Hello There! š Welcome to the first edition of my blog! āš
Why am I starting one? I have four reasons I will get into shortly. But, why should you listen to me and why should you care about this blog? So letās start with a brief introduction of myself, some context and jump into the why of this blog.
My name is Aaron Arenas (aka aaron7eleven). I am the founder of Eventide Games Studio. I started doing game dev in June 2020 as a hobby using Unity. Iāll play around with game frameworks, like Raylib, SDL, and SFML, and C++. I participated in game jams and enjoy the challenge of them. As of today, Iāve released 10 games on itch.io and 1 game on Steam, Abridge. I work full time outside of building games. Anything and everything game dev related, I do in my free time and for fun. š Iāve remained solo the entire time. My main goal is to make games. If I can make games to generate income and have this hobby be self-sustaining, all the better. But, itās not my intent (at least not right now). My secondary goals are to share my unique experiences and interact with amazing people. This is where Iāll admit Iām lacking and wanting more of this.
So, why listen to me? Iāve made games by myself with limited time, while working full-time and with little to no budget. Beside me making a living with game dev, I am living the dream! Iāve worked hard, put in the time and I am proud of myself for where I am at today. Abridge, my first Steam game, has been successful in my eyes based on my goals and what Iāve heard from players. It may not be the biggest commercial success like Baba is You. However, it has been a fundamental step on which Iāve built my game dev foundation on.
Now, why should you care about this blog? Over my 2.5 years of game dev, Iāve learned a lot through trial and error and through others. Iāve wanted to share it but never really found a good way to get it out there. I want to take the time and opportunity to just say it. Get my thoughts and advice out there. I think it could help fellow game devs level up, bring a different perspective and help beginners hopping into this crazy creative endeavor. That leads me into the first of my four reasons why I want to start this blog.
#1 – Document my game dev journey
I donāt want to document everything. Really the important bits and details that I want to remember and what I think will be helpful and interesting for others to read and learn about. The range of game dev items I have in mind is broad. To name a handful: game design, puzzle design, level design, art, graphics, sound, programming, internal game systems, debug tools, game feel, marketing, and much more. To be clear, I am not claiming to be an expert in any of these fields. I would define myself as a game dev generalist. As a result, Iāve had to put on these āhats” at least once in the past 2.5 yrs. The goal would be to share my experience and perspective of putting on each of these āhatsā talk about what worked, what didnāt and learn from there.
Second reasonā¦
#2 – I donāt really like making videos
I love watching them. If I am being honest with myself, I donāt really like the process of making them. I am a bit on the introverted side and donāt really like to speak a lot. Little insecure? Maybe…but I am working on it. Thatās a story for another day though. Writing has been something Iāve found more comfortable doing. I prefer communicating in email, text and get thisā¦even letters !?! š² Anyways, with video and recording. The process feels like a slog. I am in no way knocking those who love this process. Itās just not for me. I donāt have time for it right now. More specifically, it’s not a priority. Could I get better at it the more I do it? Totally! But, why not spend that time doing the things I want to do and get better at like making games andā¦this blog. š I will make the caveat that I understand that there is a time and place for a video as it is a part of marketing (will touch on this more in my next reason for blog). If I have a good topic that would be a good video, I would be happy to make it. It just will not be my first option right now. Itās a tradeoff that, for now, I am willing to take.
Third reasonā¦
#3 – Platform Independence
Not to get into whatās happening with Twitter right now as I donāt have a lot of knowledge about. But, it sounds like its future is a bit rocky right now. Furthermore, after reading this article by Chris Zukowski on howtomarketagame.com, it really inspired me to think about what I would do if these social media platforms (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) disappeared or didnāt exist. My initial thought was to try and do this (i.e. a blog) or some kind of email marketing. It provides a level of freedom and flexibility that they donāt. It does come at the cost of not being exposed to an wider audience and traffic that those platforms have. I am going to keep using them for now and build this on the side. At the end of the day, I need to use them as what they are to meā¦ marketing tools. To further drive this point home with an analogy, if I have a hammer that looks like itās about to break. I have the option to fix it, keep using it until it breaks, or use it to build a new hammer.
The fourth and final reasonā¦
#4 – Sustainability
What do I mean by that? Sustainability for me to keep making blogs. With anything that I want to do, try to build the habit of doing it. Not waiting for the motivation or time to do it. In my experience, motivation is fleeting. It comes and goes. Time rarely always comes in chunks of a few hours. It usually comes sporadically in 15- 45 min intervals throughout the day or week. I loosely plan out what I want to do and prioritize. Recently, Iāve been more into reading and more inclined to read an article over watching a video given itās interesting, catchy or I learn something new. With that, it gives me a great interest in reading other articles or doing research on topics that I want to share. There is also a lower barrier to entry to start writing a blog compared to a video. I tried to build the habit of making videos. It felt like I could not get it to āstickā. It felt like an uphill battle. My computer’s performance didnāt help this either with the constant freezing and stuttering when scrubbing through videos. This is a chance for me to commit and try out something new. In addition, the flexibility to work on this and develop something of interest and value from my experience for myself and ,more importantly, for you is intriguing. Iāll also add that I do see the benefit of setting deadlines and commitments and putting them in writing. I am shooting to make one post on the first Friday of each month for year. Letās see how that goes.
Before I close out, I do want to give a quick shout out to Chris Zukowski again for blog and courses. He is the one of the best marketing resources for Steam & PC games that Iāve found and would recommend him to anyone who asks. He has been extremely helpful for getting started and keeping a fresh perspective on the current gaming landscape. Go check him out and his blog on howtomarketagame.com.
Thanks for making it this far. If you have feedback, topics or ideas you want me to talk about, let me know at eventidegamesstudio@gmail.com or in the comments below.
Current ideas for next blog are:
1) Abridge Post-Mortem
2) Game Dev Post Game Slump
3) Designing puzzles for Abridge
4) Launching Abridge! How did it go?
Thank you again and have a great day!
Aaron
