Who are you, and what is Kor?

Good hello! I am Goadstool, a solo indie game dev and longtime poster both here on hexbear and back on the CTH sub, posting from an alt account for the sake of disassociating my post history from my dev name, for fear that the weird nerds who troll this place will somehow doxx me.

For more than 3 years I've been pouring my being into the development of a retro, turn-based RPG called Kor, releasing December 23rd. There're at least a few features of the game which I think may be of interest to my fellow posters here on Hexbear:

• A small but crucial part which takes place on a train
• Gender-neutral player character with light, medium, and dark skin tone options (most people seem to assume it's a boy, but by design all NPCs use gender-neutral terms to refer to the player)
• A multi-racial coalition of revolutionaries who enact a plot of direct action against a class of soul-sucking elites
• No DLC, micro-transactions, or corporate involvement of any kind

Personal comments:

Originally my intent was to make a normal thread in c/games about Kor, but when I reached out to the mods, they generously encouraged me to request a mega instead. This highlights one of the primary reasons why I wanted to post about it here at all: this community has always been deeply supportive to me. Without this place where I can share my existential anguish and be met with encouragement and understanding, the grueling process of making a game would have been much more excruciating. So at the end of my game's development, it felt right to share the result of my labor with all of you.

However, I despise advertising. Even something as crucially important to my life as this post makes me feel disgusting. I despise advertising because it's treacherous, omnipresent, and (in my opinion) it's one of the most dehumanizing things produced by capitalism. So, because of this and because of how comfortable I am here on Hexbear, I am going to undermine this by being open about my circumstances, and the emotional experience of developing a game.

Warning: this will get heavy.

During development, I regularly broke down into open sobbing dozens of times, because of how much pressure there was to finish this project and roll the dice that would allow me some small chance to escape my plummeting material and social circumstances. There were times where I would get stuck on a bug that I just couldn't figure out, and I had to get out of my apartment just to go somewhere I wouldn't disturb anyone else and scream as hard as I could, because the lack of progress allowed the reality of my life to rapidly catch up and overwhelm me.

I've been dependent on an abusive partner for more than a decade, I have no physical friends, I am emotionally compromised, and I am financially insecure. In months my current living arrangement will expire, and what happens next depends entirely upon the results of all my efforts developing this game. It's my hope that it will find just enough success that I can avoid being housing insecure a bit longer while I keep doing this - the only profit-generating activity which my mind will allow me to do. According to research, however, it should be considered a triumph if the game managed to pay for its own soundtrack. I don't have an established fanbase, and I'm not popular in any scope. Still, I have to try. Because even if everything falls through, I'm just going to keep doing this. I didn't "quit my day job" to do this. It's the only thing I can do. All that will change is how much I have to suffer while I continue my work.

In a way, this post would be just as fitting in c/mutual aid (related: my graphics card died the same day my game was approved by Steam).

This is the only place I'm comfortable sharing that kind of detail, because of how welcoming and encouraging you've all been. Ever since the exodus from :reddit-logo:, my interactions here have been almost universally positive and affirming. Even if Kor falls flat, I'll always be proud of it, and the accomplishment will be at least in some part thanks to the support of this community.

Thank you, all of you. Really.

If you want to help me, these are easy things that anyone can do:

• Even if you can't or don't want to buy the game, you can go to its store page and wishlist it to convince Steam's algorithm to promote it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1374280/Kor/

• If you DO play it, please remember to leave a positive review

• Follow my Twitter and share posts I make about the game's release: https://twitter.com/goadstool

• Feel free to share the game with anyone you think may actually like it.

Lastly, I need to shoutout my composer, Lewmoth. I don't know if he's a leftist, but without him the game would be so much less. And I want to thank the handful of people who helped me out by testing my game, as they played a crucial role in its development.

TL;DR: I spent over 3 years developing a game, riding the encouragement and support of Hexbear. Please, help my labor see some measure of compensation and, hopefully, enjoy my game. I made it with honest passion, love, and an immense amount of time and effort, and because of that I feel it is the only truly beautiful thing I have ever done.

Resources for Organizing your workplace/community :sabo:

Resources for Palestine :palestine-heart:

Buy coffee and learn more about the Zapatistas in Chiapas here :EZLN:

Here are some resourses on Prison Abolition :brick-police:

Foundations of Leninism :USSR:

:lenin-shining: :unity: :kropotkin-shining:

Anarchism and Other Essays :ancom:

Remember, sort by new you :LIB:

Follow the Hexbear twitter account :comrade-birdie:

THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) :RIchard-D-Wolff:

COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS :af:

Come listen to music with your fellow Hexbears in Cy.tube :og-hex-bear:

Queer stuff? Come talk in the Queer version of the megathread ! :sicko-queer:

Monthly Neurodiverse Megathread and Monthly ND Venting Thread :Care-Comrade:

Join the fresh and beautiful batch of new comms:

!worldbuilding@hexbear.net :european-soviet:

!labour@hexbear.net :iww:

!cars@hexbear.net :cringe: