SB just put out a backer update.
It puts into formal words what many had already assumed: he and the project had fallen on hard times.
He's brutally honest about how things have gone since he went dark, to the point if you're looking to have your confidence in the game built up, this isn't going to do it for you. I get this is a message he felt was obligated to send, rather than he wanted to.
Essentially, he has to find full-time work to sustain himself, both financially and in terms of his sanity and motivation. Development has become a bit of an Ouroburos with the understandable impact on his confidence and drive to have something to show. He lost the help he hired (and spent Kickstarter money on), has gutted and re-written the game more than once by now, and so he's sort of back to Square One. Penniless with a half finished framework of a game.
So the plan has pretty radically changed at this point:
1. Find work.
2. Reobtain financial stability.
3. Work on Net gain as time allows.
So....yeah. Not what anyone wants to hear, but it's the truth and I'll take that. He could have, as some Kickstarters have done, just fled the scene entirely. So I respect him for owning up to the way things went, and for refusing to let go of development, as tempting and sensible an option as that is right now. But as someone who carries their failures around with them for a long time, I think I get that admitting defeat isn't an option. The ghost that would haunt him for that would ultimately be worse for him than what he's currently going through.
I can't lie and say that I'm not disappointed, but I feel like I can wait as long as it takes for him to pull things together again. My Kickstarter money....I guess if it played any part in him learning, failing and eventually succeeding to release a Net Gain he's happy with, it was money well spent.
To SB, it sucks but that's life. Just remember to can your ego, the part where making you feel bad about failing further inhibits you, and you might find the mental peace and space to approach development as something fun and liberating again, instead of grueling and imprisoning. Just stay in touch and let us know the progress you end up making.
Greetings, brokers.
It's been awhile since we talked. I'll cover some of the major points up front.
Net Gain isn't dead.
Development suffered and stalled through 2014.
I had to find full-time work. Development will stay slow while I work on rebuilding my finances and health.
Once I've recovered I can steadily devote more time and resources to the project.
A new build is still months away, and it's still going to be fairly rough, more of a sideways move from the last build. I still find the time to work on it whenever I can. Priority has been on completing the systems that allow me to add more content in between bigger builds (new plots, stories, events, etc).
To recap what's happened,
I'll start from the last build, October 2013. My assisting programmer left, I had a new contract that was demanding my time, and the long hours from the last two years were starting to have serious effects on my physical and mental health. I focused on finishing the contract, recovering during the holidays, and starting fresh in the new year. When I came back Unity had done their large GUI overhaul, most of my middleware had big updates to go with it, I had learned more about programming that revealed the deep faults in my original prototype code, and I saw problems with the current build's gameplay that I wanted to fix. I still felt burnt out, but at least I was motivated to keep moving forward.
I decided to start over from scratch, building the game up with the new gameplay design and better code. This went well at first, but began to fall apart when I implemented the new designs. One big change required another, and this began a vicious spiral that would take different forms but mostly went like this:
1. Try to fix a problem with the current design.
2. Feel guilty for taking too long, hurry to code a solution.
3. Hurried solution causes problems down the line, or doesn't feel fun, or some other doubts about what I'm doing.
4. Get frustrated and despondent with how things aren't working out, throw out work that was "heading the wrong direction" and start over with more pressure and stress.
Things got worse over the summer and fall, with more radical changes, deleting/drastically altering/redesigning weeks of work "Because it's just not working/fun/good", increasing despair and sense of failure compounding the stress and burnout and doubt, and the whole thing just spiraling out of control. I had completely lost my vision for the game, was sick and deeply depressed, perpetually in pain, falling into debt, and paralyzed with worry about my future and the seemingly insurmountable monolithic project ahead.
I'm already introverted, but the shame of falling behind, the isolation of depression, and working entirely alone all day persuaded me to fall silent online, and pull away from friends and family. Even writing this is hard. I'd tell myself I'd come back once I had something to show for it, but that isolation only kept me in the destructive spiral. I was convinced I could just push through it, get back to my productive self, and put this embarrassing failure behind me by powering through. All it did was make things worse.
It was a rough year.
In Winter,
I sought help and tried to figure out how I could fix this broken cycle. It took me a few tries, and sometimes I just fell into the same damn spiral, but eventually I realized:
1. I couldn't work alone all day anymore. I needed help on the game, and I needed someone to keep my perspective in check, out of the spiral. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to hire a programmer, or find someone to join me.
2. I couldn't work on only Net Gain. It was stifling my creativity and stagnating my education, and in the end didn't help the game any, either. I needed to keep trying new things outside of the game, learning new skills and renewing my energy to bring it all back to Net Gain. Just the review and research I did during my full-time job hunt has improved my work significantly.
3. I'm getting older, have no savings, falling into debt, and my career was stagnant with no immediate prospects. I acknowledged from the start that Net Gain was too niche to be a big moneymaker, but this was simply unsustainable. Not just financially but emotionally and physically; I can't keep up. I needed to start worrying about how I'm supposed to provide for a family, not just meet the bare minimums to survive and keep working on the project.
4. I don't want to - or simply can't - give up on Net Gain. I still love the project, no matter how burnt out or trapped it makes me feel. I don't think I'll have a peaceful night's rest until it's finished.
Things had to change.
So, the current plan:
1. Full time employment, get out of the hole, build up some savings. The priority here is to get back on my feet, working on Net Gain during my time off. Until this gets settled the time I can devote to Net Gain development is limited.
2. Finish the new build. The code has become a scarred battleground of my indecisions and self-doubt, and the often rash pushes forward left it brittle and buggy, but I've been steadily clearing it up and moving in one consistent direction. I wish I could say when I'd expect it but it depends entirely on how long it takes me to find steady work and how demanding that job is on my time, not to mention the usual unknowns with development. It'll still be rough, but if I keep waiting until it's "good enough" to justify all that lost time it'll never be ready.
3. Once I have the funds, begin looking for a programmer to join me on the project. Before I try to transition back to working on Net Gain full time, I have to find someone I can rely on to build it with me and prevent that isolated destructive spiral.
4. If my current job doesn't allow for it, I'll begin looking for a position that allows me more time to work on Net Gain. That could mean a full-time job with decent time off or sabbaticals, part-time, or a teaching position with summers free.
5. Once Net Gain reaches a much more polished level, launching on the public Steam Store. If things go well, I can see about coming back to it full time and without working alone.
I know this isn't the news anyone wants to hear. I don't want to hear it myself. This attempt at the project failed, and the only way I see to complete this project is to get my feet back under me, get better, and try again. I'm hopeful with the direction things are going now, and can see actual progress instead of just spinning in circles. It's been a rough road to get this far, but I am dedicated to completing the journey.
Down but not out,
John Gosling