Looking back at Arms2D

Well, my 15 minutes of fame have come and gone. The reception I've received to my fangame "Arms2d" has been nothing short of amazing.

Now that things have settled back down, I think it's a great time to take a look back at the inspiring reception of "Arms2d".

If you haven't already, you can check out my Arms2d Motivation post.  In that post I detail the ideas and motivation behind the inception and creation of Arms2d. It will hopefully give you a good idea of the mindset I had when releasing the game.

So when I first released the game, what happened?
After the initial announcement blog post, I share the game on Reddit in two separate places, r/Arms and r/NintendoSwitch. (Basically the same way I shared Splatoon2d). After making the two posts I anxiously sat and waited for comments. It a while, but eventually the comments came in, and a lot of them were positive! So I spent the rest of the day replying to comments and trying to help out anyone with a problem.

One word that has stuck out to me among the comments is "fun". That's the main reason I wanted to make the game, for others to have fun. I'm super glad that people saw the amount of work I put into the game and were impressed by it's quality, but reading that people had fun fully legitimized my desire to make the game.

Here's a neat word cloud of the comments from reddit (bigger words were used more often, while the tiny ones were only used once):

In the days that followed I continued replying to comments while checking to see if any gaming news sites had thought my game important enough to mention.

Polygon, a major voice in videogame reporting, wrote a very interesting article focusing on my motivation post. While the headline was inaccurate and I don't feel like the article's tone matched the feeling I was trying to express in my post, I appreciate the mention and the positive words.

GoNintendo posted a news story about my fangame

USGamer also posted a neat story with a great rundown of the game and the story behind the motivation.

A few days later, Comicbook.com also posted a story about the game.

I've also seen a couple of YouTube videos of people playing the game, some mentions on Twitter and various forums.

Another awesome piece of feedback came in the form of a Twitter direct message from Russel Okung, left tackle for the LA Chargers in the NFL. It was just a short note telling me that he liked the job I did on Arms2d and that he loved me sharing my Faith in my work, but as a big fan of the NFL it meant a lot to me.

The Arms2D release post has also surpassed 15,000 hits, which has been an awesome blessing. And one unintended side effect of Arms2D's reception has been a resurgence of interest in Splatoon2D (which now has over 15,000 hits).

If you're reading this and you've played Arms2D, thank you. I truly appreciate every time someone plays my game, that's the reason I do what I do. And especially, to everyone that has shared a kind word, constructive comment, or helpful encouragement, thank you. I try my best not to base my happiness or motivation based on the perception of others, but I do appreciate my work being noticed or appreciated.

Thanks again,
God bless,
TGBTG