TheMeatly was panicking.
Mike Mood was buried in a mound of code.
Everything was a disaster.
Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter Two was supposed to launch in just a few short hours.
Everything had been going according to plan…until the game had suddenly broken.
Hundreds of miles apart, Mike and TheMeatly shot terrified messages back and forth over
the internet.
They had to get this to work.
Everything they’d built up over the past few months, the past few years even, hinged
on them getting the game out the door immediately.
This was all devolving into a horrible mess, and they had nobody to blame but themselves.
If they didn’t fix the game soon, this might well be the end of Bendy and the Ink Machine.
In retrospect, TheMeatly and Mike Mood had been far too ambitious with their work schedule
on Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter Two.
In fairness, they had been flush with success, and the phenomenal fan reaction to the first
chapter of their game was enough to make anyone feel a little overconfident.
Following the release, and subsequent explosion, of Bendy Chapter One, the pair had sat down
for a brainstorming session to figure out what to do next.
They had a big hit on their hands, and people were demanding a second instalment.
The initial game demo had been thrown together more or less over a weekend, so by all rights,
they should be able to make another chapter relatively quickly, right?
The problem was that the pair didn’t want to stop with simply making something that
was the same size and quality as Bendy Chapter One.
They wanted to up their game, create a more complex, well-built game, and even go back
and improve some elements of their initial demo that they felt they could polish up a
little more.
Together, TheMeatly and Mike came up with a new direction for their fledgling saga,
outlining a five chapter story that they could tell episodically.
This didn’t bear much resemblance to what TheMeatly had originally planned for his first
little game experiment, but that didn’t matter.
He was happy to try new things now that he had a little more time to plan out the story
for the game series as a whole.
Feeling flush with success, Mike and TheMeatly announced to the excited, ever-growing Bendy
fanbase that the second chapter of the game would be ready in just six weeks.
It was only after they began work in earnest that they realized just how foolish this timescale
would prove to be.
As it turned out, the new, complex, more advanced version of Bendy that the pair wanted to make
was going to take a lot more time.
For one thing, it was becoming very apparent that neither Mike nor TheMeatly were really
within their element when it came to building horror games.
Bendy had only ever turned into a creepy experience when TheMeatly had been playing with a lighting
rig, and he wasn’t a fan of horror himself.
He knew that there ought to be jumpscares in there somewhere, but it wasn’t clear
to him where they should go.
The same was true for Mike, who did his best to come up with ideas for making the game
scary, but was figuring things out as he went.
The pair decided to focus, rather than filling the game on sudden spectacles of terror, on
creating a creepy, spooky ambience that would leave the player feeling constantly slightly
on edge.
This they could do, and it meant working to TheMeatly’s personal strengths of building
compelling artwork and atmosphere, rather than trying to do something that they weren’t
all that good at.
For his part, as he tested, Mike attempted to imagine that he was playing the game for
the first time, without any prior knowledge of what was coming.
This didn’t work very well.
He was painfully aware of where every planned jumpscare was in the game, and as such, he
couldn’t really get all that worked up when spooky things happened.
There was one moment when Mike managed to actually scare himself.
At one point while testing, he dropped a Bendy model into a scene and then forgot about it.
When he played through the level, he went into what he expected to be an ordinary part
of the level, only to be greeted by a smiling character who was not where he should have
been!
While Mike and The Meatly did their best, it was becoming readily apparent that they
didn’t have the time they needed to finish the game that they had in mind.
They pushed through, staying up late into the night, until three or four in the morning,
in order to try and finish the game’s second chapter, as well as add more polish to their
original release.
This only got more difficult when TheMeatly ended up getting sick, further slowing down
his efforts.
Besides, both of the pair were still only doing this part time.
TheMeatly was still hard at work on his day job in marketing, which took a lot out of
his ability to work on his own side projects.
Meanwhile, Mike had an ongoing project for a mobile games developer that was taking a
big chunk of his time.
It was clear that the pair needed help – preferably from someone who was able to provide some
needed visual improvements for the game series as a whole.
As such, TheMeatly and Mike brought on Pascal Cleroux, an accomplished visual artist, to
create character models for the game.
Pascal’s job was to bring TheMeatly’s designs to life.
He carefully created 3D models for all of the various creatures and cartoon animals
that appeared in chapter two, and TheMeatly and Mike even got Pascal to go back into chapter
one and started adding in new elements.
Things were beginning to take shape, but it was taking a lot of effort, and everyone involved
was rushing tremendously in order to get everything done.
That said, as the six week deadline on the title drew closer, Mike and TheMeatly had
an important event to attend.
TheMeatly packed his bags and headed up to Canada for the Capital Gaming Convention,
where Bendy and the Ink Machine chapters one and two would be on display.
It was time for Mike Mood and TheMeatly to finally meet in person.
CGC was a big deal for everyone in Mike’s house.
