Minor Update & An Important Announcement (Please Read)

Hello everyone, Dino here! A small update of Vincent: The Secret of Myers has been pushed out. This update includes some minor fixes and changes. At the same time, I’d like to make an important announcement.

First of all, I’d like to thank you all for your overwhelming positive reviews of Chapter 4 of Vincent: The Secret of Myers! It is my great honor that players enjoy my story and my characters, and I couldn’t have made it to this step without your support. However, today I’d like to talk about more serious topics, including how I’m doing now, and how I wish to move forward. 

In short, after some consideration, I have decided to take a break from making new chapters.

What’s going on?

The first thing I’d like to make clear is that game dev is just my hobby and I don’t make profits from it. I began game dev in 2017, and so far, all of my games are free. I opened donations to help myself cover some of the expenses in making Vincent, but most expenses are still paid from my own pockets. Nonetheless, despite that, for the past two years, I have been treating game dev as seriously as a job, and during summer break it feels like my full-time job. However, as much as I enjoy game dev, I feel like I have been focusing too much on pumping out new contents that I have neglected other aspects of my life, and other aspects of game dev itself. Therefore, I’d like to take a few months off and focus on my life outside of game dev.

Is this a hiatus?

No, this is not a hiatus. I simply want to make games at a slower pace that I can handle, and as I have mentioned before, I feel like I have been neglecting other aspects of game dev as well, including bug-fixing, polishing, marketing, etc. Therefore, I will be focusing on these aspects in the upcoming months instead. I understand that these will not be as exciting for players, but they are just as important and time-consuming, and all need to be done by me.

Will you still be around?

I don’t have any plans to disappear into thin air, but my presence online will be reduced. With the rise in popularity of my games, there has been more and more demand online for me to keep pumping out new contents. Don’t get me wrong! I totally understand that it’s because players enjoy my content and are eager to see more, and I appreciate it. However, I hope players can understand that I too am a human who has a life outside game dev, not a game-making machine.

Why does each chapter take so long?

Chapter 4 took me about 8 months, and I have seen a lot of people say that I took too long. However, if I ask myself: have I tried my absolute best in making Chapter 4 as fast as possible? The answer is yes, I have tried my best. If you have seen the end credits, then you probably have realized that I am a solo-dev and most things are handled by myself. It is also important to note that the process of game development is not a linear one, but more of “back-and-forth” iterations. Programming, art, writing, puzzle design, music making… Believe it or not, I struggle with all of them. Most things you see in the final release have gone through many iterations, and thus the longer development time.

What are your future plans?

“Will there ever be xxx?” “When will xxx?” “Do you have any plans to xxx?” Every day, I receive similar questions like these. And the answer is: I have no clue myself! I have no long-term plans, and right now I am using any spare time I can find to do game dev. In fact, I still find it unbelievable that I actually made it to Chapter 4.

Have you thought about commercializing Vincent?

I can’t say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. After all, it does sound nice to combine hobby with job, and it will also allow me to actually have income to add cooler things to my games. However, I still need time to think this through, and if I do decide to go down this path, a lot of things need to be handled differently moving forward. In short, I am not sure at the moment yet.

Have you thought about uploading your games to Steam?

I have, actually. However, from what I have heard, you need to pay expensive upload fees for each game you upload to steam, and the uploading process is quite complicated and could take up to a few months. Therefore, I probably will only do that when I do decide to commercialize my games, so I can’t promise anything at the moment.

That’s about it! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and I would like to once again thank everyone for your love and support. I have seen many fan creations related to my game, and I want to say that they are absolutely amazing! I too hope that I can bring more games to you in the future!

Thanks again,

Dino