I just got word from the artist saying that he’s unable to work on my game any longer. This breaks me, just as much as it did the first time when I treated the previous artist poorly. However, the new artist’s leave wasn’t my fault this time (thank god) and it was related to real life problems rather than how I treated him. The (formerly) new artist is an adult, so he has work (AND he’s a game dev too, like I said a while ago he’s working on a game called Yulo’s Closet, I also made a video on his other game Pond Tale), and work, in his words, has been kicking his ass so he’s always been super busy. Today he just broke the news that he can’t help out with Pinori any longer and I genuinely feel like the game is… done for. Exactly like last time. I don’t even think I can find another artist, and to be honest it just… doesn’t feel right NOT working with TV Man. It’s such a shame that we only got a small percentage farther in graphic progress compared to the last artist, the most we did was facesprites (remaking the old ones and then making new ones for characters that didn’t have a design at the time of the switch), and ONE tile set. The first time around all I got was… 4 facesprite sheets. I almost cried when writing this portion of the article, that shows how serious I was when I said moving on from working with TV Man will be difficult. We had laughs, we vc’d, and he tolerated my anger fits better than Tiffany did (yeah, the previous artist’s name was Tiffany). Tiffany, on the other hand, we just did the work, barely had laughs, NEVER vc’d (by the way, vc means voice call if you’re not used to internet slang) and our friendship broke when I started venting to her about my problems (which I 100% regret and shouldn’t have done, I was being an asshole) AND THEN GOT MAD AT HER FOR HAVING A PROBLEM WITH IT. Tiffany, if you somehow manage to get ahold of this post and you made it to this part, I admit to my horrible behaviour and I hope at somepoint, even if you still don’t want to work with me again, maybe we could still be friends someday.

Returning to the topic of the post, I feel working with another artist will be awkward (assuming I ever find one, artists with experience that are still willing to work for free are VERY rare and I got way too lucky with Tiffany and TV Man while I had them). TV Man was different compared to all the friends I’ve had. He stood out that much, there was a whole new vibe that was peculiar yet enjoyable. That’s why I feel working with another artist won’t be the same and I won’t have as much (or the same kind of) laughs as I had with TV Man; I don’t think the vibes I got from him can be replicated. This sucks. Both Tiffany and TV Man were really good at pixel art and I lost them both. And to be honest, if I had never been such a dick to Tiffany I’d be way farther in development than I am now because I’d still have her. All the slowing down in development is basically my fault because without either of them, IT’S REALLY DAMN DIFFICULT TO WORK ON THE GAME, MAN! The timing of this is awful too, I only needed an outside tile set and I could have finished Pinori’s house’s backyard and LITERALLY a majority of Kiku Village as well. I could have finished a huge chunk of the beginning of the game but now I’m stuck. Imagine it like building momentum in a Minecraft parkour world, doing 10 2 block jumps in a row and then failing a 4 block jump anyway. If I find a new artist, that will mean I can’t give TV Man a chance to come back, because the new artist will have to use THEIR style over the previous one, which means that TV Man’s art (quite amazing may I say) will have to be put in the “old” folder and never used in game. I don’t want to just waste the new artist’s time by saying “hey, you’re covering for TV until he comes back, and if he ever does then you’re done, okay?” that would be even more of a dick move (at least to me) than what I did to Tiffany (I really need to stop bringing that up). I’m in a really big pickle right now and this hurts worse than a migraine with the power of two of them. I either have to wait to see if TV Man comes back (which could be in a few months or maybe years, or never) or I leave him behind and find something else and I swear, if I have to do that it will HURT. I don’t want to have to do either of them but if I just sit around doing nothing Pinori won’t get anywhere. I’m gonna have to go through the more difficult path and let TV Man go, which is gonna hurt like hell, but work is more important than art, work is what keeps you going. If you see this, I’m sorry…

For the final part of the post, I’m gonna talk about WHY I need an artist in the first place, and why I can’t just draw the graphics myself. To make a long story short, I suck ass at pixel art. By this point my art isn’t so bad to an abominable level, but it’s still too bad to use in a game. I generally suck at any form of digital art and I don’t have a drawing tablet. Even if I did, I don’t think I’d be able to do pixel art on it because I’m only decent at regular art. I want my game to be retro looking, and not using pixel art would pretty much ruin the retro feel, similarly to how using modern music instead of chiptune (or at most 16 bit music) can do the same thing. [cough cough] I’m looking at you, andrewharn (just kidding, your game is good even with realistic music).

Anyway yeah, I’m not gonna waste anymore time whining on a GameJolt article and for your sake I’m gonna put a TL;DR so you don’t have to suffer reading an hour’s worth of writing.

TL;DR TV Man is too busy with work and told me he’s no longer able to work on the art for Pinori. I’m gonna have to replace him with someone else which will be hard and I don’t wanna do that, but waiting for him to return would slow my game’s development down, and the game is already a year old with only Pinori’s house 99% done.

THIS….. SUCKS……