Just held the second AMA in the community Discord server! It's always fun answering your guys' questions, and we had some really interesting ones this time around! Without further ado, I'll just get into it!

On Future Musical Styles

Question from Ronaldbabe: "will you do other music style in the future other than 8bit-ish music"

Excellent question! The short answer is yes, definitely. 

The long answer is a little more complicated though. I've been wrestling with finding a balance between comfort and growth lately, and the chiptune music is definitely a matter of comfort for me. A lot of the reason I stick to it is because I can make it efficiently. It's far easier to produce professional quality 8-bit music than other types of audio, of course. That said, my plans for future games are going to require me to learn proper audio production, so I will be writing proper tracks eventually. On the other hand, though, I also want to develop games for certain consoles which require 8-bit music, so it's not going anywhere either. Expect mix of both as we go forward

On Musical Collaboration

Question from AkraticHuman: "A lot of tracks have multiple people credited. How does composing work with multiple people working on a single track?"

This one depends a lot on the track, but in general writing music for Axial is actually a very collaborative process. Part of this is due to the DAW (Digital Audio Workshop) we use, which is Jummbox. All the editing data is stored in a URL, which means that sharing in-progress music is as easy as copy and pasting. It's actually faster to share the URL than it is to share a finished song, but the consequence of that is that when the editable song is right in front of you, you can make changes to it as you please as well (making a new URL haha). So, often times, the process goes along the lines of: 

-We need this specific track

 -Composer A starts that track and posts the beginning of it 

-Composer B listens to it and adds onto the track with an idea they have

 -Composer A goes back to it and makes their own changes And the process repeats until the song is arbitrarily decided to be "done".

 Sometimes, we'll have unfinished tracks with no "home" in-game sitting in the doc for months or even years, at which point when I need a song for a new area I'll actually start by digging through the trash and seeing if I can finish any of these unfinished works for that purpose. There are probably like 5 songs in the OST so far that were just forgotten WIPs that I dug up and finished myself.

On Lessons Learned From Development

Question from AkraticHuman: "What are some of the top things you've learned in your developmental process so far? Top advice to devs with similar scoped projects? Do you recommend your methods to others?"

Oh man, this is a real toughie because boy oh boy have I learned a lot haha. One of the biggest things I learned is to not overthink things. It's really easy to get hung up about whether or not an aspect of a game is perfect, and over time I discovered it's much more efficient to "just do it" and adjust with feedback instead of waiting for the perfect outline to come to you. This aspect also has a lot of downsides too though, since sometimes there are problems in your game that your testers just don't notice. It's a really tough balance.

 Another big one is weighing the influence of certain changes on your target audience's enjoyment of things. For a very long time I was quite stubborn about certain elements of the game (I still am, of course!) and my logic behind that was that my core players, the ones I'm most interested in delivering a positive experience to, are already satisfied with certain elements as they are. The fallacy there is that "good enough" does not mean it can't be improved, and I was actually depriving those players I care about from a potentially better game by refusing to make certain changes. 

As for some advice for devs with big projects like mine, here are my big tips: 

-Don't be scared of time. Your game is gonna take an eternity, and you aren't gonna see the finish line for a while, so just enjoy the ride. 

-Just keep moving forward. You don't have to work on your game every day, but the only point where your game "dies" is when you decide to call it quits. As long as you constantly take steps whenever you can, your game will eventually be finished

 -Be ready to learn everything, and don't be scared of learning those things, even if you have others to help you out. I went into this with basically no programming, pixel art, or animation knowledge, but in the end I grew to be very confident and comfortable. It's fun!

On Axial's Art Direction

Question from MoogleRampage: "Was pixel art a stylistic choice or a practical one? Or both? (Disregard if that's a repeat question)"

It started as a completely practical decision. The Game Boy aesthetic was always the plan, but originally we were going to do fully drawn out sprites for battles and the overworld, with the GB vibes being relegated to the music and menus. You can actually find some of our old attempts at making walking sprites at such a large scale in the files for Disc 1, and you'll probably understand immediately why we didn't opt for that in the end. I was actually having a total crisis at the scale of it all when I realized that I could just scale everything up and make the game 16x16 pixels (If I had researched other games in the engine I would have learned that sooner!) From there, the plan actually became to keep the overworld sprites 16x16 and have the battle and portraits made in full scale, but as we made the demo and realized a single battler would take several months in that scale, I eventually ended up just doubling down and making it all pixelated. It was a very strong practical choice that probably shaved entire years off our dev time, but more importantly, it just fits the game better, doesn't it?

On Artistic Compromises

Question from MoogleRampage: "Hypothetically would you go back and redo anything from earlier in the development of Axial that required major concessions or compromises?"

And this is an excellent follow up. So, the truth of the matter is, Axial is built up from a lot of compromises, but those compromises are kinda what made Axial. Not to be dramatic, but it really feels like Axial as it exists now is what is was always meant to be. I think with my initial vision, I didn't have the experience to really understand what the game needed to be, and the game guided me in that direction instead. 

With that said, while I wouldn't make sweeping changes to Axial as it is now, my old vision for the game does still appeal to me, and I often daydream about getting to remake it as I once wanted it. Maybe someday I'll make that remake, while allowing the original to still be what it is now. 

As for less grand changes, the truth is that there is a lot that I was just a bit inexperienced about at the beginning that I probably could have done better. The damage formula is a big point of pain for me that I just don't think I can really go back on now, but I plan on changing in future projects, and there are some smaller things too like certain plot beats or maps that I could have done better. With that said, the vast majority of my "regrets" were actually addressed in Finest Remix, and I really do think that any changes beyond that aside from minor bug fixes would be going a step too far hahaha.

