MOTHER'S DAY 2025

$1.57 for all asset packs in a bundle [over a dozen asset packs released] plus access to a bunch of future upcoming asset packs, future updates to existing packs, and a few indie games when completed and launched.

Work on some things is close to ready, an update to the furniture/interiors pack is over 90% done, other updates to nature packs around 50% there, first release versions of the Europe and Middle East/North Africa packs are around 80-85% complete.

There's been much progress but not as much as I had hoped. Some things were aimed at an April release and now are pushed back to early-mid May. I want to get each update done right, and there's always a list of changes - new 3d assets to model, texture, and export in multiple formats. Plus some indie games I've mentioned are in a rotation slowly moving forward toward a releasable state with relatively few bugs. I am hoping to have at least half of those out by the end of 2025, and the rest by mid 2026.

I have also been participating in a charitable bundle seen here: 

https://itch.io/b/2965/crips-for-esims-for-gaza-bundle

And if you feel inclined to support that, that's great.

But for some 60% of recent visitors, the only reason you discovered my profile is through my participation contributing one of my asset packs to the bundle, so if that's you and you thought the textures in that pack had usefulness to you due to being interested in game development - you might want to consider getting the other dozen or so asset packs I have during this sale. Again, all my assets including a ton of future releases in development for under $2 during this event.

The total numbers on this itch shop are climbing to record high levels. As in 125,000+ pages loaded since the shop opened. That's amazing even if realistically it only amounts to maybe 5000 or so actual individual people visiting occasionally and browsing a bunch of listings, each.

However large the audience actually is, it's clearly far bigger than the 200 or so actual purchases made, or the barely over ten asset-pack reviews publicly posted. Any feedback from you if you found the content useful, is itself highly significant. Ratings/reviews, comments, or even questions, bugs identified, requests for additions in future updates... all that is actually extremely helpful and I'll try to respond to all of that. I figure right now the cashflow arriving from this itch profile is around $300/year, and that's higher than ever before. Maybe more significant: I have for several years been running ad campaigns at a low level of $10/month to make people aware of this material and they never broke even until the last six months, as over that span the ROI on ad spend averaged $1.18 per dollar spent on ads, and over $1.30 per dollar spent in the last 90 days specifically. The fact that things here are beginning to snowball is immensely significant.

It's why I've begun expanding ad campaigns over the last four months, spending $20, then $30, then very recently $50/month on those. 

To date I have poured thousands of hours of work into asset creation and game development at a consistent loss, with thousands of hours, and over two thousand dollars spent pushing all of this forward and most of it has not yet paid off but soon it really could.  Etsy was profitable for a while but the boom from slow moving to entirely overwhelming order volume played out from 2020 to 2024 and as it got too busy to keep up with I shut it down.

It did, however, raise a few thousand dollars and that reserve is what covers the work on itch this year. That and the fact that the shop is now making gains on promotional spending. Which means soon, if that continues to work, I may expand ad spend into the the hundreds per month by later this year. It means the number of visitors goes up and years upon years of work with no profitability in sight finally pay off. For a long time I have been told this is not even worth doing. Not worth my time. In the past I pushed back based solely on the usefulness of the game assets to people, not the viability of the work as a business. Each comment, each rating, each bit of encouragement of any type visibly posted by any of you could be used to justify expanding this huge and growing collection of decals, textures, 3d models... and the slow but ongoing development of a handful of indie games. And now finally after pushing for years this is actually sort of working. Now, finally, I can imagine turning a profit on the entire venture by mid 2025, and when that happens so much comes from it that the results could be amazing.

Lately I have worked mostly on launching texture and 3d model content. 

You probably noticed that.

Launching new VFX packs to supplement aging material means either a set of higher end high speed true 4k cameras or a major hardware and software upgrade to simulate and render photoreal digital elements. Or both. That can cost about $1200 to do well in the first case, maybe $2500 in the second. I would like to do both as the combination of small IRL elements recorded against black and tracked, stabilized like embers and sparks and such can be tied to particle systems, and used as a layer in bigger simulations to acheive realism beyond the usual digital stuff. 

