The April That Was
This month's update is a bit more personal than usual. I hope you'll indulge me.
April proved to be a bit difficult. Thanks to the pandemic presently plaguing us, I spent nearly all of the month at home, only occasionally leaving the house. Some people can handle that, but I can't remember the last time my productivity was this bad. That's not to say that nothing's been accomplished on Dei Gratia Rex, just nothing I feel is worthy of showcasing in one of these updates or in a Screenshot Saturday tweet. Beyond that I've had some unexpected setbacks in my personal life. Oh, and at one point I was 40 days from insolvency.
I also had some unexpected assistance. In my youth I acquired a modestly impressive collection of gaming equipment and collectable card games. Selling those would solve some problems, but actually getting that done quickly and at a fair price turned out to be considerably harder than I anticipated. Some friends from my local dev group, whom I've only known a few brief months, went out of their way to find buyers for me. I'm extremely grateful for their help. The burn rate for High Tower Games is non-zero, but is really quite low indeed. I'm no longer looking at insolvency, and may in fact be able to invest a little more into art and music. I do expect some further changes in my life in the near future, but change isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Beyond that, I did take a few days to participate in a game jam hosted by the aforementioned developer group. I used a super stripped-down version of the DGR engine to create a brief narrative experience which fed into a mechanical clone of the full-scale battles from the original Suikoden. I wanted to do more with it, but tight time limits on game jams sort of prevented that. I can link it if there's any interest, but was a bit unsure if it was on-topic for DGR-related spaces. Although it got essentially no traction on Itch, completion of a project was satisfying in and of itself.
What's next for DGR? Not to jinx it, but May will surely be better than April. The next update will have content worth reading. Thank you all for reading this and for supporting the project. I hope things have been as good as possible for you all given the circumstances.
April proved to be a bit difficult. Thanks to the pandemic presently plaguing us, I spent nearly all of the month at home, only occasionally leaving the house. Some people can handle that, but I can't remember the last time my productivity was this bad. That's not to say that nothing's been accomplished on Dei Gratia Rex, just nothing I feel is worthy of showcasing in one of these updates or in a Screenshot Saturday tweet. Beyond that I've had some unexpected setbacks in my personal life. Oh, and at one point I was 40 days from insolvency.
I also had some unexpected assistance. In my youth I acquired a modestly impressive collection of gaming equipment and collectable card games. Selling those would solve some problems, but actually getting that done quickly and at a fair price turned out to be considerably harder than I anticipated. Some friends from my local dev group, whom I've only known a few brief months, went out of their way to find buyers for me. I'm extremely grateful for their help. The burn rate for High Tower Games is non-zero, but is really quite low indeed. I'm no longer looking at insolvency, and may in fact be able to invest a little more into art and music. I do expect some further changes in my life in the near future, but change isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Beyond that, I did take a few days to participate in a game jam hosted by the aforementioned developer group. I used a super stripped-down version of the DGR engine to create a brief narrative experience which fed into a mechanical clone of the full-scale battles from the original Suikoden. I wanted to do more with it, but tight time limits on game jams sort of prevented that. I can link it if there's any interest, but was a bit unsure if it was on-topic for DGR-related spaces. Although it got essentially no traction on Itch, completion of a project was satisfying in and of itself.
What's next for DGR? Not to jinx it, but May will surely be better than April. The next update will have content worth reading. Thank you all for reading this and for supporting the project. I hope things have been as good as possible for you all given the circumstances.