Spiders, Milestones, Alphas, and other lovely diversions (Patreon)

i think "tomorrow" just has to be accepted as something that is even more of a social construct for me than it already totally is

woke up last night at four in the morning from another classic unplanned nap and sat down to write this post,
only to be politely informed that there was a giant fucking spider crawling up the wall from my bed and into my collection of jackets
dan and i tried very hard to isolate and kill it but even after shaking out all of the jackets we couldn't find it anywhere and suspect it crawled back into the bed.
so we decided to sleep in a different room.
and also
i tried to stay in the room and get stuff done anyway
but
idk if you've ever had the experience of trying to focus with a giant black spider crawling somewhere in the room behind you
(i dont recommend it)
but
it doesn't work.

especially for me who hates insects and especially spiders more than just about anything.

so despite being half awake with a searing headache in the middle of the night,
armed with nothing more than a quarterstaff named clarabelle and my cat,
i decided to Fight the Spider.

it took almost two hours to rescue, check and cleanse all of my jackets, linens, and plushfriends from what had suddenly become The Spider's Domain
but i did it
and kyra took the underside of the bed in case it tried to escape down there.

truthfully... i never found the damn thing, so i'm forced to assume that either kyra defeated it (and.. probably eated it.... gosh, i let that mouth kiss me... not last night) or it just despawned finally.

i am violently choosing to believe this.
do not take it away from me; that shred of hope is all i have.

--
on the current success

so we finally reached this milestone!! not to repeat what i said at the end of the last post or gush or whatever but it kind of makes me incredibly happy to be able to do this and finally be financially stable with it! my rent cost due to go up this month, but because of everyone's support, that won't be an issue either. 

so once again, thank you all for being a part of this and enabling me to make these games for you. rather than saying that in so many different ways though, i hope you can accept E18 as some of my gratitude.

i'll touch briefly about the alpha below but first i want to talk about my plans for this milestone, the next one, and what my life is looking like in the future. 

to be honest, i wish i had more i could present in return in the immediate moment for this one. it's felt a little awkward to me to have that tag on the Goal note at bottom left about all my games being free because the only one that's currently playable is Reborn, and obviously that isn't and won't be sold by its nature.
so advertising that as the outcome of reaching this point has felt a little strange,
because the alternative implies that either Reborn or these games that don't exist yet could or more importantly would be sold
and i have never liked that.

one thing to note is that my expectations have been consistently blown away here. when i started this patreon a year and a half ago i didn't really expect to even make it to the $200 mark, let alone the $600. i figured if and when i got to this point it would be some time after reborn was finished.
well, y'all showed me.

but much more importantly i'm not in this for profit (if i were i certainly would not have spent six years making a fangame...). i've said many times that if i did sell a game someday, i would rather someone pirate it than not play it.  once it's done and out there, that's really all i'd want-- for people to play, and enjoy it. and in fact those of you who know me better or pay close attention to like my twitter etc probably know that i rather hate media/advertisements on the whole, and I have a definite anti-capitalist streak.
i accept some forms of dlc as a bonus for people who want to play more without compromising the core content, and one that makes it sustainable for the company
but this microtransaction garbage is going too far
and don't even get me started on gachas.
gggh.

i plan to make games for basically the rest of my life. obviously i don't know if that's actually what's going to happen, but i can't see myself being happier doing anything else. and reborn is definitely going to be the only game i make under copyright. i hope to make a lot of games in the future.

i've never wanted to sell games.
that's a gross thought to me.
but if that were the only way that i could work on them full time, then yes, i absolutely would do so. 

so when i put a goal like that up, the implication that i've worried people might get from it is that any future games i make would be sold by default and i'm trying to present myself as generous by not doing so
but really meeting this point, where my lifestyle and work is sustainable is just like
relief
breath of fresh air
i'll be able to actually live by my ideals and values.

so thank you for that.

but backing up to the original point, i was saying i want something more immediate to offer in return. i don't know exactly what that is right now besides the episode, but fortunately i did note in this next $1200 value milestone that i'd do some of that stuff as we approach it.

the QoL type stuff i mentioned is along the lines of, for instance, getting a premium membership on picarto which, if i am not very mistaken, would mean streams would be recorded and could be watched any time later on. i will probably get on that sooner rather than later since i know a handful of people had requested that. 

another example that i want to go ahead and get on soon, even if it's not more regular, is commissioning art for another wallpaper. i'm gonna talk about that more below as well, along with a poll for you all to pick on.

and so on.

