Trixel Diary | Creating trixel+

As we celebrate trixel+'s two-year anniversary (can you believe it's been two years?), we thought it fitting to look back on the creation of trixel+ and the long journey it took to get here.

The Original Trixel Creative Patreon

Even though trixel+ didn't launch until October 2020, Trixel Creative Director Billy Anderson pitched a Patreon service for Trixel Creative back in October of 2018 to the other Trixel Creative Directors at the time (Halston, Hunter and Thomas) during a discussion about community donations.

This article contains actual screenshots from the private #directors channel in the Trixel Creative Discord server. Some messages have been redacted as a result.

At first, this proposal was met with criticism. We were working on a fan-game at the time, and didn't want it to seem like we were making a profit for an IP that was not ours. Additionally, the other Directors voiced their concerns about whether such a platform would even be successful.

The Directors quickly warmed up to the idea though, after realising that any chance of income could help pay the fees to better our online platforms and aid server costs and upkeep. We also agreed to make it as clear as possible that money would not be going towards making any personal profits to avoid any legal issues (something that we are still committed to, even though we no longer work with other companies' IPs!). So, we set about proposing ideas for tiered benefits:

As you can see, the benefits were very different to the benefits we have today. Namely, we were planning to have $1, $3, $5 and $10 tiers.

These discussions kept evolving, until eventually we settled on three tiers: Bronze, Silver, and Gold.

Once all the details were settled, we officially launched (and announced) the Trixel Creative Patreon on February 16, 2019:

The announcement of the Trixel Creative Patreon on February 16, 2019. This announcement has since been deleted.

Official promotional image for the Trixel Creative Patreon, featuring a screenshot of the original tiers.

It's safe to say that the 2019 Trixel Creative Patreon was not a success. After reaching a lifetime subscriber count of... three... the Trixel Creative Patreon was officially closed on May 5, 2019.

Restitching Our Patreon

In a 2020 roadmap proposal that Billy Anderson sent on December 4, 2019 "Re-launch Patreon" was written under 'July/August 2020'. This was due to the prediction that, with the announcement of Restitched in 2020, the community may want to support our development.

Understandably, however, after the failure of Trixel Creative Patreon, the other Directors weren't so eager to dive back onto the platform...

Discussion eased a little more once Anderson proposed a different structure on April 25, 2020, however:

A concept image by Anderson on April 25, 2020.

As you can see, the benefits were a lot easier for us to manage. Additionally, having one tier (instead of many) was deemed essential to start out with by Anderson - as not to complicate content releases or confuse potential patrons. We wanted to make the platform as accessible as possible. This is why we eventually settled on making the tier $2 per month, instead of the $3-10 that Patreon suggests.

As for the name trixel+, that was created by Anderson on April 26, 2020 - 5 months before the service were to launch:

Reception was a lot more positive after these proposals by Anderson, with the other Directors growing more passionate about the service.

Unfortunately, discussion on trixel+ proceeded to quieten down for two months, before Anderson proposed the service once more:

Discussion was going well on what could be added to the service, as well as promotional content and a mock-up of the website page:

...and look, here's Billy proposing the very idea of the Trixel Diary feature over a year before the first proper issue!

...and here's the first ever promotional image for a Restitched: Developer Diary! Quite different from the ones we use nowadays, huh?

You can read that first ever Restitched: Developer Diary right here!

Successful Launch

With the hype of Restitched and the promise of exclusive developer updates, trixel+ proved to be extremely popular at launch, with sixteen new subscribers in one month - more than 5x successful than the original Patreon in its whole lifetime.

The original monthly trixel+ shout-out from November 2020.

Going Gold

You may have noticed that, in all of these screenshots, trixel+ is still orange - the default Trixel Creative colour. It wasn't until July 6, 2021 that we adopted our current golden scheme. Here is an image of Halston proposing the golden design on the very same day. Gosh, we work quickly, don't we?

...and there we are!

Now you're all caught up with how this lovely thing we call trixel+ was created. Although the first Trixel Creative Patreon was a failure, we believe that it was a vital lesson that taught us what does and doesn't work on this platform. 

We are so excited and inspired by the community we've grown on here, and love hearing your feedback. Don't ever hesitate to comment below or like our posts, as it gives us much-needed feedback that we use to further shape trixel+.

Thank you for coming along with us for this bonus Trixel Diary - see you in the next one!