SEAR DevBlog, week of 9/22: Planning, number-crunching, and breathing

Needle in profile, jetting across a phase transition.

I submitted our application for Epic Megagrant consideration on Monday, several whole hours before the deadline. I ended up sleeping on the language Sunday night, and I'm glad I did, because the last time I wrote about phase synchronicity it was using very sterile, clinical language, and that was still how my brain defaulted to talking about it. I knew it wasn't right, and as usual a night of letting my brain chew on it let me come up with a much looser, more conversational/passionate way of talking about it.

I've self-funded the project this year, and my budget for that isn't exhausted yet - but looking forward to possible Megagrant funds in December and a Kickstarter in early 2026, I did need to do some budget clarification for the rest of this year. What I realized in examining the budget and the list of needed items for the demo is that right at the moment, time is a more abundant resource than funding. So the work that I can do, I will be taking on more of myself. That meant ending or scaling back a couple contracts, my first experience with that, and with how much I love the interpersonal side of development, it was difficult and painful. Thankfully everyone understood the situation and would be happy to come back in the future, so fingers crossed we'll be able to make that happen.

Social media and marketing is an enormous part of any launch, and it has been neglected while we focused on the prototype. While there are still a few things I want to get into our public-facing prototype that didn't quite make it into the Epic submission, once that prototype is finished and out in the world it will be time to go full bore on getting the word out - that's one of the biggest goals for Q4. To that end I started scripting a kind of "SEAR explainer" video which will come in around 60 - 90 seconds which actually mirrors the language I ended up using in the Megagrant application. I've wanted something like this for awhile, and now I have a reasonably-priced video editing service I can utilize (to avoid learning one more new skillset this year) and a script, which were the two largest barriers before, so it should be doable within the next few weeks.

I also started looking into Steam publication, and had another blind assumption break. The process takes at least 30 days and is more complex that I expected. My previous experience with indie publication was in novel-writing, and publishing to Amazon was much more straightforward. In retrospect assuming those processes would be similar was unwise, but the problem with assumptions, of course, is you're not always aware you've got them until they're challenged. So figuring out our plan of attack on Steam publication is something I'll need to move to the forefront in the coming days.

Finally, I had a great meeting with the folks at Launchboom, who help manage Kickstarters. They turn down some 90% of the video game projects that come their way, but SEAR looked unique enough and completed enough that they thought it would be a great fit. That is fantastic news and makes the odds that we'll have a successful Kickstarter next year increase significantly. Interestingly, though, coming out of the meeting I realized a February Kickstarter may not be the best plan. You typically want 8 weeks of immediate run-up time, and ads are really pricey in December. So the KS itself may move to March - we'll see.

Going to end on a personal note here, maybe waxing a bit poetic. This is the second time we've hit a major milestone deadline this year. In May we whiiffed it, and this time we hit it. I am a little shocked at how similar the two feelings are.

Don't get me wrong, it felt really good hitting that submit button and seeing all our hard work out on the GDrive for the folks at Epic to take a look at. But the emotional aftermath of all that pushing is comparable. You hear a lot about crunch in the game industry, but this is my first time experiencing it, and it's the emotional drain that surprises me the most. I've worked overtime in my life before, I've cranked to hit a deadline, but never on a project I've cared about as much as this one.

The dev cycle is starting to feel a bit like a SEAR level: a series of phases, where every one starts relatively low-key and builds in intensity as you push for the finish. And like SEAR, it's fun - but the emotional amplitude is magnified by about a thousand. I'm ending these phases feeling utterly spent and the need for a little recoup time is very real. It's that intense up-and-down that strikes me. This week I ended up taking a couple days "off" (the quotes are there because of course I never really had a day off - I worked at least a few hours every day, but I let myself/forced myself to get a little distance) but I ended up taking a couple more to spend time with my family and hang out with my WoW guild (two new hardmodes down!). Going forward I'm going to start accounting for this need in advance, more directly. I've experienced it twice now, I know myself well, and I also know from experience (with myself and others) that you can't just assume burnout will never happen - it needs to be prevented. That means looking ahead, planning for the breaks, and being ready.

I absolutely love this project and this team. I'm so proud of us for hitting this deadline and I can't wait to see what SEAR looks like at the end of this next quarter. The next big step is the public prototype, which is when I get to share the alpha slice with the world, and I'm really looking forward to that.