Inside a creator's mind

Hey, Veins here.

Today I'm in a good mood. Not for MoGi Origins, but for myself. You may not care about me as a person, but about my animating skills and the progress of the game, and that's fine. My work is what makes me feel useful. And I do feel the need to feel useful and worthy. This post will get personal, but I need to say a few things, so here it goes. I went to one of those self-improvement seminars. I was skeptical about it, especially after having watched Pen&Tellers Bullshit with such a theme. Being skeptical doesn't mean that I'm afraid to try and explore new things. And yes, I did try to debunk what they said in that meeting. But as trivial I found the success stories of rich people and as much of a show I found the arrow-braking necks, the actual advises were pretty on spot. And since my mind never stops thinking of "work", they gave me inspiration about a few details that I can use on Ucogi's church cult. You know, the Church that she grew up and they turned her into a cleaning goddess.

Also, since I was waiting on Titan to finish the beta (I was done with my part for the time being), I had some free time to scout for programmers that may help us with the game. In the last couple of months I participated in 3 Jams for that reason: Global Game Gam, Art Games Jam and Strawberry Jam. I even met a girl so perfect and pure, she could have been a real life Ucogi... without the big boobs! She is one of those people that you admire so much, that fills your heart with hope for something better. So yeah, the anti-social lil me, had a couple of good weeks, that lifted my spirit.

I needed that, because I wanted a small victory for myself. I haven't had one in a long time, ever since MoGi Origins got funded in OffBeatr, 5 years ago. Since then, everything else I do is bumping on obstacles. And unfortunately, I have to talk about all the negative stuff now which will decrease my good mood. But it's stuff that I need to share.

The crowdfunding was done on Feb 2014, 4 years ago. I was working with Titan 7 months before that to build the fist demo and I was working on the character design since 2013. I started this project when I was 34 years old and now I'm almost fucking 40! I haven't even done an Ucogi game in all those years. So yeah, I feel like a failure. MoGi Origins is one of the best things that happened to me, but that had a toll on me. For 5 years, I never truly got a break. I needed to have the story of 7 characters in my head, and enrich it with anything new I might experience to make the game better. The other day I took several photos of building with ideas that I can use in the game. The game has consumed me. And that's fine, I like it, but I was living so much in that fantasy world that haven't had the time to take care of myself. Even when my mom was sick at the hospital, I was doing sketches regarding the game. But the thing is... the game could have been completed by now. And that is killing me.

Granted, the game is huge and it's essentially 7 games in one. But Titan being absent for most of 2016 and 2017, we only had 3 Beta releases. All that without fixing any choppy work from earlier entries. There's a report that I keep adding stuff for fixing... it's 104 pages long. Without the images, that's 10.114 words. And to be honest, I'm not happy with the current state of the game. Titan admitted that this was too much for him to handle and that's when I started looking for people to help us out. I talked about that in the last Blog entry, so I will just post a video of a few conversations here, for anyone who might want to check in detail. The video is mostly about Jevar and MS Global who stole money from us. I do this because people need to be careful out there, because some people may think that I was lying or finding excuses about my dealings, and because making a game is not as easy as you may think. Many things happen backstage that you can never be aware of unless someone from the inside talks about them.

In the video I also included the guy behind Meet&Fuck games. You may agree with him or me, that's up to you. Finishing this game would be a small victory for myself, and even that was taken away from me, making me feel even worse about myself. In short, I thought that the MnF owner wouldn't reply because he didn't want the game any more. When he finally replied (1.5 months later) he didn't like my sex scenes, I called him a dick and he rejected the whole thing, blaming me that I wasted a year of his life. Which was unfair because I spent time working on it, while he was doing other things.

So, fuck all that. I take full responsibility for everything that went wrong. It is my fault. The self-improvement seminar was clear on that. But dammit I tried. Still, I don't consider this a failure, but a learning experience. The game I did for Meet&Fuck will end up in Patreon, for the people who actually support me. I was already feeling bad for working on something else while MoGi Origins progresses so slow, but to my defense, waiting on Titan for weeks and months at a time was soul crunching. I attended many Jams so far in 2018 is because I couldn't sit around and wait on Titan to do his job like I did last year. Working alone without signs of life from your partner... is maddening. Also I needed some time off from the game and my mind as well.

So far, I wanted to keep on doing art for MoGi Origins so that Titan would be pressured into finishing the game. But that wasn't the case since he told me that "I haven't finished all the art yet" which I felt it was unfair to say. At this point we only have 1 guy doing the level design and he is slow but I can't force him to work any faster. I'm kind of desperate and I am running out of ideas here. The seminar also said not to focus on the negative stuff but on "what we can do". And you know what? By accepting responsibility, I have to do everything I can to correct this. 

You guys don't want to hear excuses, but to see results. So am I. And what comes down to it, is money, your Patreon money. Since everything else has failed, all I can do is force Titan to record his screen so that I would know how much work he does, and I would do the same. Then we can get divide the Patreon money we get depending on how long we have worked. I think this sounds fair and it's something I can control, and hopefully avoid mistakes and delays in the future. 

Titan is good at what he does and he is the only one who knows what is going on in the game's code. Due to real life matters and other aspects he is not as punctual as he used to be. By having others doing the levels, he would have time to do more important things, like programing enemies and riddles. So far this path fails and recently I even proposed to him to come and live with me in order to focus and finish the game, even though we are a couple of continents apart. I have tried everything that I can think of, to make this work.

The truth is that I am a man who has a talent, I want to work, to create, to be successful. This wall of text is mostly about me and my mistakes and my dreams. The problems and solutions, the ups and the downs. But I can't finish this game on my own. Everyone needs reliable partners, help, support, a couple of positive words to keep going, even a hug. 

I'm working on board games on my spare time because I don't need other's help. I don't need a programmer or a musician because I program the game through the instructions manual. Actually I got a mini game of mine published 3 months ago and that was a small victory. But through all this chaos, I couldn't even celebrate it. It was swallowed by every other failure around me. Also, the money I will get from it, is peanuts. Regarding the Strawberry Jam, I had the graphics ready in less than a day, and 20 days later (today) the programmer hasn't even gave me a sample of the game. I hope I can finish it though, and share it with all of you.

Another guy wanted to make with me a point and click game which is an awesome opportunity to tell Rudy's story. I wrote the story in 1 day... and it's a story I have in my mind for over 10 years now. That guy hasn't contacted me since. But I'm tempted to do that story it on my own in Flash. So many lost opportunities for games... I guess I could share with you the game I made in the Art Jam with my team. I'm the camera guy so I don't appear in the video, and there is no porn involved but you might see a hot chick or two. The theme was Art and Politics, and it's a board game.

Oh yeah, you want to know about he next Beta. I don't know! I really wanted to name this post "SuccuBeta!", but you got my personal crap instead. Titan wanted to release the Beta since November but failed the December, Xmas, New Years, and February's deadlines. 15 days ago he told me he need 1 more day. Since then he only spoke to me 3 times, telling me that he will be back soon and that he will have a beta before the end of February. I even wrote that blog-post and it's ready to publish! Anyways, I told him 3 days ago that he has until Monday or I'm posting here. He never replied. So I'm posting here. So I don't know. 

I will leave you with a positive note. Of what to expect.