Basically last year was pretty much wasted on learning the ins and outs of game business and funding, the Finnish side of the story. We got accepted into a government program that prepares small businesses for funding, attended a bunch of pitching events and spent countless of hours preparing the pitches, writing applications and other kinds of things. It was very educational for sure, but didn't bring the game any closer to you, dear reader. Towards the end of the year I felt really burned out with the biz side of things and took december off from the project to reflect and re-evaluate. That was a good decision, being focused on only one thing for too long results in anxiety and Sauron appearing in your dreams. Taking breaks is good for you.
Fundingwise we did do well but didn't get funded. Out of 15 teams that were in the program, our coach told we were in the 5 that had potential to reach our goal. Got quite close a few times but things fell flat despite investors agreeing upon our numbers and things. Only one company out of those 15 got a few K euros in the end, a piss poor show in my opinion. Non-Finnish investors, come to Finland to get a deal, nobody's getting any love from the Finnish side of the investment industry, people crying over a few K, ho hum.
After the break we decided to not to waste time on funding talks and stuff like that but focus into actually making the game any which way. Progress has been slow with our main coder having a day job and life and babies happening. I've been tinkering with the server side of things and made progress towards the playable beta. Also we've got a new guy Tom on board, we met at Oulu Game Jam and he wanted to join the project and mess around with the android codebase. After a bit of thought the answer was Yes! So there's a chance of some client updates soon, fixes to all those nasty, nasty bugs that have been delaying the playable beta for too long now.
It's funny how a project can really really get to you. I watched some Butch Vig interview where he told about the time he and Billy Corgan became complete studio rats and locked themselves into a basement for the best part of the year, endlessly tweaking and overdubbing, working on something that eventually became the Siamese Dream. I could smell the panic and terror. I saw myself in the interview and it was scary.
It's good to step out for a bit I tell you. They say the world won't wait but it will. Another mantra that keeps me going is the one Jeff Minter said when he was still going for broke and doing iOS apps :'you are making a game because you believe there's a reason for it to exist'. Even after all this time with Hoodownr, I believe there's a reason for it to happen.
This last weekend we did a couple of test sessions, uncovering new bugs and adding up to the endless pool of crash logs. In two days we walked 10km in total, spilled our guts out about this and that irritating thing in life and took a good nap after the walks. I'm quite happy to see my user screen mileage go up steadily. It's just a number but still there's something gratifying to see a testimony of your time away from the computer, your time with your friends, real life =)
Siamese dream took it's time to reach completion and it became to be one of the best rock albums ever made. Hoodownr has taken a long time and we hope to bring it to you guys during this spring. Again there are a few things on the boil and now I've got my blogging motivation back (sort of), there'll be something more to see in the very near future, promise. Meanwhile you might want to check out the Amazing's new album here. Or listen to some Chassol, he's brilliant times three.
Keep on walking!
Sami / Hoodownr
