I have tried coming up with a witty introduction for this post but I do feel honesty is the best policy when it comes to public relations: The creative portion of my brain is currently entirely taken up by fictional boyfriends and they refuse to provide even a centimeter of leeway. So this is how the update starts. Don't blame me, blame them. And then stop blaming them and think about them too.
Ah yes, spooky season is soon upon us, for a very generous definition of 'soon'. Not as generous as supermarkets are with their definition of the christmas season, granted. Still what better way to whet your appetite for the ghouliday than by reminding yourself of the horror that was Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. I'm talking about the game design, if that's not clear.
For non-Patrons I have finally released the 100 Days Doodle video over on youtube and I hope you enjoy that as much as I enjoyed finishing it.
I know I had implied in the last update the inevitability of both a video and a comic. However if you look at the fine print you will observe that these were predicted "...barring more mental or technical issues..." The state of that clause can be confirmed through this video of my graphics tablet's stylus in operation, or rather lack thereof.
So drawing has been, at best, scuppered. Very little work was completed on the comic and almost all of my time was instead funnelled into completing the aforementioned video. As usual this contained a number of drawn assets and - with a janky hybrid setup of one graphics tablet with a malfunctioning screen as input and a second with a malfunctioning stylus as monitor - they each took approximately twice as long to make as they typically would.
This combined with the time spent getting angry at this, as well as the quite extraordinary amount of hoops jumped through to claim the warranty, led to the loss of quite a considerable amount of comic-drawing time. Even game development took a hit, with only 2 of the last 14 days having any time spent making progress. That said the progress was pretty good.
As for the miscellaneous in-betweens some very rough sketches and small doodles were about all I could muster. I continued my Pokemon RPG doodles now with colour pencil (what a revelation!), made stream Snips for two new games, added finishing touches to a commission, scribbled some potential new characters and doodled a Kay to cheer me up.
Outside of drawing I've been adding a feature or two to my 'Corkboard' app which, since I'm at least partly focusing on game dev, I might as well get into a state that people can download and use themselves. A little light sewing, a lot of light murdoku, and two particular days with the concise journal entry 'bad head' and we've pretty much filled our allotted time. It's also be prohibitively hot, so there's that.
If work, distractions and bad heads are the day-filler, then streams are the evening-filler! Weekdays streams find us waddling through our Verney Journey duology of games, having thwarted the baffling incompetence of Journey to the Center of the Earth and shot up in expectations into the dizzying orbit of Voyage: Journey to the Moon. Okay it's not that good, but by comparison we're talking a solid bronze here.
Saturdays have been wildly ghoulish, seeing us scramble for supplies in the post-apocalyptic remnants of Whisper Mountain Outbreak before thwarting our demons (i.e. a demon) in Grim Hollow. Sundays provide us the much needed respite at the end of the haunting with chill doodle times with friends. Ahhhhh. Bisto.
So what can we expect from the fortnight to come? Well it very much depends on the technical realities. I have very helpfully just received an email from Huion telling me that "[my] approval has been approved" whatever than means. This - coupled with the impetus to undertake commissions in order to, you know, survive - means comic promises are still on the back-burner. That's such a busy back-burner, I'm going to need to lengthen it again aren't I? This kitchen is 97% back-burner at this point.
More optimistically, the second part of the Sherlock Holmes highlights is roughly edited and ready to be cleaned up with bouncy pngs and silly additions. Some new OCs have been gnawing at the back of my head and making me write far too much, so perhaps they and their questionable backstories might see the light of day. And, of course, game development is still very much on the cards with much dialogue to draft and many systems to entrench. The goal of getting the demo out by the end of the year is still plausible, I tell myself deceitfully.
Plainly put: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that's why they call it the present. Everybody go and listen to Madness, bask in the joy of knowing how grateful I am for your continued support (the end of the highlight video should emphasise that) and I'll be back next time with something in hand. Hopefully more than a cap.
Look after yourselves,
Crispy 💜