I’m here, at my desk, with Unity open to Archmage Rises.
The first thing I did was make sure it still compiles and runs so I can work on it.
It does. 😅

From Nov 19 to Dec 31, I still kept having meetings with the potential investor/publisher and he and I both hoped that the money would come before year end, but it didn’t.

We’re moving forward on the game regardless.

Some good news: I don’t have to do it alone! Michel and I have come to an arrangement where he will work full time (4 days a week) programming on Archmage. Michel has been working on Archmage since 2019, he brings a wealth of experience having worked on most of the major systems.

It’s been a while since I worked on the game. Of all the things we could work on, where to begin?

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”

The first goal is to do something tangible: for you, for me.

I think putting out a small update in a short but reasonable amount of time, like about a month, will help build momentum. So that’s the goal.


In my consulting/contracting work I’ve been advising the client about game loops and how important it is to answer “why am I doing this?” every 5 seconds, minute, 10 minute, and 30 minutes. Uh… advice I need to apply to my own game! 🤦‍♂️

Miyamoto famously said, “Just walking around needs to be fun". (Fun is better translated “engaging” or “interesting”). So if we rephrase as “Just walking around needs to be interesting” and pull in the famous Sid Meier quote “A game is a series of interesting choices”, I think we might be onto something.

I have to confess something: I’ve never liked the way the game plays at the map level. The exploration, resource gathering, the tracks, tracks, and more tracks… It just never felt right.

Good news is our senior designer Mark already came up with a new design to make map exploration way more interesting with Map Events.

What’s a Map Event?

Campsite Event, Resource Event, Traveler Event, Lair Event, Quest Event, Monster Patrols, etc.

We were in the middle of implementing the first prototype of it.

After some discussion with Michel (and Mark), we think this is the best place to start. Michel was halfway through making some tooling for the feature prototype:

Internal demo of the tool for making Map Events, never intended for the public, hence the background music and bandicam logo 😁

My goal for today was to come up with a plan and let you know what we’re doing. So far, mission accomplished!

I will write another update next week Friday.

Development of Archmage Rises continues Jan 10 2025.


I had to pause development of the game for an unknown amount of time because I simply didn’t know what was happening.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what was happening.

Now I break the silence.

People Make Games not automatons in factories. There is a person sitting here typing this right now. The team and I have had to live what you are about to read. I don’t pretend I’ve done everything right. I’ll write as accurate a summary as I can. I write for those who care about the game and the team.


It costs about $40k a month to run the team. Sales were sometimes $20k/month. The shortfall has to come from somewhere.

Have you ever played Monopoly and get into a situation where you have hotels on some property, but mortgage everything else (even the utilities!) to do it? If someone lands on your hotel, you’re flush and things are great. If they don’t, yer bankrupt.

That is a good analogy of how I was doing it. My wife and I slowly mortgaged everything we had to fund the game.

There was a moment in the fall of 2023 where a mortgage got bizarrely delayed for 4 weeks. This created a huge cash shortfall and I couldn’t make payroll. Miraculously, two people believed in what we were doing enough that they gave me $20k each, meeting my next two payrolls. It wasn’t a loan, I didn’t sell a stake in the company, they just helped out of the goodness of their hearts. I can’t express how grateful I am to them, because without that bridge we wouldn’t have made it through Sep.

All things being equal, if sales didn’t exceed expenses the money ran out Mar 31 2024.

I’m a planner. I’m always thinking about the future and “what if?” scenarios. Just today, in frustration, my wife said, “You think too much about things that won’t happen!” My response is, “What do you think planning is but preparing for what may or may not happen?!” (You don’t need to weigh in on this marital spat but if you agree with me drop a comment! 😝)

Summer of 2023 I was looking for investors/publishers to help get this thing to completion.

One was very promising and we dialogued frequently and set reasonable sounding dates for an infusion.

One was a longshot that said we’ll talk closer to end of the year. I will refer to this party as ‘Longshot’

Skipping over many details Promising didn’t work out.

Longshot contacted me either end of 2023 or Jan 2024 and came to the forefront.

(In the rest of this summary I’ll be mentioning dates based on my memory. I could be off by a bit here or there, but it doesn’t matter right now)


Over the course of Jan + Feb I worked with Longshot to put together an acquisition. I announced this on the blog and steam Apr 2.

Mar 31 was the last day I would be responsible for payroll, April onwards the new studio would be funding development. I couldn’t be more excited. The dream was coming true, the financial pressure coming off, and I could focus on making the game. (It’s hard to describe how much effort is wasted finding money when you don’t have money).

The additional funds allowed us to expand the team to get a few more specialists (QA, Illustration, Design, Production). I figured we should give the new company transition a month to settle so I set their start dates for May 1.

We had a meet & greet meeting between Longshot and the team, putting faces to names.


As we led up to Mar 31 Longshot asked if they were to cover the Mar 31 payroll or me. I said it was my responsibility, but hey! If they want to do it, I’d be super grateful. It was a real stretch to make Mar 31 payroll and I didn’t know if I would do it.

Funds were supposed to drop Mar 25/26 giving just enough time to make that Mar 31 payroll.