--
about the future

that said, now that my basic costs of living will be met, i also want to talk about what money in excess of my financial stability will be going to. since it is coming from all of you, i feel i have some what of a responsibility to be transparent about it.
it is also moderately personal, but, so is life.

so, firstly but most temporarily, i have some medical work coming up in the next year or so. it's nothing urgent, so there's no need to worry, but it does need to be done. if you know my situation, you can probably imagine what it is.
so my insurance is going to cover most of the costs-- amazing, by the way. this is the first year of my life that i've ever had health insurance, and gotta say, i'm a fan-- but there is a significant portion that i'll have to pay out of pocket before then. that's on top of my living costs, so reaching this point now is fairly opportune. 

setting that aside, it's certainly going to be my intention and priority to reinvest any money i can into making games better and quicker for you all.
in the long term that might mean actually getting some paid staff together and forming a sort of pseudo-studio.. a psteudio, if you will.
and in the short term that will likely present in finding an artist i can reliably commission, and in saving up enough money to move out of this house.

that last part might seem like a strange way to re-invest so let me talk about exactly why that's a thing.
many but perhaps not all of you know that i current live with my mother, who is disabled. she has an auto-immune disorder called Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, which is a very fancy way to say that her body hates moving anywhere ever and responds to such with chronic pain, and she has to sleep all the time but can't.

before i was born, she was sleeping 22 hours a day. that's even more than abra sleeps. after my birth, her symptoms went into remission, but since about the time i was six or so i've watched her health steadily and slowly decline. she's fought hard and still does, but in recent years, it's a good day if she's able to be out of bed for more than a few hours.

so naturally she can't work. she is on government disability and receives payments, but the payments don't even come close to covering her debt, or even the house payment-- which is why she's had to increase my rent a number of times, to cover the difference. although i am admittedly paying less here than i likely would be anywhere else in this rent-gouged city, helping her keep the house is the main reason i've stayed.

staying here has other drawbacks. being her daughter, i'm also due to help her out with various other things. oftentimes it's just making her food if she can't make it up the stairs herself, but just as often it's things like moving stones or furniture for her, in one of her many home improvement projects she starts and is physically unable to finish. other times (and on her more emotionally complex days) she just ends up asking for sundry things from me, but it becomes like every ten minutes or so (and talking to her even about something quick often can take ten minutes or much more since she often speaks slowly and her memory is even worse than mine) for some extended periods of time. she also is very particular about having even minor things in a certain way-- and impossibly stubborn about it too.
let's get a snow fence in july, she says.
i've come up with a system that's good for this plant, we just have to remember to move it to a different place a few times each day, she says.
and rather than putting in the air conditioner, she has developed a complex system of exactly which doors and curtains need to be open or closed in the house and changing the direction of fans twice a day depending on the temperature outside.

it's a lot of little things that stack up, but altogether i am definitely losing a solid handful of hours each week (not to mention some patience with years of this). and that on top of tending to/cleaning up after our like ten pets (i will take kyra with me when i leave but the rest are all hers), and trouble-solving an array of various issues that happen every few weeks if not more in this house (pipes backed up, doorknob fell off, shower can't be used, etc-- all common occurrences)...
and in addition to that much, we've also had to be wary of:

• asbestos in the attic
• lead in our water supply
• carbon monoxide from our furance (since fixed, bless)
• radon from the basement floor

we've really got the like, wind/water/earth/fire of toxicity covered here.
this is not a place that humans should live, honestly.

it just adds up.
it isn't my intention here to just prattle on about the negative things about living here. there are benefits as well, of course.
but the point remains that if i can afford it, the time it costs is not worth the money i save by staying here. 

so over the next couple years, the extra money i can get will be going towards getting me out of here-- and to somewhere that i can better dedicate my time, energy, and frankly, health, to my games, and to you all. 

i really appreciate everyone bearing with me on this long journey.
and long post, geez.
we're not over yet though.

--
all for alpha

i will have another post for you all about the bugs we're dealing with in internal testing "tomorrow" but as a general update...

i would be surprised if we didn't start alpha testing before the weekend.

so hang on for that.

for those who were not involved last time: we will be using a club on the forum to distribute the alpha version and collect bug reports. the discord server also exists for discussion now, but i really would like to keep bugs in the club since it helps us stay much better organized (and helps me stress less, lol...)

we will use a different club than we used last time-- that way the membership for it can be fully refreshed. but everyone will have to rejoin. i'll post instructions to that here when it's time.

the beta version will also be posted in the alpha club once it is available so you all don't have to miss an update.  

finally, following up on the issue raised to my last post, since i know some people may have pledged this month without knowing that i was intending to keep the alpha among patrons who had already completed at least on payment-- i'll go back on what i said in my post earlier and just handle alpha access with new patrons the same way as last time. i.e if you're pledged before alpha starts, you're in.
after the alpha is finished, i'll amend the reward section to solve that issue for the future.

i hope everyone is looking forward to it! i sure am!
you know, kinda... aside from the bugs.

--

choose your fighter

okay so i mentioned above i'd be looking at getting a new commission in for a wallpaper. 

i currently do not have an artist lined up, so it is very possible it might take some time to find a suitable one (in terms of style at least passably matching the other wallpapers). i've sent out some inquiry already but so far no response; we'll see.

then bearing in mind that the timeline for this is very loose,
we've gotta choose which character the next wallpaper will be for!

we had a poll among the ace members before, and that was how luna's was chosen. so the options here will be popular requests/high scoring runner-ups from that poll, but if you want a particular other character some time in the future let me know for that as well!

and as before, multiple options should be just fine. vote away!