it's so well-deserved! congratulations!
here's my question: it's been a good few years since you started! what do you think has contributed to project longevity - both in terms of logistics and simple mental endurance?
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Speaking only for myself, in terms of mental endurance I believe some of it comes from character, and some from things I went through. I'm the sort of person who draws a long-term plan to achieve my goal, and when something goes wrong I try to adapt to new circumstances. I also don't like breaking promises, and I did promise to finish the game -- that's more of an anchor for me than most people imagine.
I also believe that writing a novel (visual or otherwise) just inherently demands a kind of resistance against discomfort. The process of writing is often fun, and it's always enriching, but when you set out to do it for years or decades you realize that on the long term it will almost always demand that you cope with a high amount of mental effort. And, past a certain point, when this becomes one's job, that effort becomes physical as well.
I'll also admit that a bit of an obsessive trait is probably positive, too. The slight obsessive capacity to latch on to an idea for years until you see it to its end.
Now, in terms of lived experiences... I think a key thing for me is that I started publishing my writing very early and, crucially, I ate a lot of shit. I know what it's like to spend years writing a book that will not move more than 300 copies, and what it's like to put your work through the Amazon Kindle algorithm hell hole. That really set my expectations for how bad things could be.
So, when I came over to FVNs... Well, some people might think of all the issues in this space, but my attention went to how much better this is than traditional publishing. It's easy to say that things are great now, but even back during our first release, when our number were far from impressive, I quickly realized how good this readership could be.
Friendship is important, too. I think it's a lot harder to give up on a project when you're accountable to others.
All of that said, if I had to say what was the biggest factor for me... I simply love writing. I love the act of writing, I love the outlining, I love chasing ideas. I don't like programming -- that's evil and heteronormative -- but I love almost everything else. And when you love something it's not really that big of a burden, is it? Even if it makes you tired at the end of the day.
Now, in terms of logistics, right out of the gate I think it's important for me to bring up that I live in a cheap country and was able to get some decent savings going. I say this as a segue to the bare reality that, you know, you can't make creative work if you can't somehow pay the bills. And, in our case, I had to put some of my savings into the game to get things rolling. This wasn't necessary when Minotaur Hotel was a project among friends, but we had to make the transition into becoming a game development studio that pays its team, and with that comes a number of realities that any small business owner will have to deal with.
Now, during most of the project's lifetime our team worked under a consensus-based decision-making format. We discussed the plans for the game and, almost without exception, we were capable of reaching an agreement between the ENTIRE team. I tried to make things as horizontal as possible, which has its strengths and weaknesses, but over time the team saw me as the director nonetheless. I think that format was almost always good and an important factor to our longevity -- everyone in the team was able to bring up issues, everyone's input mattered, but at the end of the day I made sure things were thematically coherent always. This keeps the project together and going.
Now things are a little more professionalized -- we have to worry about deadlines, financial realities, scheduling, etc. Things had to become more vertical and organized. It changed, but even now we carry some leftovers from this format (Awoo is director over Wolf's writing, Nemo directs Kota, etc).
There's no way around it, I think longevity here comes down a lot to how the team manages itself. Leadership matters.
Does this answer your question? If you want me to dig some more in regards to any of those points, just say so.
i think it absolutely answers the question! i think it aligns a lot with what i would've answered myself -- the material reality of project management is something that i think thwarts a lot of people who start from zero with their friends once they have to transition from "we are doing this for fun, as friends" to "we are doing this for a living, as professionals." there's so many compromises and adjustments to make to your attitude about why you work and what you need to protect.
you saying "the effort becomes physical as well" is all too real for me especially... even if i have my mental attitude worked out, i'm in a good working environment, and i'm having a lot of fun, i can be stopped by hand pain or my energy disorder -- something that happens when you make what you love into something you do for 8 hours a day
thank you for such a complete response, and congrats again <3
Readers don't realize the physical reality of developing these games.
I think most of them think about their normal life and all the free time they have -- the quiet nights after work when it's not exhausting, or all the free time they have during college, or maybe they are unemployed and have a competent, caring support network... And then they think "I can put some hours to make a fun project". At first it's dreamy and carefree because they are well-rested and fresh. And they think that's it, you just do that and keep doing it, that's their idea of what developing a VN must be like.
But that's really not it, at least not for long. The reality is that making these games becomes incredibly concrete. You do it for a day, and you have to do it the next day too, and the next day as well. You'll forego opportunities to hang out with friends and family for this, and then you'll struggle to tell them what you were doing. You'll make life decisions based on your commitment to it -- you can't take this 2-year long professional commitment because it'd stop you from developing your game. Your finances will be affected, because for a lot of people they could be making more money elsewhere, and even if this is a great deal for you it's not so simple when it becomes a fulltime job.
You'll get tired, and you'll get a creative block. You'll rest and get back on your horse -- and you'll get a block again, until you learn how to push through it. You'll learn that you can keep working even when you're tired, and that a creative block doesn't mean you can miss deadlines and leave your team hanging. You'll learn that there are levels of tiredness, and that what you considered "super tired" is only the first level of exhaustion -- and there's at least ten of them, maybe more.
And it's gonna become physical, yeah. No one told me that a good office chair is "writing equipment", but it damn well is. One day I wrote while sitting on one of those tall chairs, a bar stool as they call it, and it left me in profound pain for more than a week. Nowadays I use a weird, fucked up ergonomic keyboard that clocks me as a fucking psycho because wrist injuries are no fucking joke, and I have 50 macros to reduce repetitive movements while coding expressions. I have an ultra wide monitor because my vision hs gotten worse and I need some geriatric features to be able to write well. I have a guest bedroom in my apartment but I'm facing the reality that I'll have to turn it into an office so I'll have space for all the things I need, but I'll also have to figure out what the fuck do I do about the wallpaper because post-it notes don't stick to it, and I need room for my wall of post-it notes. Even then, there'll come a point where my body starts communicating with me through a variety of discomforts -- and you gotta learn to listen to these things if you have any intention of doing this game dev thing for long.
It just keeps going. There is a physicality to making these games, or perhaps to any form of game dev, that people just cannot imagine. There are intersections, extremely significant ones, with pre-existing health issues and their treatments. There'll be devs who get a ADHD diagnosis and improve their focus significantly when they're medicated, and you'll have people on the autism spectrum who basically harness that same neurochemistry at will and start producing Vyvanse endogenously, but then can't turn it off -- and that's when you start seeing devs coming up with daily or weekly rituals to self-regulate somehow. Me, for instance, I could work during weekends, that's when a good chunk of the team is most available, but I decided to keep my weekends to myself because otherwise I'd go crazy.
I could keep going for hours about this, but that's enough for now. Take care of yourself breastie.
damn guys this sucks, when they said "would you die for your art" i thought we were fighting cops or something not wasting away from carpal tunnel and vitamin deficiency..
but yeah, ouch. this is literally just how it is. i feel like its just a countdown until i get some ergonomic keyboard thing going on myself. the artist-writer combo is bad enough without also being someone who is used to being hunched over laptops (i don't have any kind of "home base" and nowhere to live permanently at the moment, maybe that's part of my issue)
may we all attain true balance in all things