About

Hi everyone! I'm Ell, a queer student and programmer from Germany, and I run the small indie studio Ellpeck Games out of Neu-Ulm. I have a ton of projects under the Ellpeck Games brand, including the life simulation game Tiny Life, a few plugins for the Obsidian app including Custom Frames and Super Simple Time Tracker, and multiple successful Minecraft mods like Nature's Aura, Pretty Pipes and Actually Additions.

Why GitHub Sponsors?

Ellpeck Games finances itself almost exclusively through Tiny Life sales and payouts from the sites that my Minecraft mods are hosted on. I earn additional income through my student assistant job at the university I study at, and some very generous family members send some additional money my way every month. While I'm not struggling in the slightest currently, you may be able to imagine that that's not a huge amount of money per month.

I love working on Tiny Life and my other projects, and with various mental health issues and a currently pending autism diagnosis, I can't see myself having the strength to work a 30-to-40-hour work week now or in the future while still being able to make sustained progress on these projects. While the company and I are currently financially stable, this is unlikely to continue being the case after I finish my degree if I don't choose to stay at university for a Master's degree or find a traditional job. The former is something I'm considering, but the latter is something I don't perceive as sustainable longer-term. While this is by no means a call for sympathy, it is the reason I've decided to revitalize and expand my Sponsors page in the hopes of additional monetary support from incredibly generous people who have the money to spare - maybe you.

Please keep in mind that, while your support is greatly appreciated, it is not necessary for you to send money my way, especially if you personally cannot afford it. Please always take care of your own finances, as well as any causes that you find more important than my work, first.

Where Does the Money Go?

Any money earned through GitHub Sponsors goes straight to the Ellpeck Games account, where it will be further distributed based on the needs of both the company and me. This includes, but is not limited to

• Paying myself: Currently, I make regular payments of €1000 per month to my personal bank account. I use these in the ways you'd expect: paying for my apartment, internet, power, groceries, hobbies, and so on.
• Paying the company's bills: While the company is, legally, in some ways synonymous with myself (look up "Einzelunternehmen" if you're curious about the specifics), the company does have to pay revenue tax, chamber of commerce membership, and more.
• Paying freelancers: For Tiny Life especially, but also occasionally for some of my other projects, I hire freelancers for one-off work. This includes paying for music and sound effects for Tiny Life, as well as its Sets' textures, which are contributed by artists from the community.

Please note that, for the Minecraft mod Actually Additions, your support towards Ellpeck Games does not directly benefit the mod's current maintainers, Flanks and MrBysco. Unfortunately, Flanks does not take any form of donations, but you can support MrBysco through his Patreon page.

What Do (Monthly) Supporters Get?

To thank you for your support (and of course, to incentivize it in the first place), I have a bunch of tiers set up that allow you access to different types of rewards - the higher the tier, the more money you give me, and so the more rewards you get access to.

Since this GitHub Sponsors page isn't limited to a subset of my work, each tier contains several rewards, each related to one of my projects. Of course, if you aren't interested in a specific reward, you don't have to claim it, but it'll always stay available to you during your membership, should you change your mind.

Rewards are generally distributed through the Ellpeck Games Discord server, so being a member is somewhat of a requirement for receiving rewards that aren't one-off items. The server is accessible to anyone, so feel free to click the link to join if you haven't already!

Please note that pledging does not give you the unquestioned right to a reward. If a reward is or becomes unavailable for any reason, you are not entitled to receive a refund or a reward of a higher tier. The rewards system is not a purchase.