Lowering the pressure

Some might have noticed I haven’t uploaded any new video or other information for a few weeks now. It first started because I had some weird fever for a day and then spent the rest of that week as best buddy to the couch and only went where the couch went (no-where).

But once I got back on my feet I still wasn’t feeling into it and progress on Space Grunts was pretty slow and everything I added or changed graphically wasn’t feeling right.  The only time I felt good about the game was when I was playing it..

This has continued for a few weeks now and this last week, due to a family visit, I had a great relaxing week of fun and playing board games and just not thinking about work too much. So that’s the key!

I guess you could call it “overworked” of sorts altho I don’t feel like that, but I just have a lot of work related stuff on my plate and a continuous drive to keep performing and keep my game development going so that I can release the next game.  All that stuff combined means my head is never empty, never taking a break, and constantly busy with juggling all these things I still have to do.

Now I’ve learned that the best way to keep your head empty is to put all the things you have to do in a ToDo list and just stick to that list when you work.. stupidly I have most of the stuff in my head and not working by any list. So more stuff is added, while I only work on one thing: the new game.

Basically my list contains a bunch of much-overdue things and some stuff that is now done:

  • Gunslugs 2 needs a small update on Steam, and adding Steam trading cards and giving it a price-cut with some extra attention.
  • Heroes of Loot was on Greenlight, but I couldn’t be bothered to do any promotion for it in the last few weeks.. “luckily” the game passed Greenlight two days ago, so it’s now on Steam.. bringing us to the next item on the list:
  • Heroes of Loot needs an update, figuring out how to do proper twin-stick support to the game, so we can release on Steam.. including the Steam trading-games, Steam Achievements, and doing proper PR for the release
  • Heroes of Loot was just released on the Humble store, also something I was working on all that time, so cool to see it worked out, requires website updates and changes.
  • My websites were hacked.. thanks script-kiddies, it cost me half a week to get everything sorted out, improved, updated, and it’s now much better and hopefully more script-kiddie-proof.
  • Space Grunts needs to be finished.. most likely my next game
  • “Meganoid3 prototype” needs more work .. possibly my next game, or my next-next game
  • I finally fixed Eclipse/Android5 sdk issues.. so I can now bring “all” my games to AndroidTV.. that means a lot of updating, testing, and uploading of Meganoid, Meganoid2, Gunslugs1, and a bunch more
  • Chrono&Cash major update is 95% finished.. so I can release on AndroidTV,FireTV,Ouya and port it to ChromeOS and possibly PC.
  • Chinese consoles: working/talking to a few partners for various Chinese Android based consoles.. best case it requires very little work from me, but it’s hardly ever the best case :)
  • Deciding on porting to Wii-U. I have everything set, I’m a licensed nintendo developer, and I can “loan” a wii-u dev kit for 6 months.  If I ever want to put my games on there, it should be now, cause I have no idea how long it will take for Nintendo to come with the next console.
  • In talks about 3DS porting of my games.
  • Gunslugs2 did great, but it wouldn’t hurt to have another “quick” game out to keep some money flow going while I work on Space Grunts. Thinking of doing a re-skinning of one of my existing games.. still would take a couple of weeks work in best case. Got some idea’s bouncing around, but that just adds to the mess in my head ;)

So as you can see.. there’s a lot of stuff I’m juggling about, and I’m very sure I missed out on a few things.

When I started OrangePixel it was mostly because I wanted to be my own boss, do my own thing, and not have to worry about other people. It’s great, and my best life-decision ever,  I enjoy myself and am a very happy dude generally, and I love my life with Aline a lot, but every now and then it piles up and I have to release the pressure..

So I’ll be taking it a bit slow for a few more days or weeks, try to sort out some back-log stuff, clear my head, write all those things down in a proper ToDo list and scratch out some of the plans or push them forward to maybe next year.  Making sure I don’t feel “pressured” into completing specific things, and just doing the things I want to do first.

…who knows, I might even start a new game just for fun! ;)

 

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