completing Grow Flow. I simply don't think i can learn much more by myself.

Unfortunately, i didn't stay close to any of my previous dev friends. A mix of time, space and circumstance.

Now i'm done talking about everything i wanted to. Absolutely won't make a third post in, like, a week. Hahah.

The Viewfinder Clip

I've been thinking a lot about the viewfinder click. Viewfinder has some monologuing going, but its present all the time, and the problem with that is that it leads to moments where it isn't notable or natural, it's just trying to fill in the empty space - unecessarily so.

About a week ago, Vinny Vinesauce started playing the full game, and he couldn't tank the dialogue. if you know Vinny and you know the game's dialogue, you'd easily know why. In any case, the moment he muted the game got clipped, posted on Twitter, and went viral.

So here's the thing: Grow Flow has a monologuing character. Has had since the demo. While the dialogue is self aware (in the beginning of the game, Anna is literally acting very obviously "corporate", and my intent *is* to mock that), i can only imagine this will go completely overlooked, given some of the reaction towards Vinny's clip. As in, some people are not smart enough to identify intent. It is somewhat unrelated, but yes, i'm basing that entirely on the people who got angry at Vinny, as well as the people who said they couldn't play a game like that.

It's a sincere fear. It's entirely possible that this poorly-timed event could affect my game's ratings.

Here's a fun fact for you: people are more likely to leave a review when it's a negative one. This is why it's important, as a dev, to ask for positive reviews. It's the exact same psychology behind youtubers asking for people to subscribe, like and comment. There's plenty of people with positive experiences, making a review just doesn't occur to them.

Grow Flow's Full Launch

The parkour platforming game i've been developing for the last two and a half years will finally be released 18 of this month. It's a great game about not playing the game correctly and abusing engine quirks and exploits, and i assure you it's a lot of fun. Check out the trailer that i released this past friday:

My thoughts on the yellow paint discourse are doing numbers on Twitter so i decided to share it here as well

Goin' John Wick on these innocent little buttons