What If

Hey everyone 🦊!

Today, I wanted to share something personal with you. With the campaign on Kickstarter slowing down and progress stalling, I find myself thinking about:

“What if this campaign fails?”

And with that thought comes a flood of memories - times when people doubted me, times when “friends” told me I’d never succeed, times when people around me seemed to wait for my failures so they could say - “I knew it”. I know I’m not alone in this; we all have those people in our lives, people who don’t believe in our dreams and who are quick to remind us of our limits.

I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about ending the campaign on Kickstarter after barely reaching the 20% goal in this first week, wondered if it would be easier to press that cancelation button and relaunch in the future with more hype. Right now, it doesn’t look like there’s enough commitment to get us to our goal and I find myself caught between waiting for a miracle and canceling the campaign before we reach the last day.

But no matter how many times I wrestle with this, I keep coming back to the same conclusion:

I am not ready to surrender. It’s not about pride or ego. It’s about something deeper. For me, letting this campaign run its full course, even if it means reaching the end without the funds, is my way of standing by this dream, saying - “I tried” . It wouldn't be me if I give up now. I am not afraid of failing.

When I first considered Kickstarter as a platform to crowdfund, it felt like the right way to fund the next phase of Paws and Leaves - a place where I could show up as who I am, an indie developer who believes in creating a game that’s more than just entertainment.

I didn’t come here just to use Kickstarter as a marketing tool; I came here to grow our community. A community that resonates with the themes of resilience, reflection and patience at the heart of this game. I want this space to be where people who believe in those ideas can come together, where you’re part of something that matters, that’s real and that has meaning beyond a screen.

Yesterday, during a kids’ Minecraft group that I lead weekly, one of the kids asked about the campaign launch and how it is going so far. I told him honestly that things weren’t looking great and he looked up at me and said - “Maybe you just need to wait a little longer, like when Minecraft loads really slowly”.

A kid reminding me of patience - it hit me because patience is exactly what I always tell them they need to have. It was a humbling reminder of the values I’m trying to pass on and it made me remember why I’m doing this.

That conversation took me back to a powerful memory from my own life, one I rarely share.

When I was fourteen, my dad went into the hospital for what we thought was a routine check-up. He’d been having heart issues, but nothing too concerning - or so we thought. That day, my mom came home devastated, alone.

She told me and my siblings that my dad’s condition was more serious than we’d realized and he needed a heart transplant to survive. My mom and I knew the odds - how hard it is to find a