This year was in many ways a big change for me.

Fast Release Cycles

After working on Sonucido: The Mage for two years, I wanted to make something which I could finish quickly and I did this two times. First I made Fight in the Arena, a text-adventure with a in-depth turn-based fighting system which is inspired by A Legionary’s Life. Next I participated at the Dungeon Crawler Game Jam 2023 and created The Blood Mage for it. It was inspired by Myth Bearer and Deep Rune and belongs to an extremely niche genre. The whole game is basically a puzzle and the order in which you fight enemies and use items will decide if you win or lose the game. After the jam I ported the game to Godot 4.0.2 to try out the new features of the 4.0 branch of Godot and then released it on Steam. The commercial version of The Blood Mage has a bigger dungeon with slightly better graphics and got some polish overall.

New Job

After releasing Fight in the Arena in February and The Blood Mage in May, I took on a part-time job in retail in July (30 hours per week plus overtime) to cover my living expenses. Due to lucky circumstances and doing good work I got promoted pretty quickly to something like a light store manager. Officially, I take on this position January ‘24 but I did most stuff already beforehand. This will net a little bit of extra money every month, nothing to brag about but good to have.

Adapting

My GameDev journey took a hit from this job as expected but it was also good in a way. It took a lot of stress out of my self employment as I don’t need to worry about money so much anymore. Since I didn’t really want to make a new game directly, I focused on updating my existing games. The Blood Mage got three updates after I started my new job, Sonucido: The Mage got two updates and Fight in the Arena got one update. A lot of rough edges were polished.

Gaming

I didn’t play a lot of games this year but I finally replayed Hype: The Time Quest a nostalgic favorite from my childhood. Still a great game! I got another run of Age of Decadence done this year, played It Came from the Forest and Mysteries under Lake Ophelia. I bought Space Wreck shortly after release and played it for a few hours. This were certainly the highlights of 2023.

The Future

I would like to make a new game but I need to find ways to get enough time to work on it. It’s possible to work on a game here and there but especially in the beginning I would like to have some uninterrupted hours where I can focus on it exclusively. Updating games is easier on a scattered schedule than making new games, that’s for sure.

That’s it! I wish you a pleasant 2024!

Daniel

Back to the Blog >