After 6 and a half years of making mappacks I am officially announcing my plans to depart from making mari0 mappacks, enemies and content within the game (not on the game, we'll get to that)
I'll also still be a part of the community, I'll still be lurking the forums, playing mappacks, moderating and contributing to the discord and not maintaining the fandom wiki :).
I can't start this post without thanking everyone who has been a part of the journey, I truly wouldn't be here without everyone giving support or just playing my mappacks.
Maurice Guegan and Sašo Smolej, for making the game in the first place an above giving me a platform to express myself creatively, doing so for so many other people and fostering a community which I can call nothing but my second home.
Alesan99, for making the mod that I used throughout the years and for being such a funny and caring person, I wish nothing for the best for you now you're stepping away from mari0 AE as well.
Williamfrog, who's been a major help for myself as well as creating the modern mari0 meta with everything he's discovered since 2020, and also being such a good friend. And thanks for kickstarting my love for Terraria, I'll get you to like Minecraft at some point ;).
Skysometric, who fostered the community discord server where I found so many likeminded creators, and where a lot of my motivation came through over the years, it's not always been easy for you and I know that but you've always given 110% even on the bad days and I appreciate that and you.
All of my fellow collaborators for projects like Psnes and Mari0 AECE, Critfish, NH1507, Hexi Hertzgame, Dekainone, BetterDonutGalaxy, and yes, even you too Frazzdude and Mushrunt despite what happened between us.
And above all else, to everyone who has played my mappacks, or used my enemies, or didn't use my characters /j. I truly do appreciate it, it always kept me motivated.
Why have I come to this decision:
Now it's important to realise that this isn't something that I magically decided, and not something I'm going to drop either. This has been a series of thoughts built up since 2021. The short version is work, lack of validation and constant quota changes. The long version are these bullet points:
I've was unemployed for a while, I was meant to leave collage in August 2020 but something really weird happened and all of a sudden I was doing collage from home, for all of 2020 and 2021 I had all the free time in the world but soon things changed and I could (and basically had to) get a job.
I was working 25 hours a week so still had a decent amount of time to work on mappacks, this worked well for me but I was only on a 6 month contract which became 12 months, and finally 18 months. But then mine ran out and I had to find a new job.
I was able to find a new job at a local shop which was good to have but I went down to 12 hours a week which was too little for me, I was also making less. I was also working stupid hours like from 5 AM. It was such a kick to my moral and my output dried out over the 5 months I worked there.
But finally I got a call back from my old workplace looking to bring me back on full time and permanently, with an added wage increase. 37 Hours a week. And that is where I have been since the end of 2023, on 37 hours a week I don't have nearly as much time to work on mari0.
Being a mari0 creator in 2024 is very niche, if you're lucky a half dozen people will appreciate what you do, and the best you can do is get BTG to feature something you've made on his channel. But still you're not going to get much out of it.
2020 gave us who have made content for a while a taste of what true validation felt like, so many players fled to mari0 AE and I could see it in my downloads and views.
I know this sounds like "Manchild crying about his mappack not getting 100 downloads" but It's really not, never cared about views at all but with the hundreds of hours I spend on some mappacks I feel like I'm throwing my time into a black hole, you can make money but you can't make time, and I wanna use my time on things I feel good for, mappacks don't do that for me anymore
Do you remember the days where the only custom enemies would be... enemies? I don't. It's not a bad thing that we have so many new things we can make with all the exploits found by Williamfrog but it makes it so hard to top what's been made, and knowing that what you make now could become 10x easier in a week.
Overall I love the evolution of the games limits, so many amazing things that couldn't have been made in 2018 when I started. But it makes everything I do feel so small, I don't have the skills or time to make some of the things people are making now, I've fallen too far behind.
I could learn and adapt but I don't want to spend years on one mappack... except for one (We'll get to that later). I miss when I could throw together a mappack in a month and call it a day, yes they we're bad but not because I didn't spend time on it, mainly because I was just young and unexperienced.
It's hard to tell at this point but I'm looking at 2025, I have 3 major things I want done before I go, things I have dreamed about for years that would feel wrong not to do.
Finish my never ending secret mappack
I've been working on a mappack with a fellow creator for almost 2 years, the delays are not due to just me or them, but a bit of both.
Anyway we have plans to kickstart development soon and get some serious work done. and I'm hoping to show it off as soon as possible. I'm hoping that by going public it would give us the motivation to keep going now we'll have people looking at what we're working on.
Finish already (partially started) planned mappacks
I have a few mappacks planned and two that have had some amount of work done. Not going to beat around the bush the two are 12 maps of Christmas 5 and a HIM collection, being a remake of all 4 mappacks.
Both of these exist as mappacks but still haven't officially been started.
Create one last update for my SMM2 enemy pack
The pack is years out of date and really needs an update, I'll be working with Williamfrog to rebuild the majority of the pack from the ground up and also adding a few new enemies but not too much. This will almost purely be a quality of life update.
What does the future hold for me?
It's been more of a secondary love for a while but I really want to go full force with it, I love game development, I love making game, I love programming games, I love documenting games. Making games will give me a whole new world to open.
I won't have to worry about pleasing a niche community as indie game development is such a major industry with low entry barriers.
And I'll never have to work with complicated, unintelligent formats like enemies. Everything I want I can make myself.
I've already made 3 games for game jams, but nothing major. So after I bid farewell I am going to go full force on my first major game.
I'm aiming for an hour of gameplay, and tons of extras. Nothing is planned yet but I'm super hyped to get started.
And above all else, I can have the option to monetize through itch.io by allowing people to pay for my games, I want my games to be enjoyed by all so there will be no only paid games, at least for a while, but having the option to allow people to support me will be so nice.
Above that I will also be continuing my videos, making videos about games I'm working on (Showcases, playthroughs, devlogs, game jams) but also regular gaming videos.
And I'll also still be making mari0 mappack showcases. I still love the game and want to put more of the community in the spotlight, seeing how other people react to how I play their mappacks is always so rewarding, especially when I rage lol.
And I'll also be starting some tutorials on how I made my mappacks, talking about planning, creation and advertising. I'll be showing off the tools I used, providing all the templates I've made over the years, making a mod to help with quality of life when making mappacks and just general tutorials on making specific things.
I'm going to be 22 in August 2024, I'm an adult.
I've been working on getting my drivers licence so I can look into moving out of my parents house and closer to where I'll be working as at my current job they're in the middle of planning to move to a bigger city (Not hundreds of miles away, like 12), infact the plans went through this Thursday so it is happening. I'm looking to pass by the end of the year.
When I move out i'll have to spend more of my time doing things like my own laundry and shopping which will suck slightly but hey, I'll have my own place and i'll be able to do whatever I want, whenever I want!
And who knows, maybe I'll find someone who loves me for who I am and not the way I look or the number in my bank account. And maybe I'll have a mini Aidan who I can talk to about how bad slopes used to be in the retirement home.
Thank you for reading this...I know it's a lot and as someone who is really bad at reading and writing this was so hard, my back hurts.
But I needed to get things right, and make sure people knew everything.
And yeah, that's about it, thank you all for an amazing 6 and a half years, I've still got lots of time left to work on mari0 and be of help.
Thank you all so much, I love you, kiss kiss, UwU.
Ok that's too weird, thanks, I appreciate it.
Kind regards, - Aidan The Mapper, Aid0n, Britdan
And most importantly, Aidan