That is just future VFX packs. I also have stalled on games Miniature Minigolf and Miniature Multiverse because the last handful of model setups are going to cost over $900 to build simply in raw materials to scratchbuild scenes with. The games are both fairly close now, and there is a lot not posted online yet, the stuff everyone can see is pretty outdated.

And between those and other games, I want to launch them all not just here but on Steam and Epic, which often means expanding scope at launch to be big enough to justify a small price out of the gate on platforms where expectations are typically high. It also means covering a $100 fee per platform, per game. That, for a long list of eight (!) indie games most of which are 60% done or more, is $1600.

Throw in the $1000+ ad cost promoting all of this and it all adds up but the ad spending also is the only realistic way to cover it and make enough sales to justify it all. I really hope it can work, and for the first time I really see a path where it can. I am incrementing the ad spend now by $25 a month. I always hoped I could keep prices low and make it work anyway with sheer volume of interested supporters.

This will never work without you. And for you, there's never been a better moment to jump in, as the collections of asset packs available are already big and growing fast, and will grow even bigger over the next year. Games are in the works too, in that same price. A price which generally will tend to trend upward gradually as time passes and the sheer scale of the combined released packs and games rises. Under $2 as a deal for all of it probably will be gone by late 2025, and we'll be hyping the fact that bundle sales bring it under $3, just as up until 2024 you could get all of it for just under a dollar, which is now very unlikely to ever happen again.

Know that if you join now, you are helping this move forward faster and resulting in bigger things happening sooner, but that one way or another I will get them done, and you are already getting a lot even now, with what is included already this bundle's already a ridiculously good value. It will only look better as time passes and what is included is updated. If you support it now, you will get an enormous archive of useful material at a price level that will tend to be more and more expensive later as the included content expands and more and more releases are completed and added as downloadable.

I can say with almost total certainty now that this will work out. I can say without doubt that everyone who jumped in early was pivotal in making that happen. You buy now, or already bought, and a year or two you'll look back at this profile and shop and say, I remember when it was an obscure one. I remember when I got all of this material for $1.57 in a bundle sale that as of late 2026 will probably total more like $90 at full price and $3.50 in a sale bundle. You will be able to say in 18 months you got what in the end was eight unique indie games and in the end over 8000+ asset files, for under $2. And you will be able to point to your name in the game credits on each of those games as a person who among hundreds of others, supported them in a bundle a few months before they were released. Then you will be able to say this: I didn't just get this profile moving forward. I was also instrumental in saving lives. Because as this profile boomed beyond the cost of full scale development, the excess was donated. I have about $7000 in expenses to cover, to get it all done. I may have even more after that as new updates and projects emerge after the next year or so. But above $7000 a year of income raised here, if I get there (and I know starting in 2026 I almost surely can) then everything above that will be donated to effective, efficient charities endorsed by a list of groups like GiveWell and Charity Navigator,  charities which save lives at as little as $200 per human life. I never saw this project or profile as the end goal. I want to help people. I want to create art and help other creatives and that is my area of skill, sure, but if it works my ultimate goal is helping the entire world in very tangible ways. I want to fund charitable groups and aid the poor and the sick, and support research and efforts to cure illness and save the natural world and solve the numerous issues humanity now faces. It is daunting and I cannot do it alone. I need help from the people reading this and the work of those in the field delivering to the people most in need. I see immense existential danger emerging from threats of war and environmental decline and I choose to belive that that if we all pitch in and make sacrifices together we can survive. I know the odds look bad but I refuse to concede defeat in the face of it. And I choose to find hope in the goodness and aspirations of many people around me. There are bad people, cynical and selfish people, rising to positions of wealth and power but good ones are out there too and we can win despite our deep personal flaws and do better. We can be better in large numbers and quite bluntly we must be or we will all die from our conflicts and the technological advances we've created - marred by our greed and defective empathy and ethics that fail to advance in pace with our scientific power. I have to believe that we can do better. 

I hope you can believe that too. It's the only chance we have left.