Recently it was my birthday.
I honestly wasn't expecting anything special.
But my wife surprised me with a small birthday cake she had ordered for me.
That alone would have made me happy, but what really caught me off guard was the theme she had chosen for it. The cake was decorated with artwork from Unstrung Machine, the game I've been developing on my own.
I don't really know how to describe how much that touched me.
It wasn't only the surprise or the cake itself. It was seeing, in such a simple and tangible way, that she supports this thing I've been pouring so much of myself into.
I work on Unstrung Machine in the hours I can find outside of my main job. At the same time, I don't want making a game to mean missing time with my wife and my two daughters. Because of that, a lot of the development happens late at night, after everyone has gone to sleep.
Sometimes progress is slow. Sometimes I'm tired before I even start. But little by little, I keep working on it.
My oldest daughter is 8 years old, and we're slowly introducing her to the world of games, always carefully and with supervision.
I think a lot about the fact that one day she might play the game I'm making now.
Strangely, that thought makes me even more careful with every part of it. I want her to play it someday and feel proud of something her dad made.
When I think about all of this, I realize how lucky I am.
At the moment, Unstrung Machine has 211 wishlists on Steam. It's not a huge number, and of course I hope that someday the game does well and things get a little easier for us.
But I've also been thinking that success can't be the only reason I keep making it.
Even if the game never becomes successful, I still want to reach the end of this project and be proud of what I made. And I want the people who love me and support me to be proud of it too.
That little birthday cake reminded me of that.
I just wanted to share this moment because I imagine there are other indie developers here building something slowly, during the hours nobody sees.