Posted February 06, 2025 by Chattercap
Hello everyone, happy February!
I hope that everyone had a good start to the year! January ran past 💦 but I got quite a bit done this month!
My main project for the month was My Husband is a Stranger, and I got a bit done for it! I worked on the backgrounds and CGs, and I also finished the promo art and started putting together the Steam and itch pages. Lastly, I gave the demo script a final run-through for edits. For other projects, I received the final retakes for Hanasu, so all of the voice acting for the game is finalized!
However, most of the work that I did this month was actually... commissioning artists!
If you're familiar with me, you know that I do a lot of things solo. Part of it is because I like having a lot of creative control 😂 but after some reflection, I realized that part of it is also fear - fear that my projects aren't good enough, that people won't enjoy them, and if that's the case then at the very least I only want to waste my own time working on them 😂 And, of course, there's the financial consideration too; I don't have the confidence that I would be able to make much of the money back if I did invest a significant amount of money into my games. So I spent a long time just tinkering at things on my own, thinking "when I can finally make good games, then I'll look into hiring someone."
But that kind of mindset is no good, is it? 😂 You've gotta have some confidence in yourself!
After reviewing my project list for the year (and also coming up with yet another project that I want to tackle), I thought that 😅 unless I somehow doubled the hours I had in a day, I definitely wouldn't be able to finish them all. So I decided to take the plunge and set aside some money to put into my dev efforts this year. I spent most of my time this month researching freelancers, budgeting, writing up contracts, and preparing info for commissions.
First, I commissioned character designs, which is the first time I've done so! I always struggle with coming up with interesting designs 😅 and there are a couple projects that I'd like to work on later in the year with a simpler, more cartoony style. One is a project I'm calling Project S (a zombie murder mystery romcom) and another is Project C (time travel tragicomedy). I received the designs and I was EXTREMELY happy with them!
For GUI, I've commissioned artists for the Karamu trilogy, Project R, Project S, and Project C. I'm also in discussions for GUI for Actala and Project Y.
I've also started working with a background artist for Project R (as well as some extraneous backgrounds for My Husband is a Stranger), and I'm in discussions for backgrounds for Hanasu, Actala, and Project Y. Lastly, I commissioned the logo for Project S!
So lots of things went on behind the scenes this month! Hopefully this will make the dev process go a bit smoother, so that I'm able to release more games this year!
Next month, I'll be focusing on revisiting the code for My Husband is a Stranger, as well as finishing up the art assets for the demo. I'll also be working a bit on art assets for Project R (and possibly Project S) so that the GUI artists have something to work off of!
Thank you to everyone who's following along, and see you next month!
Chattercap