Saturday Update! (Patreon)

Good morning goobers! The weekend is here and I have updates!

I had another somewhat complicated week where I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, but I'm gonna cut myself some slack cuz I had other obligations and it's been pretty hot 😂 [ I don't have AC, and when its super hot I get headaches and neck pain which makes it kinda rough to work ]

I ended up volunteering for the town to help put little Canadian flags on everyone's lawn [ it's a thing my town does, so everyone wakes up on Canada day with a little flag ] and that was really nice. I got to see a part of town I never visited before and everyone's homes were so lovely [ it was a long established mobile home park with beautiful lawns, and many painted garage doors- someone there must paint mountainscapes on garage doors as a side gig or something ]

I just wanted to do something nice [ and tbh... do something for unity since I live in a small Alberta town, if you know you know ] and get some fresh air/exercise.

I also went out with my city friends later to go to a beer tasting in an old tram stopped on the big bridge! It was super fun but I found out that I sure am not in my 20s any more cuz 2.5 beers, a single slider, and some deep fried artichokes gave me WICKED heartburn 😂 Aint that just the way.

But anyway! You guys aren't here for tales of summer fun, you're here for updates! So let's get into it!

[ Please don't repost my stuff to social media | Пожалуйста, не публикуйте мои работы в TikTok. ]

While I didn't get as many sprites done as I wanted, I think I actually made crazy progress on brainstorming the next game [ YKMET:Ren ]. Obviously, I'm not gonna tell you guys anything specific, but I've made some very good breakthroughs.

With Strade and Lawrence, I feel like I had strong ideas for how to beef up their gameplay from the beginning, but I've been just kind of hoping something comes to me later for Ren. I knew what I wanted to REMOVE from Ren's story, but not really what I wanted to add.

I've said before to people here and there that I want Ren's story to be more scary [ his old path strikes me as just sort of plopping character lore down with no real gameplay or peril ] and of course his old path was still clinging to that 'victim/perpetrator' binary mentality where he's this sad little wet sock who's just a little misguided, and I think you can tell from just his changes in YKMET:Strade that I am bulldozing that LMAO

I've come up with some loose ideas for gameplay now, and some major changes to scenes and motivations.

Back in 2017, my motivation and writing for Ren felt radical, like I was rebelling against the trope of 'big mean evil torments cute little sad', making Ren the dangerous villain. But I didn't quite get there. For me, at the time, it was an exciting challenge that I didn't measure up to.

This time, I'd like to challenge myself again. Not with the exact same tropes, but with something new. I want to explore themes I've observed in real life since then. I want to rebel again. I'm getting pretty motivated and fired up! Maybe I'll fall short again, but that's what it's all about isn't? I have to shoot outside my reach LMAO

Anyway, this all has to sit on the back burner for now. I still have at least a year of development left for Lawrence, and I have all these current challenges on my plate. Honestly I feel like I'm falling short with him too, but I have to try. I just have to keep trying.

It's always been about the chase.

[ Don't worry, I'm writing down all these ideas for Ren too, so I won't forget. ]

Oh! One last boring thing- I might as well inform you guys too since I put up a notice on my website. I've had to shut off shipping to 12 EU countries because Canada Post totally cut them off 😩 It's because of a new change with their import customs, they just started charging a flat fee of something like 3 euros for small packages, and Canada Post hasn't worked that into their system yet [ I think eventually they will set it up so that the customer pre-pays that fee when they order their thing, and Canada Post collects/remits that ]

It's almost funny how bad the shipping situation is for my shop now 😂

I can now no longer ship to:

USA - I am unwilling to let my work fund the current US government via tariffs

Mexico, Turkey - everything I send goes missing

Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain - Canada Post cut off shipping due to new EU import fees

A couple other obscure ones in the middle east and Africa - too unreliable or Etsy wont let me buy labels

And obviously I was never able to send stuff to sanctioned countries like Russia

UK customers: Hey, brexit did one positive thing! You can still buy a keychain from me WHEEZE

EDIT: SORRY THAT WAS SO MUCH STUFF I FORGOT WILLOW CORNER

And I think that's it!! Stay cool and have a good weekend folks! See you next week!