The Dev Team Grows: Major Announcement (Patreon)

 Yo,

So major announcement here with a ton of context. 

Imagine that: me writing a long post...This one is pretty damn important though so I thought, as usual, transparency is key.

Context and Increases in Community Based Contributions to Straight?!

So up until now, this game has primarily been a product of me doing a majority of things solo. With no prior experience, a ton of my time is spent Googling "how-to's" and typically thumping my head on the desk repeatedly. As the game has grown, I've met some amazing people, a few of which I actually have gotten to know on a personal level and talk to pretty regularly. Thus, with each update, the community and followers have become more involved in things behind-the-scenes over here. Some of you may have realized this if you read the patch notes for the game. While I do the writing, CGs, and coding; followers have increasingly become involved in the game and helped me out with some side projects to speed up updates. For example, the textbox change that you saw in v13 was fan-made, but he wished to remain anonymous. The same guy actually helped me do the taskbar icon, too, something that I've wanted to get done for a long time. Another follower, lex0, recently caught a bunch of CG errors, corrected them, and sent them back for v0.14. I also have about four testers behind-the-scenes that get my beta version of each release and usually run through it, giving me feedback on the story, and telling me the correct way to spell "embarrassed" (true story...every...single...update). 

So despite the gaming having my name on it, it really has become more of a community thing with each subsequent update. Hell, there's another huge fan-made addition coming up in v14 that I'm extremely stoked about. Honestly, I feel like this contribution is almost better than mine at this point. I can't wait to show it off because I legit stared at it for two days!

Many of you have offered help and I appreciate that. Sometimes, it's more of a timing thing and other times people offer help and I don't even know what I really need help with. There's also a few followers that randomly just send me messages of encouragement or tell me my avatar is hot. Those are pretty dope, too, and really come in handy when I'm being a diva like I was back in December. So, bottom line: over the past year, this has increasingly become more community-based and you guys have really helped me more than I can ever really express in a post. So while this game has my name on it, it's sorta become a part of all of us.

The Announcement: Blayke

In contrast to many of the other community contributions, I want to officially announce that I'm bringing a second person onboard to the development team of Straight?! His name is Blayke and he will serve in multiple roles around here to help give me more time to focus on the writing, art, and general game organization to improve the quality of the game development even further. Despite not having school on my plate anymore, this game still takes a significant amount of time and typically several hundred hours go into each update. My goal is to reduce some of that clutter, streamline the process more so that I can relax and spend time with those I care about, and maybe feel less guilty about taking breaks.

Blayke's primary roles for the game will be assisting me with writing structure, organization, and community outreach. He has previous writing experience and he's amazing-- honestly better than I am.  Additionally, his strengths seem to really compliment my own natural weaknesses and we seem to work well together as a team. Dude is pretty much my Gemini when it comes to this stuff and we have a powerful balance and mutual respect for one another that I truly feel will take this game to the next level. This relationship sorta grew out of mutual collaboration on our own individual projects. Blayke has his own work that's completely unrelated to anything here and I was honored when he included me in his own development process. Expanding the Dev team over here has always been something that was intimidating to me. But, somehow things sorta just clicked with Blayke and I seriously couldn't think of one reason not to bring this guy onboard and work with him.

In contrast to my old way of doing things, I plan to attempt to fully outline the remaining parts of the game in the near future. Blayke will have full access to the entire storyboard to help connect things together and hopefully improve the quality of all the crazy twists that have been already set up in the game that ya'll haven't even caught onto yet (I'm excited). The popularity of this game and the fanbase has really motivated me to up the ante here. To have a story be this complex and deep with characters that you've grown attached to demands quality in the end. I don't want to string followers along for a game of this length, just to let you down when the credits roll at the end. I want this shit to work and the fanbase deserves the best! Hell, Zack and Braden deserve the best! Having another writer onboard to help bounce those ideas from is going to be imperative--if only for my own sanity and reassurance. 

Blayke worked behind-the-scenes on v0.13 already to a small degree and has been intimately involved in v0.14 planning and outlining with me. I can say that his involvement is taking v0.14 to another level of idea generation and his feedback is direct, brutal, poignant, and completely helpful to me in every way. I also want to mention that he's respectful of my own vision for this game, even if it may differ from his own. Thus, for those who may fear things changing around here, this is not a concern. I've selected a legitimate fanboy as a co-writer who is just as invested in this story as the community is. I feel confident that things will only improve and he's already been an asset to me more than you guys--or even he-- will probably realize. 

Having a co-writer onboard additionally will hopefully give you reassurance that there's a backup plan for this game. I've already stated that this game will be completed. Having someone else onboard only increases that. So if I get hit by a fucking bus or something, ya'll are still in solid hands and Blayke will finish this bitch using the same outline (If he doesn't, I will fucking haunt him and he knows it). 

I know some people will be unsure of this move; skeptical even. I'm typically one who is very thoughtful about decisions like this, particularly when they impact a project that I'm emotionally invested in: like this game. But, I'll challenge those followers to view this as growth: similar to the risks we've seen in character development; similar to the improvements in visual quality; even similar to those plot lines that seemed frustrating at times but ultimately had a purpose and made the game go deeper. All of those were aspects of growth that have improved this game and made it the rollercoaster that it's become. The only thing I couldn't improve was the writing aspect because I had limited it to the viewpoint of one person. So I'm tearing down that wall, too. This is one of the biggest decisions I've made regarding this game, and while it gives me butterflies (like any big decision does), I can't help but smile while I write this shit because I'm more optimistic about this year than I was the previous one. With this dude at my side, this game will be stronger than it ever has.

Meeting Blayke

So because of restrictions on Patreon, it won't allow me to have multiple people included on the Patreon account. Thus, Blayke can't do official releases and all statements on here will still come from me. However, Discord seems like it's going to be a "GO" at this point based on the poll interest. I'll be doing a formal post about that soon but for those interested in meeting or interacting with Blayke, you can catch him on the Discord channel as one of my moderators. This seemed like an appropriate way for him to meet people, answer questions, and get to know the community. It will also hopefully show the level of trust I have in this dude but I'll mention more about my moderators when the Discord launches officially. 

Blayke is very different from me, and honestly, that's a good thing for a team like this. You'll notice the rather scantily clad profile pic above. So I made the mistake of saying I would make him a custom avatar based on a selfie he sent, and this is the shit he sends me. Game on, bitch! Dudes fucking crazy but I legit love having him on the team. Plus, the eye candy isn't too bad either...just sayin'.

I'll also warn you that Blayke and I are completely ridiculous to one another and you can pretty much expect some similar banter to the way that Zack and Braden interact; probably worse! Blayke has gotten to know me on a pretty personal level so, if nothing else, we may be an interesting pair for a behind-the-scenes look at game development.

So, in contrast to the ubiquitous, unintentional hints at "us" in previous posts, game design is officially now an us thing. 

-Aaryn