Nail-biting action

With these weeknotes I publicly track and archive whatever it is I spend my time on.

After nearly three years of blood, sweat and tears, last week RIVE came out on Steam and PlayStation 4. For just 15 euros minus a small launch discount. It’s the last game by Two Tribes heroes Collin and Martijn, and we did everything within our reach to get it right. A detailed derelict starship, tons of variation, nail-biting action, a wonderful voice actor (who’s also in Return of the Jedi and Gremlins!)… even the soundtrack, by SonicPinic, is amazing.

RIVE is an old-school quality shooter/platformer that, because it’s filled with my language and jokes, feels almost as much like one of my children as my novels (but not quite as much as my actual children). If you’re at all interested in these kinds of games, please buy it, and spread the word. And definitely check out the release trailer:

Release week was so exciting that I slept terribly (not helped by people streaming the game literally 24/7 on Twitch and YouTube) and got a little bit sick in the end.

Getting feedback from all around the world turned out to be quite an emotional challenge too. While generally the reception seems to be favorable, some people say the game is too hard and others say it’s trying too hard to be funny (and sometimes the two complaints overlap). Some people totally get it, too, even more than I’d dared to hope, but of course the more negative reactions are the ones that you remember. I have no clue why the human psyche does this.

I spent a day at Two Tribes, where they were working on a patch to tone down some of the game’s difficulty spikes. The humor is beyond rescue, unfortunately.

What else? I…

• Published my Boekman 108 article on digital innovation in the literary field as a downloadable PDF.
• Finished most of the first draft of the Antegods comic, and edited a blogpost for Codeglue. It wasn’t easy to get this done with all the RIVE excitement!
• Tried to push ahead on Geometry Girl too. I facetimed with Menno, sent out some important emails, installed Sketch and Framer for a better design prototyping workflow, and did some audio testing. I also met up with my editor Sander and intern Bowi at Atlas Contact to discuss the progress of the app novella.
• Met up with Sytze to talk about his plans for fictional world De Wentel.
• Sent out a newsletter about my hybrid writer activities. You should subscribe too!
• Went sailing with Filip, which cleared my head somewhat.

Average step count per day: 7.868
Average staircase count per day: 10
Average sleep per night: 5:30
Average weight: 87,4