This sentiment has been shared by millions before me, and millions after me will likely also follow in this potential folly, this death of passion by blunt-force complexity. For me, attempting this often doomed venture has the perks of advancing things I both know quite well as well as skill that start from total zero.

Very quickly, with 10 minutes of searching (would the word be Kagi-ing?), it’s apparent that even among successful releases my desired genre is saturated with millions of failed projects. The absolute amount of assets, video guides, code snippets and more show that these often misguided attempts are quite profitable, hinting to their overall quantity. After all, how hard could it be to make a Farming Sim?

Growing up as an introvert in the 90s and 00s I was the stereotype gamer kid. I had my Nintendo 64, my Dreamcast, my Gameboy Color. These magical game worlds were my friends, my comfort, in an often scary and confusing social climate. Especially noteworthy among these worlds was the series of Harvest Moon. Friends of Mineral Town and A Wonderful Life were my comforts in middle school and my clocked hours was likely in the thousands, especially for the former. Hiding in my bed under the covers with my Gameboy Advanced and its silly squirrel light, showering Elli in gifts from my farm; these are among the few memories I retain from my childhood.

You can imagine my joy with the resurgence of genre excitement after Stardew Valley. A renewed craving for these games brought me to discover the Rune Factory series and I would later move to try others such as Roots of Pacha and Fields of Mistria.

My tastes in adulthood weren’t limited to Farming games; titles like Dwarf Fortress, Terraria, Rimworld, Project Zomboid, Octopath Traveller, and most recently Expedition 33 covered an expanse of my foray into more modern RPGs and simulation games, many heavily inspired by games of the past. This was in-between my MMO-addiction fueled sessions of Final Fantasy XIV and running a D&D group on top of it all.

All these worlds, all these experiences, and it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly caused the desire to make a world of my own. Secure in my career I’ve come to look for side work or hobbies in my spare time, mostly driving me into hobbyist programming. Admiration of pixel art has had me sponsor artists such as 1041uuu and Wanella for the greater part of a decade, and I’ve always craved to try my hand at it. Music has always been a weakness of mine since an early age, leaning heavily into classical, and I always find myself returning to legendary tracks such as those in Expedition 33 (shout-out to Visages - Idéal Mental).

The odd item out has been creative writing, or creativity in general. Venturing into the TTRPG space, looking to create a homebrew for my friends and I to enjoy, has really flexed neurons that have likely lived in the dark for most of my existence. The joy of creating, sharing, and experiencing the excitement of my friends as they navigate our world, driving events and carving out their legacy.

Perhaps the aforementioned world, Vallaris, has been the trigger of this evolution, revealing a follow of untapped creativity and curiosity that has been waiting ages to be released.

I’m not an artist. I can’t draw or make 3d models, much less make sprites or tiles. I can’t conduct music, though I’ve played several instruments in the past. I’m also not delusional and know that my writing is nothing special. I can program, or at least I believe my work is of acceptable quality for the tasks I apply it to. Whether or not these skills are something I can pick up in the pursuit of my passion remains to be seen.

In terms of a creation, my thought is perhaps a Farming sim which mixes 2D and 3D assets, similar to the Octopath Traveller series (Square Enix has patented its term so I will happily avoid it). I’d love to possibly query 1041uuu or others to help, adequately compensating them for their time and effort, but I refuse to bother others with my whims and fancies unless I can proceed far enough to materialize a sufficiently complete concept work. Thank you, ADHD.

So for now my task is simple; sufficiently build out my skills to test the feasibility of pursuing my desires. In this, I leave you with my very first pixel art.