An Intermission and Then Redemption11/18/2023 The past two years have been a slow rising boil of emotions and uncertainty, and this past 6 months has been a quiet pause from all of that uncertainty. I explored who I was and what I wanted from life. Suddenly, I was single again and had to learn to navigate the world alone, and for the first time, as Fern. I've learned how to do my shopping alone. I've learned how to wake up by myself and smile at the little rat staring back at me in the mirror. What I'm really trying to say is that I found myself amidst the quiet moments I've spent alone and I'm so happy that I did. Twitch Streaming Redemption ArcIn finding myself I found my confidence, again. I feel comfortable being myself anywhere, in front of anyone, and I don't fear their judgement. This newfound superpower started with some excessive dating and has landed me back on Twitch. I felt that I was ready to be seen and to provide a positive and loving environment to my soon to be internet friends. The support I've received has been shocking. I'd say I'm generally a positive person but not necessarily someone people want to be around or to listen to. But recent developments have proven me wrong and have encouraged me to have more faith in my own voice and personality, and most importantly to love myself. Show Me The Video GameStreaming every day as fortunately forced me to work on Bring Me Hope significantly more often and with greater focus. I've grabbed a couple of gifs for you to showcase some of the more significant changes made to the game over the past 6 months. New ContentThe Frosted Caves have been expanded up with a level-gated section towards the end of the dungeon. Here you'll find a few new enemies, 4 mini-bosses, and a unique one-off item. Camera PolishThe game felt moderately good before but I felt like I could maybe squeeze out 10% more happy-brain juice if I put some subtle screenshake and better camera-following behaviors into the game. Elemental Interaction ImprovementsFire should make water evaporate. Ice should freeze water. Fire should spread. Oil should explode if it's touched by burning grass. Thoughts like this led me to overhaul the elemental interactions. Most of these behaviors were already implemented but there was no visual flair. An Experimental Parry SystemLast night I decided to add a parry feature to the combat system. The idea is to provide another tool for handling combat encounters. More tools means more variety in gameplay and that is almost always a good thing. Please keep in mind that this parry needs a LOT more polish. User Interface ChangesI've never seen anyone complain about it but I knew I could do better. The first thing I did and the most major was the main menu. New music, new art, new visual design, the whole thing. I also did some touchups to the inventory UI. Twitch Revenue ReportAlthough it goes against the parasocial and elusive nature of being an online personality, I feel that sharing this information is an important part of sharing my path to being a successful indie developer. I've streamed for about 1.5 months consistently and the general growth of the community has been fantastic. I've received a lot of support in the form of subscriptions and donations. I'm not showing non-twitch donations but that accounts for about half of my revenue. My takeaway is that people really enjoy a warm, welcoming, and accepting environment. Just being yourself and putting out the best version of yourself consistently can help you foster a community of your own. I also spend a lot of time with my community via Discord voice/text chats but I don't think that's a huge part of it, and I'd go as far as to say it negatively affects my twitch turnout at times due to overexposure to the Fern. What's Next?I'm planning on continuing my daily streaming, keeping track of all the cool changes, and more blog posts. Thanks for reading!!!
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11/18/2023 06:26:42 pm
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Leave a Reply.AuthorI've spent 12+ years learning/working around game development. I love all sorts of interactive media. I'm also a mediocre musician. |