SAM'S PROFILE

Here's a work in progress. Can you tell what this might be inspired by? ;)

Hi there, I can somewhat sympathise with your circumstances. I have to contend with:

• formally diagnosed autism

• associated social anxiety, demand avoidance, low stress threshold, and depressive tendencies

• stress induced IBS

• monocular vision, resulting in no depth perception, meaning no driver's license

That said, I also:

• have been using RPG Maker since I got hold of 2k3 at 13

• taught myself how to use the engine and create pixel art

• created a strong support network of close friends and developed and maintained coping mecanisms including social masking and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

• got a degree in Games Art & Design

• have had a job since 14 (paper round, then 5 years in retail alongisde college and art school, then 1 year admin, and 3 years remote customer service before finally breaking into a full-time salaried design career 5 years ago)

• have a wife and two kids

• have released games (not all of them good)

• have released comics (also of varying quality)

• do freelance work for others' indie games and comics

• refuse to let my issues define me.

You know some of the things I learned?

• Art is hard

• Coding is hard

• Music is hard

• Finding good, reliable, artists and programmers is hard

• People can make a good living doing these as full-time jobs

• People can earn much more professionally compared to the pennies their RPG Maker stuff brings in

Aekeshics, Yanfly, Olivia, and anyone else who charges for their specialist skills or runs a Patreon to top up their income deserves to do so. They're actually astonishingly cheap for what you get and I'd go as far as to say they're all significantly undercharging.

I'm happy to pay for music packs, graphics, plugins, etc. because I know how many years these people spent learning their craft and I'm grateful that, of all the avenues open to them, they chose RPG Maker despite the engine's undeserved poor reputation and primarily young userbase that likely has little disposable income. (That said, I recognise there's quite a few of us "old guard" still knocking about.)

Thanks Hali! I'd love to make a game page here but not sure what the contest rules around IGMC are around that. Playing it safe for now.

I'd appreciate any thoughts you have on my IGMC entry. It can be found here and is around half an hour long. https://itch.io/jam/igmc2018/rate/335497

Appreciate there's a queue so the contest might be over by the time you get to it but still good lessons to be learned for the next IGMC, right? :)

Thanks for everything you've done to keep this place in order. I hope you're able to kick whatever's making you unwell's arse.