Thread by @goawayimcrabby

Hello fellow imposters! Following @ellraiser and @MothenseMusic's excellent prompt, let's talk about "failure".

As an artist & a human, many of my failures aren't directly related to gamedev, but I'll focus on those that are. [1/25] (yes, it's long. I fail a lot OK?)

Let's begin in 2016. Up until this point I had never considered a career in gamedev a viable option (I still have my doubts 😅) but I'd reached a point where I wanted to do more with my life than play it safe. I asked myself what that was, and the answer: make games! [2/25]

At this point I thought I'd suffered enough in life, it was time for some fun! The irony. 🥲 I started planning a point-and-click about an elf on a quest to recover a prized cookie recipe. This project ended when I realized how long it takes to do each character frame. [3/25]

Next, I came up with a sci-fi mobile game inspired by bakery sims called CAN-Dii's Sugar Ship, featuring this creepy robot girl that broke my PC to animate and finally convinced me to try pixel art instead and scrap this concept. [4/25]

After spending a year learning and practicing pixel art, I was ready to take on a new challenge and started learning GameMaker Studio 2. Coding has never been my strong suit but I managed to get a couple false starts in before realizing the solodev life wasn't for me. [5/25]

The whole point of getting into gamedev was self-indulgence and settling for nothing less than my dream project, so naturally I dove headfirst into an ambitious sci-fi fantasy RPG with farming elements, naming the project Homefront Unknown. [6/25]

I eventually realized I didn't have the means to complete this project under my circumstances at the time. I decided to table it and come up with a smaller yet still satisfying concept. [7/25]

The concept for Captain Badguy's Villain Survival Guide came from an old college video assignment of mine focused on the steps to becoming a successful baddie. I had a lot of fun creating my first minigame: waking up. It's harder than it looks! [8/25]

I worked very hard on the next objective: getting dressed. I created a quiz system that would determine which costume our antagonist would wear. It was so difficult that afterwards I let my partner at the time try doing the coding. Things got pretty messy from there. [9/25]

This project wasn't the only messy thing in my life, and the relationship ended for reasons beyond this endeavour. Though my partner had made progress on the laugh-o-meter and kitten ray mechanics, I wanted to put all reminders of the past behind me. [10/25]

It was hard to give up on this one. This was the first project I had music composed for. @Trass84 did a great job on the title theme! [11/25]

After this I took a break from gamedev to focus on pixel art and my Patreon page. Across a series of #Pixel_Dailies entries, Crabby's universe was established and I made a lot of great friends on Twitter and within my own community of supporters. [12/25] twitter.com/i/moment_maker…

I had also started taking commissions, and one of those supportive friends I mentioned was @schottidev, who hired me to create character portraits for his game, #Santria! I couldn't handle much more than that so I didn't take commissions for long. [13/25]

Around this time I was invited to participate in #SquaredUpZine, for which I created this game mockup set in Crabby's universe. [14/25]

Now, I know this sounds like success, but my desire to make games was far from satisfied, and Patreon was more work than it was income. Fortunately, Schotti was kind enough to offer his coding skills to bring my game idea to life at the start of 2019. [15/25]

Desperate to try and make an income to support the project, I even gave livestreaming a try. I called it Pixels with Crabby, and it was fun but exhausting. I made it 6 months before quitting. [16/25]

I also tried the merchandise route for making $. Crabby's Souvenir Shop offered stickers, prints, postcards, pins, and even a productivity notepad! The sales were not worth the time or money it took to maintain the shop, so I now only offer these items as patreon rewards. [17/25]

After #CrabbyRPG evolved into #Moonshell_Island, I started seeing a lot more success. More engagement on social media, press opportunities, even some grant money! This allowed me to get out of debt and reach the milestone of having a playable demo available to patrons. [18/25]

Sadly that demo is far from perfect, and doesn't yet include the amazing soundtrack my lovely friend @QueerGermanGirl is composing for the game. but at least we have a pretty great trailer thanks to her. Here it is with just music. [19/25]

After that demo was released, I was so overwhelmed with establishing @Cheekynauts as a corporation while being ghosted by my pro-bono lawyer at the time (yes, I had to fire a pro-bono lawyer, it was so bad), that development has been at a virtual standstill ever since. [20/25]

I mean, the last 2 years have been hard on all of us, so there's more to it than that. Still, after my first corporate year was over, I realized I wasn't making a penny with Patreon thanks to accounting fees, and I had to adjust my rewards to avoid going into the red. [21/25]

I had seen the financial failure coming, though I didn't expect it to be this bad. Still, I knew I needed to work toward making Moonshell Island fundable, and I devoted what time I had this year to planning the project as best I could. [22/25]

It felt like failure to have no progress I could publicly share despite working harder than I ever have before. Even now that the planning phase is done (for the moment) it's taking a while to get back in the groove of creating assets. And boy, there's a lot to make! [23/25]

All of this can really make a person feel like an imposter. But the truth is, failure is a vital part of the process. I've never been more prepared to see this project through. The things I've learned about myself are more than enough success to be proud of. [24/25]

Following a dream is rarely the safe or recommended course of action. That's the point. Life is too short to fear failure. What if your failures are the pathway of an incredible adventure? What if it all works out?

What failures have lead to where you are today? Please share!