Invoices were created and sent, bank transfer information, employee details for the new medical plan. Everything was set to go.

But the week before, I was informed there was a delay and they won’t come until April 4.

Ever worse, because I thought I was off the hook for Mar 31 payroll I paid off a government loan from 2020. There was no way to get the money back!


My new partner and I discussed what do we do? Proceed as planned or hold off?

Longshot assured us the money was coming, just delayed and would be the 4th or for sure by end of next week.

I’ve run my own companies for 20 years at this point, I know things happen.

We decided this was a blip and we would proceed as planned.

We made the public announcement Apr 4. And we kept working.

April 12th came and went and still no money.

I pressed Longshot and he explained the money was coming from a deal that was supposed to have closed already, but it hasn’t. Soon as it closes, we’re a go!

For sure we’ll get the funds by May 1.

I informed the team, and more importantly, I informed those who were leaving work to join us May 1 that the money still hasn’t arrived. If they want to join May 1 knowing this, we’ll welcome them. If they want to wait until the money comes, no problem! Their job is still here for them either way.

Two decided to stick with the original May 1 date. They felt confident and were excited to join the project and the team. Two we worked out a better start date, which says nothing about them, I felt it was better for them to wait.

Everyone kept working.

Let’s pause here for a moment: What would you do? Jump on social media, Steam, blog and start posting about how your investor hasn’t paid you yet? It’s a few weeks out. It sucks, but not that big of a deal.


May 1 came and went. New payment dates were provided.

QA and Production started and got right to work with everyone else.

We finished May with everyone or mostly everyone working. By the end of the month the existing team hadn’t been paid in 11 weeks. The new people hadn’t seen a cent from me.


The whole time we were still having weekly meetings with Longshot. They always showed up, gave us an update on the funding and we would talk about other matters.

Funding was coming “any day now”. New dates were provided a week or two out. They came and went.

Its hard to describe the grueling routine of waking up each morning, checking email expectantly to see if THIS is the day the funding finally comes through, only to be disappointed yet again.

At this point people started dropping off the project to find other work. Totally understandable! I was amazed at their grit and determination to last this long. People gotta eat!

We assured everyone they will be paid for their time to date. We’ll hold a spot for them. So if they got a 6 month contract, and we got our funding next month, we’ll wait the 5 months for them to return instead of filling the position. And if they decide not to come back, that is sad, but the fault is on me not them.


I scheduled a meeting for Fri Jul 12. No one knows this, but internally I was feeling if the money hadn’t arrived by then, this is probably our last meeting together. Defiance is over.

Wed Jul 10 Longshot said he signed off everything with closing the deal we’ve been waiting on. The funds were scheduled to be transferred to them Jul 26, and we would get them 3 days after that.

We were elated. Finally, the good news we’d waited so long for. Longshot came to our team meeting Jul 12 to talk with everyone.

They asked "Will there be any more delays?"

"No. No more delays. This is it."

Everyone was excited. The long wait was difficult, exhausting, but here we go!

It didn't happen.

We had one programmer who was still working on the project, because he wanted to, but this is when he stopped.


New dates were provided and past.


New dates were provided and past.

At this point I’m getting an earful from my wife about how foolish and terrible this whole situation is. We were already at the end of our money in Mar and while a couple of good things came through for her in her job, we couldn’t last any longer. The bills were dangerously piling up.

So I told the team I was going to look for contract work. And as soon as the money comes in, they will be paid, and we’ll get back to making Archmage!

So why didn’t I post to the fans at that point? It’s no longer a knee-jerk reaction, it’s been 5 months of non-payment!

I know how stupid this next sentence sounds after all the above:

Because the money was coming next week.

Wipe the tears of laughter from your eyes and keep reading.

Because I really want to finish this game, with this team. I kept hoping the next date was the real date and I wouldn’t have to post something terrible. Or even worse, to say there is no money and we’re disbanding, only 4 days later to unwind that. Its hard to write how heavily it weighed on me. Plus, each week I’m meeting with Longshot who is insisting he really is going to pay me.


Vague dates were provided and past. Some progress was made with the funding. It was communicated more like ‘any day now’.

I picked up a 3 month contract as a senior unity dev to help on a mobile game project with over 100 million downloads.

This is how I’ve managed to keep my house and keep the heat on.

Many times I’ve said Archmage Rises is a very hard game to make. Working on this other project has only confirmed that. Archmage is 100x harder.


Still ‘any day now’.

I woke up this morning, checked my email. No funds yet.

Last Saturday I skimmed the discord thread asking about ‘dead game’.

This brings us to today Nov 19.

I’m tired of waiting. I want to work on Archmage Rises. Heck, I want to play Archmage Rises; the game I’ve envisioned for so many years.

I will resume work on Archmage Jan 10.

If the funding comes through, I’ll do it with the team. They really are the most wonderful group of people you could ever hope to work with. Despite everything that has happened over the last 7 months they still want to work with me, on this, for you.

If no funding comes in, on Jan 10 I’ll fire up Unity and Visual Studio and start coding it myself. I haven’t spoken to anyone else on the team about this. I have no money to pay them so I suspect I’ll be alone.

My wife and I are committed to finishing this game one way or another.