I know you haven’t heard from me in many months, but I wanted to reassure you all that…
I AM NOT DEAD.
Just dead tired (but in a good way!). I’m still hard at work on lily’s world XD, so I wanted to give you all an update on what I’ve been up to and also on my development progress so far.
This summer was genuinely crazy! I was a speaker at VidCon, then I was a featured creator at Open Sauce (a nerdy content creator convention), then I went on tour for my voice acting. For those who don’t know, I play the villain One in Battle for Dream Island and Pepper in Inanimate Insanity. For the tour, we went around the US premiering our latest episodes and meeting our community.
THEN I went to London to visit my publisher Kwalee (Oh yeah, I have a publisher now!). I then went to New York for the content creator conference Publish Press NYC and then to Anime Impulse. With all of this international travel, I also got sick during this time period.
So I was essentially working on lily’s world XD in various hotel and AirBnb rooms!
This summer, I brought the lily’s world XD demo to its first and second physical event. At Open Sauce, there is a massive expo section where people can bring their projects to demo, whether that’s an engineering project, an art project, or even a game! So I had a lily’s world XD booth (see photo below).
The lily's world XD booth at Open Sauce.
I got to see peoples’ reactions to playing the build for the first time (people who are not just my friends!). Shockingly, the lily’s world XD demo did not have a single bug during this playtest, which I’m extremely proud of myself for. I was very surprised at how positive the reception was to the demo since it’s an hour long – the last thing I would expect anyone to want to do during a very busy convention is to sit down for an hour and play my niche indie game. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that many people who sat down to play also ended up finishing the whole demo!
At certain moments of horror, I was delighted to see their reaction. And I look forward to seeing your reaction when the demo publicly comes out. In fact, I’m currently planning the marketing beats for when the demo will be released, so expect that within the coming months.
I also showcased the lily’s world XD demo at Anime Impulse. Given the fact that this is an expo for anime lovers and not necessarily psychological horror games, I was surprised by the amount of people who sat down and finished the entire 1-hour-long demo. I even had a bunch of people coming up to the booth and telling me they recognised the game.
One thing that was unexpected for me was that a lot of people who came up to the booth didn’t recognise me as a content creator but recognised the game from various showcases and the general buzz about it! I really appreciated that because I’ve always considered myself a game developer first and a content creator second, so it was really gratifying to be recognised more for my game than for my online following.
The lily's world XD booth at Anime Impulse.
Recently, I’ve been a bit burnt out from content creation and from all of my travelling. When it comes to my content creation, I only started making videos to promote the games I was working on. I never saw myself as a creator. In fact, I never thought I could even be a creator.
With content creation, your success depends on whether random people on the Internet like you or feel entertained by you. My first video on Instagram got over 2 million views, so I’m someone who fell into this rather than someone who’s dreamed about it. I’m so incredibly grateful for the audience I have. Without content creation, I don’t think I would have been able to pursue being a full-time game developer.
Not only that, but reading peoples’ comments about how excited they are for lily’s world XD genuinely makes my day. It gives me a purpose in life and this game has saved me from a deep depression. However, sometimes content creation feels like a never-ending hamster wheel, where you’re constantly comparing yourself to others and needing to constantly grow. You feel more like you’re fighting with the algorithm rather than making content for your community.
Weirdly enough, in my mental crisis, working on lily’s world XD has been my rock. For most indie game developers, their game is the source of stress in their lives, but for me it’s what calms me down after a long day of balancing the other aspects of my life.
With social media, there’s this instant feedback loop or gratification from posting a video and seeing how well it does. Seeing how many likes it gets, what people comment on it, what people think about the video. However, with my game, I don’t feel pressured in the moment of development to please anyone but myself. I can focus on telling the story that I’m deeply passionate about.
The vast majority of my videos are also about game development and not really who I am as a human being. For some reason, I’ve recently been feeling self-conscious about whether anyone actually cares about me. I realised that I want to do more than just make videos about game development. I want to build a community of like-minded people, those of you who are artists, developers, and writers. I want this to feel more like a community, rather than just making viral videos. If you’re reading this, I’d love for you to share a project you’re working on that gives you purpose in life. Let’s uplift each other as creatives!
I can’t lie, I will be incredibly nervous when the demo and the game launches! But, in those quiet moments at my desk, I can focus on what I truly love: telling a story that resonates deeply in my heart.
My last announcement is that I’ve started streaming on Twitch! You can find my channel here:
twitch.tv/sonderingem
I will be streaming Mondays and Wednesdays at 8pm Pacific Time, and I’ll be streaming art, development of lily’s world XD, and indie game playthroughs. I would absolutely love it if you stopped by and shared something about yourself, whether that’s a project you’re working on, your favorite game, or your most recent hyperfixation!
I’m hoping that, through streaming on Twitch, there can be more of an open dialogue between us, rather than just creator and consumer.
Thank you for reading this update and I can’t wait to share more with you soon!