For every developer, there is always the difficult decision about how much support needs to be given to an app, or a game, or any type of project. Finding the right time to deprioritise work on a project - in order to have bandwidth available for a new project, or for something else is always going to be a loaded decision.

Which is roughly the position I find myself in right now. Having pushed out all the controller related updates to Pocket Dogfights, I feel that I’ve reached that point.

On the one hand, I feel like there’s no room to expand the design within the present game. There are plenty of ideas I have in my head for a follow-up, but implementing them in this first game feels as if I’d be taking it beyond my scope. In addition, there is the money factor - I’ve only had enough sales to make the first round of payouts (which means there’s the dribbles of sales from the last 3-4 months sitting in my accounts waiting to be paid out), and feels somewhat symbolic of the amount of effort I’ve put in not exactly paying off.

Thus, where do I stand right now? In the short term, I’ll be looking towards focusing on finding paying work. As I’ve done in the past, I’ll do what I can and save from that to fund any new projects. In the long term, I’d like to be able to get into a position where I’m able to alternate between both doing paying work, and my own projects.

There certainly are a few other projects I have in the wings, and I’ll be trying to kick them off, but obviously at a much slower pace compared to how I’ve been doing development in the most recent months.

But that way, hopefully I can continue to create the types of projects which I find challenging to create, and fun to play if you know my particular vibe of design.