We face a great deal of complexities in our day to day lives; what to do, what to wear, what to eat, what to focus on. Time and focus are precious things that stretch out before us in at once infinite but gradually diminishing possibilities. May was a month of wide reaching but slowly shrinking possibilities, and we’re here to take a look at what was and what wasn’t in the time we spent.
A note on the day: I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the day and time we’re posting this. It’s June 3rd, the first Wednesday of the month. This and the majority of monthly posts are typically tied to the first Tuesday but events surrounding the protesting of George Floyd’s death lead me to think it best to remain as part of the blackout and let other voices be heard through social media. While this post appears here on the blog first, it echoes out to other streams. It was a voice that was not needed on that day. Social commentary and politics are an integral part of storytelling, regardless if many have decried it through their blindness of the presented moral and philosophical efforts of writers and artists. My voice matters, my opinion matters, and I will share them when appropriate. I will also step back when it is best for others to speak.
Our goal for May was to work on the novel, Epicus. Currently, this is on hold. The changes and growth of the Twitch side of things made working on the writing side a little rough, and so we’ve had to reprioritize what’s going on between the two business lines. Starting this week, we’re going to put the novel fully aside and start work on the next two Patreon short stories. Expect the vote for the October story to come out soon while I get the August story up and running. These changes will afford me the time I need to get a few things ready for the Twitch business line. Stay tuned to the Patreon for more details of the writing in the coming weeks.
Last month we finished and published our first emote. nullopOkay comes from studying with Illustrator, and the tier 2 emote slot is already pending approval. We’re 9 sub points away from unlocking the next tier 1 emote, but I have some ideas of what we’ll be doing. These emotes will start showing up on the Discord soon, so make sure to jump over there if you’re interested in getting a glimpse of them prior to Twitch giving us the okay.
Let’s talk Twitch some more. In late March, we started playing Cross Code as our single player game of choice. For the past two months we’ve traveled through the land of Shadoon on the Raritan Gem, fighting alongside Lea and her wonderful friends in the First Scholars. But like all things, the end must come. A week ago, on the Memorial Day stream, we beat the game. It was a lovely experience, and has catapulted Cross Code into one of my top games of all time, enough that I wanted to memorialize it. I cannot stress enough how much this game is worth your time. Between the story, gameplay, and art, it’s all perfect.
With Radical Fish’s glorious title out of the way, we moved on to a few other single player experiences during the last weekend of May. First, we dispatched Primordia in a single evening. This was a sweet little indie gem from back in 2012, and a lovely homage to the point and click style of games from the 80’s and 90’s. My only complaint is that it was a short experience. The story set itself up as a potential three act play, but cuts itself short at the end of a potential first act. There’s a lot of world building here on the seams, and they certainly could have done more.
Our second title knocked out this weekend was Cloudpunk. A heavily story driven game, the game is a complete setting wrapped into a very VERY busy night for our protagonist, Rania. Cloudpunk isn’t so much fun as it is interesting, and that’s sort of its problem. When the writing is trying to point out social issues often associated with cyberpunk and dystopia it either comes out as well earned and well presented (a certain long collectable storyline highlights this), or it comes off as awkward and forced (the majority of the random one-shot NPC encounters). The story is either really good or really bad, and there’s not much in-between. Further, Cloudpunk tries to come off like it’s setting up features gamers might expect to lead somewhere, but then does nothing with them. The biggest example of this is the apartment; in which the player can furnish throughout the course of the game with things like a music player, a fridge, a game console. A typical player may expect the music player to let them to listen to different tracks from the OST from the game, or the game console to let them experience the games they’ve been collecting for an eclectic npc, but neither of these are true. They, like many of the experiences of the game, feel unpolished and unfinished. Overall, I recommend Cloudpunk for the core story, but little else. It’s not in beta but it sure feels like it. The current $19.99 price tag makes me hesitant against the 12 hours it took to complete the game, but as it’s an indie dev I’m more forgiving for the $1=1 hour requirement I have from AAA titles. If you’re in it for the core story, it’s worth it.
This weekend we’ll be starting our next single player title, Hollow Knight. I briefly played this a bit back in 2017, but like many games it got put aside due to a few side projects. I’m looking forward to playing another Metroidvania style of game, especially on stream. There’s a long list of this style of game on the to-be-played spreadsheet, so please look forward to them.
There’s more Twitch stuff happening behind the scenes, but I don’t want to share them on the main feed until they’re further along. Stayed tuned to Patreon or the Discord’s supporter chat for more details throughout the month.
June has a lot of writing and streaming projects in the pipes, and I’m looking forward to sharing the fruits of those labors with you all. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, join the Discord, and keep an eye on public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch.
Otherwise, happy pride everyone. See you in July, and enjoy the start of the summer.