While Mike would be attending in order to show off Bendy, this convention was arguably
a more important event for his wife, Jillian.
Jillian Mood had long been involved in the gaming scene, and ran her own company dealing
with public relations and event management for video game companies.
Now, in the third year of CGC, Jillian was in charge of organizing the entire convention,
making this period of time even more hectic for the entire Mood family.
For TheMeatly, this convention was an opportunity to take some time enjoying Canada, trying
poutine for the first time, and meeting plenty of Bendy and the Ink Machine enthusiasts.
It was also an opportunity for him to do something he’d never done before, revealing his face
in public for the very first time – albeit still behind his puppet avatar.
Together, Mike and TheMeatly set up a booth filled with early Bendy merchandise, and watched
as con attendees tried playing their existing game and the brand new prototype for Bendy
Chapter Two.
This was absolutely fascinating for the pair.
For the first time, they could get real, visceral feedback about how the game made people react.
It was one thing to hear reviews online, but it was a totally different experience to watch
someone’s eyes bulge as they played the game.
TheMeatly and Mike both took mental notes as they watched people play.
The version of Bendy Chapter One that was on display was their new, updated game, and
it was interesting to see how people responded to their improved content.
One new scene involved Bendy bursting through a wall, tearing down planks of wood in order
to attack the player.
TheMeatly and Pascal had worked hard on it, and were fairly pleased with how it looked,
but watching players react to the scene, it was clear that it didn’t quite work.
Nobody got scared.
Nobody even realized that they were supposed to run away from Bendy at this point.
The attempt to add new animation and detail into the game actually seemed to be sapping
away some of the tension and terror involved in the experience.
This being the case, when TheMeatly and Mike got back to work after the convention, the
scene had to go, as they chose to revert it to the way it had originally appeared in the
first version of Bendy Chapter One.
The pair continued their hard work, as they rushed to complete their ambitious deadline.
In fairness, they could have postponed the launch.
They could have announced that the game needed a little more time.
Having been on the other side of this, though, the pair agreed that they never liked it when,
as fans of games, they were told they had to wait longer.
Delays were never any fun, and as they’d committed to getting Chapter Two out at a
certain time, they really ought to stick to their promise.
Things ended up coming down to the wire.
Just five hours before the scheduled launch, Mike was still tweaking the game, trying to
perfect the experience.
Then, disaster struck: the game broke.
Mike and TheMeatly didn’t know what to do!
Suddenly, for no discernible reason, Chapter Two simply ceased to work.
Either the game wouldn’t boot up at all, or it would run for a little while before
crashing.
TheMeatly panicked, pacing back and forth in his bedroom as be messaged back and forth
with Mike.
At this point, there was nothing he could do to help.
TheMeatly wasn’t a programmer.
Not really.
He’d built the first draft of Chapter One, but by this point, Mike had taken things so
far beyond TheMeatly’s basic skills, and he could do nothing to help.
For his part, Mike didn’t have a clue what was going wrong either.
Everything he tried to fix the game seemed to be in vain.
Then, a bolt of inspiration struck.
“Wait”, he texted to TheMeatly, “I have an idea!”
TheMeatly waited with baited breath.
He didn’t know what Mike was doing.
All he could do was hope for the best.
Then, Mike messaged again.
The game was working.
Somehow, he’d figured out what had gone wrong, and he’d managed to get things running
again.
Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter Two was released to the world, along with an update
to Chapter One.
The version of the game that was released at this point didn’t contain everything
that Mike and TheMeatly had wanted to include, as plenty of stuff had needed to be left on
the cutting room floor for now.
Nevertheless, the pair had achieved their ambitious goal, and managed to get the game
ready for their deadline.
In celebration, hundred of miles apart, TheMeatly and Mike sat watching Let’s Plays and reaction
videos online.
There was something wonderfully satisfying about seeing people respond to their work.
It became clear that Bendy Chapter two had hit a chord, and the pair were pleased with
what they’d managed to achieve.
This new installment of the game wasn’t perfect, but they were satisfied that they’d
done the best they could.
Although perhaps they’d give themselves a little longer to make Chapter Three.
The moral of the story is that you should be ambitious as you aim to achieve your goals.
Perhaps it’s not wise to set yourself quite such tight deadlines as Mike Mood and TheMeatly
did for Bendy and the Ink Machine Chapter Two.
It’s not always possible to do your best work when you’re rushing.
But, when you try to challenge yourself, and set out to accomplish things that you’re
not sure you can do, you’re going to learn a lot faster.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if your finished product isn’t perfect.
As with Bendy Chapter Two, it’s sometimes necessary to accept your own limitations and
admit that you won’t get things just right on your first, or second, or hundredth try.
As you push yourself, as you go out of your way to expand your horizons and achieve difficult
milestones, you’ll grow as a result.
You can do it.
You just need to try.