dev diary: tumblr revival era (Patreon)

first things first: i’m posting art on my old art blog again! i spent an evening redoing my theme and drawing a new icon for myself, and i’ve been posting photosets of old fan art and of course original stuff from my games.

i stopped using tumblr in 2018, and i thought i would never go back (aside from the private art archive i made and shared with you guys previously), but yeah it feels pretty nice to be sharing stuff there again! more details below—i wanted to give some game-related updates first since that’s moreso what these dev diaries are meant for anyway.

project updates

treat has been hard to work on again… i always get myself backed into a corner with this game….. i KNOW how i want the rest of this release to go, i just haven’t been able to get it done as quickly as i wanted. but since the last build i got a huge long cutscene done and that song i posted last week! i’m still confident i can finish by the end of the month, i just have to get back in the headspace for it.

i opened up my online shop publicly, so people have been steadily ordering books! it wasn’t a huge rush thankfully, very manageable this time. i’m getting used to the process of running it, so i feel very prepared for next year when i print volume 2 of another piece of candy! i think this time i will offer charms to buy separately, but patrons will still get discount codes. anyway, that’s for next year, maybe in the spring or something?

the biggest news probably: PROTOTYPES.. HAVE ARRIVED… OF THE NEXT MAKESHIP PLUSHIES!!!!!! i will share photos next week. i asked them to do the campaign in february, so it’s still a ways off haha—mostly wanted to avoid the holiday season! but it will be two at once this time, so hopefully they can both get funded...! otherwise… gosh what a tragic ending that would be… ;)

one more fun thing to end on: i got to participate in yuri jam this year after all! kyanite heart was making a game called I Think I Need Your Help, and i originally offered to help with coding, but she reduced the scope a bit and it looked like i’d be more useful just doing the character art. she had sketched the original concepts for the girls, so i worked from those to make my versions and then we decided on colors together.

here were my little concept doodles:

i really enjoy kyanite heart’s stories, so i hope you guys will check out her stuff! her specialty seems to be flirty dialogue and complicated relationships :) i’m glad i got to work with her for this, and i’m really happy with how all the ingame art turned out too!

mental health

this half of the update is purely personal, so feel free to skip it.

i have various posts drafted since it’s getting close to the end of the year, and i want to write a public update similar to the one i put on cohost last year, just going over life updates and what i’ve gotten done in 2023. this is… mentally taxing!!!!!!! specifically, sharing details of my personal life freaks me out in a way it didn’t used to, and the thought of it puts me on edge. writing this part of this very post puts me on edge, and it’s not even public (yet). but i did want to share anyway, because it is the main reason i haven’t been able to focus on gamedev stuff as much as expected.

a few months ago i was reading about OCD, and noticing that some things sounded really… relatable. i spent a while researching more about it, and decided to reach out for professional help because i’ve spent the past year or so dealing with obsessive thoughts and i’m pretty fed up with it. i will likely talk more about this in my 2023 recap post, so this is just the summary version…

i only very recently actually got IN to talk to a therapist, and as of writing this i’ve only done 2 sessions and am not formally diagnosed with anything. but the main thing i have learned is that avoiding your fear just makes it worse, so… anyway that’s why i’m on tumblr again!!!!

i have felt for so long that tumblr in particular is a dangerous site for me, that being there means being in front of people who do not want me there. but there are also a lot of people who DO want to see my art there, and i’ve already seen comments/reblogs saying that they’re glad i’m back. i didn’t really go anywhere but… yeah it’s fun to share my art with people who like to see it.

in previous posts i’ve talked about being on and off cohost, potentially not posting there anymore, etc. i don’t wanna be wishy-washy about it anymore—I’M ALLOWED TO BE ONLINE…. idk, knowing that OCD (IF i have it) is a thing you can work with and overcome, just makes me feel so much more confident. i like to post and read posts, and it would be great if it didn’t slowly build my anxiety to do so. this past week i feel like i made a lot of progress in regards to this.

anyway, that’s all! like i said, i will talk about this in more detail in the 2023 recap post, because i will be further along in the therapy process by then and will have more definitive things to say. but for now, uhhh sorry i’ve been kinda goin’ through it the latter half of this year, here’s hoping the rest of the year and next will go more smoothly!

thanks for reading <3