On The Meaning of  Life

Question from Ronaldbabe: "what is the answer to life"

This was clearly a joke question but you had the misfortune of asking a philosophical madman, so I'm going to spout some stupid nihilist rhetoric at you because this is my AMA dammit. There is no "answer" to life; nothing has any inherent meaning, but I don't think that means nothing has any value. To me, personally, I think the answer of life is "creation": we have the ability to put so many great things into this world, and it feels like a waste not to do it. I know not everyone is an artist, but I think art is really what makes humanity special as a species, and it's one of the most intimate forms of communication. At the very least, I think it's up to you to find meaning in your life (that's literally the theme of Axial!), but whatever it is that you value is what you should focus on in your life. And if there's nothing you value, I think life is rare and fleeting enough that it's worth living just to see what comes of it.

On The Storytelling Process

Question from Pandemic: "What is your general process when writing stories and characters? Does it vary or do you usually have a process?"

So, my driving goal when I make art is to create the art that I wish existed in this world. For that reason, while it depends on the project, typically the question I ask myself is "what would I enjoy the most here?" A lot of my characters are driven by my own feelings and thoughts, since those are the only thoughts and feelings I can ever truly understand, and I think in the end that's what causes my writing to come out so strong. The feelings I give my characters are very real, and I can kinda just put my heart into what they're feeling. 

On the flipside, I also kinda just "feel" my characters. They all have their own distinct voice in my mind (not literally of course hahaha I swear I'm not crazy!) and so when I'm writing for them, I often just literally pull whatever it is they would say out my ass and it tends to fit. I guess I just know these characters really well after working with them for so long. 

In terms of general story planning, it tends to get increasingly granular as I work. The story will start as big strokes, basically a Wikipedia summary, and as I approach a specific plot beat, I flesh it out first by creating a rough outline of what that plot beat will entail (literally a Wikipedia summary of a Wikipedia summary!), and then I fill out the details even further, until eventually breaking it all the way down to stage blocking and dialogue. There is a level of ad-libbing to the process, as sometimes I only discover how characters really feel about a situation while I'm creating it all in-engine, which could totally reshape how a scene plays out. You just have to be flexible and roll with what the game wants to be haha.

On Expressive Emotes

Question from Nedben: "Which emote do you think gets the most expressiveness across?"

Ooh, that's a toughie. The emotes are simultaneously a bit limited (they're very small and only have three colours) but they're also each pretty expressive in their own way. I think my personal fav is the heart, since I gave it a little squash and stretch, but the one I tend to get the most mileage of is the cobweb (the scribbly one) since the expression of frustration can be used both towards scenarios and other characters. Cobweb, Sweat, and Music Notes are the three I use the most often, and the one I use the least often is Sleeping (since its only real utility is while a character is unconscious in some way).

On Limitations and Ceilings

Question from Ronaldbabe: "where is your [C]eiling now?"

Hmmm... that's a tough question. I think at the moment, I don't think I could make assets much more impressive than Secret of Mana. I've tried making some Chrono Trigger style assets and I couldn't quite get a feel for it, but with that said I think as I move onto my next titles I might naturally find myself forced to innovate on my style.

On Future Engines

Question from Ronaldbabe: "Do you want to play with unity or unreal some day?"

3D sounds scary, and I don't envision many games I would want to make that would require one of those engines. With that said, I don't want to write it off permanently; someday it would be quite fun to make a big 3D game, I just don't think I'm ready for that yet.

On Monster Collecting Games

Question from Mooglerampage: "Any plans for a monster collector game?"

I am very, very interested in making a game of that sort, but at the moment I haven't fully locked onto what the next project will be after Axial. Whichever project we land on could take several years, and because I don't have any strong concrete plans for a monster collector at the moment, it's unlikely that will be happening anytime soon. I would definitely write it off as a "someday" game.

On Life Goals

Question from Ronaldbabe: "actually what is your life goal, maybe in your career? (not the life meaning) in a more tangible sense"

If by "career", you mean my financial day-job that pays the bills, all I really want it a job that allows me to live comfortably, with enough flexibility for me to focus on my game. At the moment, I already have such a job, and I don't plan on moving on until it becomes substantially worse or I'm given a substantially better opportunity.

I'm not interested in turning game dev into a full career, mostly to allow me to retain flexibility both in schedule and artistic control. Making money is a pain, you gotta handle paperwork and taxes and all that, and if your livelihood is counting on getting out a good successful game, that means you are no longer in control of what and when you make.

If you're interested in my goals for game design, on the other hand, my goal is to make the art that I want to see in the world. It isn't always games, but it is mostly games. I want to make my favourite games, and really I only publish those games because I know that others (like you guys!) will enjoy those games just as much as I do. At the end of the day, I'm doing this all for me, but I do want to make games I love.

It does kinda suck though, because I spend so much time making my games that I don't get to enjoy them a ton as finished works. I replayed Disc 1 about 6 months ago and had an amazing time, but for the most part I think I'm going to have to wait until further in the future before my projects become works of art that I can enjoy on their own terms instead of just things that I am currently making (since even Disc 1 still receives tweaks here and there to this day).

Well, that wraps up all the questions for this AMA! It was a bit lighter than before, but also very philosophical and it was a lot of fun discussing my values! I hope to see you at the next one! Thank you to everyone who participated!