Weresdrim.com

About this Site and my Upcoming Game

I've pretty much finished development on this site, it's been finished for months, but I'm keeping things locked to just this page for now until I can show at least something from the game.

I feel it's a little cheap to talk too much about a game without a single screenshot of it... it feels like you could be talking about anything or talking yourself up too much.

The game still looks too messy with not enough production-ready assets in, and I'm trying my best to lock in a few final things about its design so as to not promise 1 game and deliver another before speaking about it.

I think making a game functional is much more important first than making it look spectacular, it's a bit of a chicken & egg problem though because to hire people or seek help for these things requires making the game so far public in order to secure funding, so I'll release stuff soon regardless.
It's quite a complex game with many systems (but it's easy enough to understand I think). I'd say 80-90% of the systems work is already complete. Most of my work (within development) going forward is connecting different parts I worked on in isolation.

Basically, for the framework I have almost all of the parts I need, but the way they're configured, how they relate to one another, and how prominent their role is, is tightly contested by how much work I believe it's possible for me to do and still actually ship the game. I'm having to remove some parts and keep others.

Many asset categories have almost no work done however such as music. I wanted to do everything myself but time and finances are making extra work impossible, so I've focused on what I know best and what is most critical. Sometimes it's not so much about giving up something as taking on something more strongly.

Things like character designs are already almost all done aside from minor corrections. I'll be able to share details about them and the setting as part of the first details, as well as what the game is broadly about and how it plays.

OC's are a bit of a weird thing to me, I don't like characters that aren't contextualized by a narrative and setting so I never made any in my earlier years as an artist. But in this work I've made many many, and I really love them. I'm excited to see what people think of them. I've tried my best to not make anyone boring, make sure they serve some narrative purpose, and to make everyone cool or cute pretty much, sometimes both.

It's been quite an odd feeling over these years which only strengthens as the story, setting and characters have developed, that it's like having an anime in your mind that none of your friends know about so you have nobody to discuss it with, but in this case nobody knows about it, and yet you're obsessed with it. I feel like creators don't talk about this ever, I haven't heard it anyway.

Then again, I'm particularly private about my work, I don't even discuss it with people almost at all. Nobody knows a single character name even.

Ultimately though, I'm very happy and satisfied with how the game is going. It is difficult to always keep this in my mind since flaws are ever present when you're working, but as it stands, it's truly far surpassed what I even thought was possible for me to do in my furthest of expectations throughout the first years of learning how to do any of this. In some ways the game is still very empty, but in others I feel it competes with even incredibly large companies, and I find it incredible that with today's technology, even one person can do this now with the right know-how and dedication.

Even sticking to one project alone with no guaranteed success for this long is some sort of deranged fortitude, but I don't really consider that an achievement, it's just something I've felt compelled to do.

One way or another, the game will come out, and I'll be happy with the fun game I made, and happy that I spent a substantial portion of my life basically solely dedicated toward seeing it come into existence. It's no longer a matter of if I can do it, but when I can do it. So, I hope and think you'll enjoy it too if you've liked any of my work in the past.

A game is one thing, but this game is truly a setting first and foremost that I've written and developed a ton about privately. This is the first entrant in a (hopefully) long series of games that explores different aspects and events within it. I already have an idea for a sequel that I'll be able to reuse the same game framework as this.

I've put a great deal of thought into every aspect of this game's world. It's not all original, nothing ever is, but if there's one thing it's not, it's not soulless. Things happen for a reason and characters have reasons for acting the ways they do, things can happen beyond their comprehension, and they only reveal as much of themselves as they're comfortable with.

Soon enough, you'll be able to meet them, and inhabit and explore quite an interesting new world.

For those who have followed me for some time, thank you for following my online presence for this long despite my public hiatus, I have been working very hard behind the scenes for ~4 years on this!

More coming soon...