SEAR DevBlog, week of 3/2/26: Don't Forget the Game

Graybox level in progress

Admin and development-adjacent work dominated a lot of my time this week - bookkeeping and accounting, staffing, team support, marketing, and legal. I was able to get into the project and work on a few of my assigned tasks, but dang... typing it all out like that really helps to clarify exactly how time consuming all those tasks actually were.

This was the first week I found myself legit longing for an admin. Unfortunately with the decentralized nature of the studio (read: me working out of my home office, as is everyone else) getting all the permissions set up for someone to be able to do the work I'd love to take off my plate would be quite tricky. Probably worth it in the long run, but a significant additional drain on my time in the short term.

The bit of work I did get to do in the project was on the 2nd phase-level for the new Escape From Korus-iii level that we're developing, which will be featured in the trailer. I got to work on the phase transition, which is coming along nicely, and getting the quantized song playback set up. The latter task diverted a bit into documenting my process as I went along - we have a burgeoning documentation library growing day by day in the studio project files and adding to it is another one of those admin-type tasks that is necessary but slows things down (at least in the short term).

Weeks like this are the ones when the doubt tends to creep in the most and I start to get the most worried about what can go wrong. As you can imagine, those are stressful weeks.

One thing I've noticed with this project, though, that has never been the case on any other creative endeavor I've undertaken in my life - including other game development projects - is that playing SEAR actually rejuvenates me, refreshes my mindset, and gets me excited about the game again. Even re-playing the prototype level for the umpteenth time (typically to stability test or try out new functionality) perks me up.

SEAR has a strong identity, and it shines through for me even in the levels with the placeholder assets and unfinished mechanics or phase transition animations. The music + racing combo is just so potent for me that after I play it, I always feel re-focused - not on what could go wrong, but what could go right.

I mentioned marketing at the top of this post, and I will be investing in marketing for SEAR heavily this year, to a far greater degree than I ever have on any other businesses I've run or creative endeavors I've undertaken. That can be a frightening proposition, since if that investment doesn't pay off it won't even leave me with game assets or code that I can carry forward on my own in a worst-case scenario.

But playing SEAR reminds me of the purpose of all that marketing expenditure. Even with just the miniscule amount of exposure the game has had so far, I've had people go absolutely gonzo for it, blowing up my Discord DMs and just getting really excited. I've had people that have gotten as excited about the game as I am. That leads me to hope - even, in my most optimistic moments, believe - that there's an audience for this and I need to find them.

I would say that obviously I must believe that, that must be why I'm making the game. But it's actually not. I waited all that time for someone to make SEAR because I wanted to play it. That's the top reason I'm making it, and every time I do play it, I'm reminded of that.

But sharing it with people who love it as much as I do? Even if I don't recoup my investment and the game is an absolute flop in terms of sales, that experience will always be amazing.