10 years ago my husband and I decided we wanted to make games. We had tons of time to learn anything we needed to even with both of us having jobs.
I look back and wish we didn’t take it for granted. We made lots of practice projects that never made it past a level or two. Everything was very casual, work on an art piece one week, work on something else a month later.
Fast forward 8 years and we still didn’t have anything finished, just a project we worked on for a few years. We were on a roll with our first game Nono and the Cursed Treasure when we found out we were going to have a child. We tried to get as much stuff done as possible before she was born, but being pregnant with nausea and fatigue made it hard to accomplish much…but I could had tried harder. Our first daughter was born and it was nearly impossible to do much with a baby and we really didn’t schedule ourselves like we should have.
When she turned a year and she was able to walk, it got a lot better and we could start really pacing ourselves. Soon after that we were unexpectedly
going to have another baby. It was extremely daunting to think of the lack of time we were going to have. Would we have to just stop thinking of the possibility of even finishing our game we already spent too much time on? Being pregnant and having a toddler was already hard, and it got a lot more challenging when our second was born, top it off with our almost 2 year old getting into the tantrum stage being extremely jealous of the newborn.
Our second daughter is now 7 months old and we are still able to create our projects. It can be challenging at times, but we manage. Having a schedule between us have helped immensely. We alternate days to work on things while the other looks after the kids and we keep one day for family day.
Our first game is just about finished and we are also in the works of a new project that is going well. We would have never thought it was possible but our lives evolve to manage new challenges and we get used to the changes. Things take a lot more time and we learn to take advantage of every second of free time we have. We think of all the things we could get done with the free time that we once had, but we couldn’t imagine our lives without the girls.
We have learned to not waste time we have when we have it because you never know what will happen in the future and believe me it goes faster than you think! At the same time, make sure to take some time to spend it with people you care about and not worry too much. Think positive even though it can be hard sometimes!