The job hunt hasn’t been going well – I score some freelance writing here and there, but it doesn’t amount to much or come close to meeting our expenses. Neither myself nor my partner has found any work, any unemployment is long gone, and we’re digging our way through what used to be a house fund. Hopes and dreams, you know? We were close – very close – to getting out of the apartment life, and then a bunch of setbacks hit all at once.
So there’s a ticking clock now. We’ve less than a year in savings, and then… well. We can’t afford our apartment. We can’t really afford it now – it’s too much in rent for the square footage, but living here was a response to a sudden building sale by our last landlord. Rent alone is over $2k a month, so even living spare we have a floor on our expenses.
I’ve been asked if I’ve looked for work outside of writing, and to be frank I wouldn’t be able to find a salary that meets expenses. We’d still be in the same place, unable to make rent, unable to pay medical costs, unable to buy groceries.
So.
While continuing to look for work, I’m going to focus my crowdfunding campaigns – patreon, comradery, ko-fi – on short quick game releases, godot tutorials, and game assets. I’ve done sprints of “game a week” for months at a time in the past, so I’m not worried about pulling it off…
…but will it be successful? Will it pull in enough new patrons to buy me more time to find work?
I don’t know, but I’ve got to try something.
The structure I’m looking at:
- $5 a month brings you two to three games. Really, this depends on the scope I’m working with.
- $10 a month brings you those games heavily documented source-code along with any assets I’ve created for them. Obviously I can’t give away what I don’t have a license to distribute, but if I create some sound effects, tilemap, or sprite animation, I’ll include it.
- $20 a month brings a tutorial walking supporters at this level through the game, both as a video and PDF, to service people who learn visually and those who prefer something written.
It all feels a bit geared towards game devs more than players – at least the higher two levels, but I’ll be working on some larger scoped projects alongside all this, and maybe work out a way to give away copies at some higher tier.
We’ll see how it goes.