Game Journal #118 - The Long-Awaited Return

Hey everyone! Welcome BACK to my game journal series! Are you excited now that it's back? I am!

I bet your first thought is, "Hey HaxDev, where did you go?" And I'll answer it!

So for the past ~6 months I've been really interested in Guilty Gear. I'd been a dormant fan for a while but there's a pretty active community on Twitter. So, I was able to talk about it with people on there. People really liked my art related to it, and I made a lot of animations too. Not to mention, I also made some money from selling art and other things! It was pretty cool.

I made my twitter account originally to do marketing for my game. But after posting GG stuff, I made a lot of friends. Now I have over 1,000 followers somehow. I DON'T know how, but I do. "So what does this have to do with your game?" Don't worry, I'll explain.

I have 1,000 people following me. Those 1,000 people, while being Guilty Gear fans, also probably like things similar to me! So then I thought, "Maybe they'd like Joe Maverick, too!" So I was farming.... kinda! I did really want to draw stuff related to Guilty Gear, but at the same time I was marketing for my game, just really really subtly. After all, it's much easier for someone to find you when you make fanart. I think it's easier for someone to become a fan of what you make when they have a general idea of what your other stuff is like, too! Interestingly enough, a lot of manga artists also started off like this (making fancomics first, and then their own series.) So really, I wasn't wasting time. I was marketing!

Anyway, I got a bit tired of drawing GG all the time and I want to go back to game stuff. Not to mention, the weather here is finally warm! Let me explain. My house has poor insulation in my office room. So it's pretty much the same temperature there as it is outside. For the past month it's been COLD. Like, near or below freezing. My office was almost uninhabitable. I didn't have the option of using a space heater because I already have so much electricity draw in there (my pc, monitors, drawing tablet, etc.) So I couldn't be in there for extended periods of time. My house does have a floor heater outside my office, but after I got my nearly 300$ heating bill I kinda stopped using it. So yeah. But now, temps are finally back to the 70s, so I feel super motivated.

Also life wise, I've been losing weight. I lost about 10 pounds since last month. How? Miku Fitness Boxing on the Nintendo Switch. I love Vocaloid, and I love rhythm games, so for me it's a fun way to get active. There's even a nice chart where you can log your weight on a graph and see it go down. I definitely recommend it!

All right, with all that said, what is new since last time? Well, the main menu has just about everything done for controller support. And, I finally started working on Joe's overdrive animation. I should have it done soon! Then I'll work on Dan's.

All in all, I was thankful for the break. It was like when I got obsessed with Bakumatsu Rock 2 years ago and started translating everything related to it. Lol. But now, it's time to hop back on game devving. The full demo was supposed to be done on Christmas, yet it isn't. That will change, soon! I'll try to do two journals a week as well. I'm really ramped and ready to go!

Sorry for the wait, and I hope you keep up with the game's development! Honestly the break felt longer than it was... it was about a month, but for me it felt like 2 months. I don't know why, but eh.