Pitch & Poll: Bonus Project

Hey team,

What follows is four pitches and a poll for what the Bonus Project should be. It's taken me a bit of brainstorming to come up with these pitches, as I kind of thought this stretch goal was a further off when I came up with it. Thanks for the patience.

(Please note: Your input matters, but in the end the deciding vote is me. If it starts to feel that the thing everyone wants me to do is a thing I don't think I can do well, I will switch projects. I'm not going to put out something I don't think is good.)

Pitch 1: How Do You Eat? Podcast

Something that's always frustrated me about how creative professionals talk about their work is they tend to stick to the punchiest stories and don't talk about the nuts and bolts of how they actually afford to do what they do. We had a video/comics artist visit my production class one time in college and talk about his work. I asked him how he afforded to make his projects and he said, "Oh, each video only costs me about $5 of materials."

I said, "Yeah, but how do you eat?"

Turns out he had a dayjob. That's a weird thing to leave out of a visit to a class of art students.

For some time I've wanted to ask people who make art/internet "content"/other creative work, at all levels of success, how (and whether) they actually manage to make a living doing what they do. So: a podcast series where I interview people and find out how someone would replicate their career.

Pitch 2: Pantheon, A Smash Podcast

This would be a limited-run podcast. It's somewhat niche, but I've been curious about interviewing the major players of the competitive Melee scene. The Five Gods (Hungrybox, Armada, Mango, PPMD, and Mew2King) and the two Godslayers (Leffen and Plup). I'd ask them about their playstyles, how they came into the game, where they think Melee is heading, how they interact with and effect the community, and so forth.

I might throw in a few favorite players who are not god-level just for good measure.

Pitch 3: Innuendo Studios Radio

I really liked putting together the little folder of all the music I've played in video essays. I used to love making mixtapes.

I suggest a monthly mixtape of sorts, released as a download and possibly livestreamed... somewhere where it's legal to livestream music (I'd have to look into this). I'd get to properly show off my taste in music and maybe work on my DJ banter.

Pitch 4: Make A Game

OK, so I've tried to make an adventure game of my own many times. I've never had an idea that didn't require a bunch of custom coding and I've never enough free time to get good at coding myself and I've never been able to keep a coder attached to a project without paying them and I've certainly never had enough money to pay one. So I've never been able to maintain work on a game.

But last year I got an idea for a project that I could make in Adventure Game Studio. Not much custom coding, something I could probably do a fair amount of on my own with help from the AGS forums. And it's an idea I'm kind of excited about. The only thing I haven't been able to give it is time.

Now, making a game is no simple task, and I know that. We would not be trying to fund the entire development of a video game with a little extra cash from Patreon. But we could maybe spare the time for a proof-of-concept. Map out the plot, do a lot of research, make some design documents, figure out the characters and the setting, with the goal of making a small demo. I'd make a patron-only devlog where I'd talk about development (though anyone who wants to avoid spoilers should stay away).

If I wanted to make a full game, I'd need to either interest a publisher or run a Kickstarter. Both would be much easier to do with a demo. I would eventually need collaborators - an artist at the very least, and I would need help with the music. And I don't know how long it would take to make a demo - everyone always underestimates how long a game takes to make. But we would just set aside a few hours here and there to work on a game and just keep pecking away at it until there's something to show.

Anyway, those are the pitches. Go vote!