SEAR DevBlog, week of 3/9/26: One Year!

With this post, the SEAR devblog is one week old! Feels like a good time to pause and reflect a bit. 

My goal when I set out on this journey was to get a vertical slice done, introduce it to the world, and run a Kickstarter for funding. The first step in that process is done - we have our baseline proof of concept, and while there’s plenty of additional aesthetics and set dressing still needed, it is now possible to play SEAR and feel what it’s setting out to do, and that’s huge. As I mentioned last week, I love the game. Playing it actually rejuvenates me. I’m proud of hitting this goal and of what we’ve produced, and I can’t wait to see it keep improving and growing. 

Which leads to that second step, marketing and awareness. This is something a lot of indies struggle with and I’m no different. It doesn’t necessarily come naturally to me and my time is already stretched too thin anyway, so I’ve brought on some folks to help with it. They know their stuff and are getting together a plan for the year. Having some backup on this piece of things is immensely relieving and gives me a lot of hope for the future.

And the final step, funding through KS, will be happening later this year. The results of that effort will determine how quickly SEAR grows. I’m taking it very seriously and, of course, am filled with trepidation about it. There is a universe where that Kickstarter flops and I essentially have to collapse back to being a one-man shop. There is also a universe where it succeeds wildly and I get to bring SEAR into the world with all its bells and whistles fully realized. I think it’s safe to say I’ve never felt more hope, dread, and anticipation all at the same time, about any professional venture in my life.

The hope last year was to get through all these steps. That didn’t happen, but the first step was the most critical one, and was no small feat. If you’ve been following my blog you know that I’ve learned a lot over the last year and I feel like I’m much more in tune with what makes a good hire, how the engine works, what a realistic timeframe is, etc. than I was at the start. Those are the critical intangibles that I couldn’t have accounted for at the start. And with the prototype done, there is still time and budget to see the rest of these steps through this year. 

If I had the power to do one thing over from the last year, it would be to wave a magic wand and have a perfect mental visual of the art direction right from the start. We had to go through a process to settle on SEAR’s look, and it involved essentially creating an entire aesthetic ecosystem first that got entirely replaced, which was a significant cost in both time and money. It would be easy to blame myself or my team for this, but the fact of the matter is I don’t have a magic wand, and I would’ve needed one in order to get this right at the start with no iteration. Human art takes time. I’m really happy with the new direction, it really feels like what SEAR was always supposed to be, and so I’m forgiving myself for this one and looking forward.

Bring on the next 52 posts!