Looking Back With Drew…

As I stand here at midnight at the top of the Seattle Space Needle, looking out at the beautiful city, abuzz with concerts, performers, and geeks, I think about all the crazy stuff that’s happened.

“Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” ended it’s Kickstarter as a failure, earning even less than “James – Journey of Existence” did, by both backers and pledge amount (although the pledge amount was almost matched), which I may never fully understand.

“Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” finally got released on Desura as it’s first online outlet… sort of. It’s been pushed through, but is not yet actually available to purchase for some reason, and still has no public listing on the site. I will wait hopefully for the game to at least make it to the “New Releases” list on the site, if not, I will be especially pissed.

“Drew and the Floating Labyrinth” is available right now at PAX PRIME 2014, having gotten over a thousand people’s eyes to watch it play. I’ve seen people get excited after seeing the unique visual style and clever game design. Also reminding me that the controls are iffy (the camera apparently is inverted with the joystick, I should reverse that, thankfully near-future games in development don’t require precise controls), and a number of serious bugs (dialogue text, menu issues, etc.) that make it in a sub-complete state. I’m exhausted, standing and talking each day from 9am to 7pm to various people.  Also, I realized that parts of my game make it difficult for color-blind people to play, a very serious issue that leaves a percentage of gamers unavailable to it (as I was reminded by passersby), despite a few of them at PAX being very interested in the animation.

An era of exhaustion, confusion, frustration, fear, despair, and anxiety.

Then I remember: I’m at PAX. I released my first game, the first that I completed AND am proud talk about. I got a couple friends to share the PAX booth with me, and it will possibly improve their businesses even more than mine.

I start school again next week. It’s been fun. I hope to do it all over again very soon.