Happy 2023, friend!
Showing my Games at MAGfest.
I showed FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT at the MAGfest Indie Videogame Showcase. It went really well considering that I got off the waitlist 2 days before the event started! I was already planning on attending with my previous game TENDY: Robot Gardener, so I did a bit of a hybrid booth and showed different games on different days there.
Still, I managed to wrangle the FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT demo to a playable state in 2 days. I made a video about this on my YouTube Channel here.
Long story short, I gained a lot of valuable insights into the level design and tutorials of my game. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I’m glad I’m showing and testing the game very early in the process so I can lean into what works well.
A Fresh Start (2023 Creative Goals)
Rather than big yearly goals, I usually like to focus on small achievable goals in a shorter time frame. However, I did do some reflecting and there is one main thing I want to focus on for my creative work this year:
- Treat creative work like a job.Log 40 hours of focused work per week. Count promotional time and production time. Take holidays off.
That’s it! I’m off to a good start so far, trying to keep up with the red line (40 hours/week) in my work log. Since I’m set up to do the full-time game development thing for a while, so I want to really dive in and make an honest attempt at it while I don’t have any other major life commitments.
I don’t have any big public milestones for FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT. I prefer to develop games by focusing on one metric: “hours on project” while keeping laser focused on the next functional milestone.
Bouncy Mushrooms?!?
Oh yeah, there are bouncy mushrooms in FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT now - that’s all!
Hope your year is off to a great start and I’ll be back next month with TALES FROM GLOBAL GAME JAM.
<3
Michael