Spiral Atlas Games

So the only thing I did publicly was release Countryside Backgrounds.

But behind the scenes I've been working on getting Northanger Abbey on Steam! More on that when I have something to link to.

After some thought I realised I'm not suited to that kind of payment model.

I mean noone has signed up as a paid member anyway (not counting my partner, who doesn't even MAKE games, he's just being supportive <3) but I suddenly realised that if anyone did I'd constantly feel guilty when I wasn't Making Content. So it's a lose-lose situation. And I had less than a handful of free subscribers, who can always follow me elsewhere.

I'm going to crosspost this a few places just in case someone tries to find my patreon, fails, and gets confused, since afaict I won't be able to explain anything on the account itself once it's shut down.

I felt like poking this again after my last post years ago and thought other people might find it useful.

The short answer is: I make about $100 a year, and generally less than 1% of downloads result in any payment. Which is vanishingly small compared to how much time I put in, especially since my stuff is fairly well received by the people who do check it out. But I'm a solo dev hobbyist, so my works have some rough edges, and I put very little effort into self promotion etc.
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Using Unreal Engine to Render Toon Shaded Environments, the technique I used to create these Anime Style Factory Backgrounds.

Tutorial: Making a Toon Shaded Background

A tutorial for making 3D backgrounds as in my recently posted house backgrounds.

I've created a pay what you want collection of eight backgrounds for use in visual novels.

The Spiral Atlas Spritemaker is a browser based tool for creating 2D anime-style visual novel sprites and character art.

Set the colour, shape, and pattern of thousands of image components to construct millions of possible characters, use a preset, or generate a random character with your choice of gender presentation and the option of fantastical elements.

Read the guide, follow the tutorial, or check out the example game.

The Spritemaker is open source and images created with it can be used in any sort of project, including commercial projects.

This is a guide to using the Spiral Atlas Spritemaker. Note that some details may change over time. Screenshots were taken in Firefox on a Mac.
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There's a lot of general guides to accessibility in video games but they can be a bit overwhelming, and I haven't seen any focussing on the stuff that comes up with visual novels, and other games that primarily revolve around reading text, looking at images, and clicking buttons.

I'm not an accessibility expert, just a well meaning developer, and this post is kinda slapdash. Don't take anything I say as gospel, and if I've missed/misrepresented anything, please let me know!
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This post goes into the approach I took when creating a queer, diverse visual novel adaptation of Jane Austen's 19th century novel Northanger Abbey, and how players responded. Partly because I think other people might find it interesting or useful, and partly to be able to link back to extra context when I discuss the game I'm currently developing, which is based on Pride and Prejudice.

These novels are set in early 19th century England, which was not a great time to be anything but a rich straight white healthy upper class Englishman. The plots directly explore and critique the gender and class attitudes of the upper classes, but at most obliquely touch on anything to do with ethnicity or disability and don't acknowledge queerness at all. Her characters are all straight, cis, and white, and the main characters all able-bodied and upper class.

Which was understandable for the time! But I'd like to do better, especially since I add same sex romances, so queerness is baked in. At the same time, I don't want to be too ahistorical, or change the text so much it becomes unrecognisable.

Northanger Abbey
Pride or Prejudice Demo
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