In my last post, 365 days ago, I said:
"I hadn't intended on doing a trailer for Snaccoon for quite a while."
There was good reason for that.
Prior to agreeing to presenting a trailer for Snaccoon, I was very happy working on it in my off-hours, experimenting with gameplay with the peace of mind that it was on no one's schedule but my own. I could take breaks whenever I wanted, spend more time with family, because despite it having had some eyes on it, there wasn't a lot of expectation.
Then Gamescom Fall 2022 rolled around, and I got an offer to showcase the game. I gave it some consideration (as well as talking with my employer about the prospect) and thought, "this is a big opportunity, it's a lot of exposure for a game that I'd really like to complete, it'd be irresponsible to waste it."
I should have just said no.
What followed me saying yes was like 45 days of non-stop crunch on a trailer, while also working regular tasks & time at my day job as a technical artist. I was unbelievably stressed out, rapid-prototyping my intended features to a presentable level while capturing footage, editing the trailer, and iterating with a composer on the song.
I'm very proud of the trailer and I'm glad to have followed through on such a big task in such a short time frame. But the experience of making it completely sucked all the joy out of it for me, and since it debuted, I've barely made any progress on the game, because working on it now feels like this massive, pressured, mountainous task, and every day, week, month that goes by without posting an update makes the thought of posting a good enough update on it feel impossible, like I've lost too much momentum to ever be able to catch up.
I have no one to blame but myself, and it feels like a massive first-world problem to have, but it's hugely disappointing because the reception was warm, and I have felt consistently like I can't deliver on the expectations that I set for myself, and for other people.
I made this site so that I could blog regularly about game development, but I started using this blog for Snaccoon devlogs, and the thought of posting regularly without giving updates to the state of the game, was terrifying. It makes me feel like a fraud, and a failure. But I love making games, I love prototyping things, exploring new areas, growing my skillset, and making cool stuff, and I want to feel free to step back from Snaccoon as needed, to work on whatever I'd like to in my spare time, like I felt like I could before, and I think the first step to feeling that way again, is to admit, formally, that Snaccoon is largely in the same state that it was a year ago; in an early, prototype phase, with a long, long way to go.
To anyone disappointed by this, I am sorry. The premise and mechanics and ideas I have for Snaccoon are still very important to me and focal to my thoughts a lot of the time, but executing on them has been very difficult. This post is not me cancelling development, but it's a long overdue (and long-winded, sorry) status update on the game, one that I've been petrified to share.
My hope is that this post will be kind of like ripping the band-aid off, if for no one else, then for myself, so that I can move forward with all of my side project ideas, and so that I can feel okay posting regularly again.
Thanks,
-Christian