Review: Blood Sweat and Pixels, Chapter 3

Welcome back to my Blood, Sweat, and Pixels review! Chapter 3 is all about Stardew Valley. Unlike the other games that we’ve talked about so far, this is one that I have bought and enjoyed. Even though I didn’t find this game at the beginning, something I have always known is that this was developed by ConcernedApe, also known as Eric Barone. Every single part of this game was made by one person over the course of five years. He made it to honor Harvest Moon, and by now the game has been played by the creator of the of the Harvest Moon games. However, his success did not come easily: there were months of burnout, isolation, and other hardships as his girlfriend worked two jobs to support them both. But now, his game has made millions of dollars: it is the success story that modern culture loves to promote.

I have also made a game before. It has never been pushed to steam, and I do not expect it to ever reach the levels of other Indie developers. However, I bring this up as I was also a one-man team, so I understand the appeal of making a game in this way. A really nice benefit is that every single choice is one that you get to make. You can safely say that you made your game: no arguing over decisions and waiting for approval from the higher ups. The downside is that you have to make every single choice: there are no other programmers or artists to help, so the weaknesses of the game reflect your weaknesses as a developer. In my game, I think my art is a strong suit, but as I’m not a good coder the lines are heavily entangled. Another issue is that you have to schedule everything, which means that there usually is not a schedule. If the game is a hobby project, then that is to be expected: you will probably be working on it for a few hours at a time whenever you’re free. However, Stardew Valley became more than a hobby project, which means the extreme hours were more than a nine to five.

Because of the lack of schedules, it can become really easy to gain burnout. Something I highly recommend to prevent this are the use of schedules. Even if you think you’re taking a break, if work is always on your mind then there’s going to be a point where you hit a wall. You need to have a time where you can sit down and relax on something that is not your own work, even if it means that you have to manually schedule it as if it was part of the job. I can see why Barone hit a wall and needed to take a break after years of working.

I can imagine how the sudden success was very fulfilling and very hard to process for Barone. Personally, I do not think I could have dealt with it. It’s something that I always dream of, but in the back of my head I know I would never be able to obtain it. I don’t think I would be able to handle it.

I will say, that is long as Barone is happy with where he is, then isn’t that the best you could ask for? I’m glad he was able to accomplished so much even this time, and I know that he’s making the haunted chocolatier, so I’m excited to see what he does next. Hopefully this time, he knows how to manage his time a little better.