This past week…

While working slowly but surely on Sannaa’s game, I dabbled in other ideas. I am trying to nail down where I want to put my creative focus.

The reason I created Sannaa, and Amari before her is because I’ve been trying to find the path. I am trying to find the best compromise between making as simple and effective a game as possible while still making something that I actually want to make and would actually want to play. So I gravitate towards making some kind of 2D side scrolling game featuring my character designs.

The more I think about it though, the more I keep thinking I am going about this the wrong way. I come up with a character I think would be great in a game, like Sannaa, and then I build a sprite of the character and some basic prototype gameplay. It all feels good. But I end up inevitably suffering from a lack of real planning. That’s what killed what many of my supporters believed to be my best project ever, the Jet Dancer game project.

WEAPON Combat League is sort of still alive, but I’m struggling to decide how to build the game’s single player/AI logic. It also still has absolutely no audio.

Meanwhile, I wrote up some basic plans for Sannaa. I have the means to build on it, but I’m constantly torn. Constantly thinking that if I can build on Sannaa, why can’t I build on Jet? Why can’t I build on WCL?

So when these thoughts become overwhelming, I go to my comfort zone and I start drawing more girls, more random practice babes as I call them. Drew a couple of images that I feel good about, and I’ve sketch the foundations of others. A few of them are the kinds of images one does not show off in polite company, giving me ambitions of trying to do the Patreon thing again.

I bounce back and forth. I like drawing pinups–they make up the majority of my work and I enjoy them, but I also feel like they’re too simple. After teaching myself all these things I know how to do, I just end up drawing pinup girls? But why guilt myself over something I enjoy and I’m kind of good at? If I really am?

I think discipline is the key. Just have to decide which project is the one I really want to put forth and just dedicate myself to it. I wanted to make games because I don’t see enough black women in games, I don’t see enough sex appeal and beauty in games, and I just want to do it. But it really is unbelievably hard and I often wonder if I’m not meant to do it, especially since it’s so easy for me to retreat to draw another pinup girl.

I’ll figure it out. My cat is headbutting me now, so it must be time to stop and feed him. See you next time.