Dev-Diary: 83

February 1, 2021
3 min read

Hey everyone! Happy 2021!

I am pretty exhausted haha~ I guess nothing has changed in the new year! I’m not entirely subtle about how busy the end of the year is for me; wrapping up work and projects along side all the personal and family and friend duties I have, which is one of the reasons I have been absent. Additionally, all my work and commitments to the new co-op have been a lot to take in, on-top of the other new work I have had come in. Because of this, I have sadly neglected my own projects, but I will be rectifying that this month!

Firstly, I will no longer be running O.P.O.S. This is because the new workloads take up that free “random game design” time I had before, but also provide me with far more professional and consistent experience in the game dev world, something I have been seeking to better improve my own development and projects. If ideas for a new O.P.O.S. pop into my head I will still probably whip them up, but I am no longer holding myself to the monthly uploading.

Secondly, now that I am finding my feet with my new workloads, I hope to be able to balance them out so that I can continue with my own projects. This month, I will be restoring the projects to my new computer, which is beautifully up-and-running now, and begin work again to get them released! My combined goals are; to learn as much about development as possible, to produce amazing stories and games for everyone, and to do so in a fashion that does not burn me out (which is why I have been so careful about adapting to my new workload).

Finally, I also hope to begin committing to my more personal hobbies and non-work projects; from game streaming to learning more about robotics and machine learning. This falls into the self-care end of my schedule; taking time to do things I want to do that I would not consider work, but are still very important to a working life as I find my new work/life balance. Plus, if I start doing anything cool or interesting I may have a bit of a chat about them here! ^-^

That’s it from me, a very breezy and casual post this time as we start the new year! I hope everyone is staying safe, everyone is being kind and caring, and that everyone is remembering that black lives still matter~!

Till next time, all the best~
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 82

December 1, 2020
3 min read

Hey everyone!

Dang, I am… very tired haha. In my head it feels like I didn’t achieve much this month, and while I didn’t get much done for Management IN SPACE! I was keeping busy with just a lot of outside things. However, I did manage to have a good few chats with the extremely talented musician for MIS! to get some more music sorted out for the game, as well as just a little bit of management with planning the next batch of Events.

Outside of that, I did some more work for LMBS, and I may have also gotten on-board with another creator for a massive (and quite honestly very cool) video project they’ve been planning! Won’t chat about that until we’ve started getting some head-way on that. Additionally I have been lucky enough to also be invited to join a local tech/game-dev co-op! The team is all super talented and very delightful and I’m incredibly proud to be a part of them! More on this one as well down the line!

Beyond all that good news, I’ve been swamped with personal duties as well, including all the preparation for Christmas (which I have not been shy about discussing every year~). I did some very cool albeit very strange art as part of a larger gift this year, and while I would like to show everyone I am afraid the intended recipient may stumble across it early if I do, so I may post it in the new year if I remember! Might be cool to show-off some random art outside of my game-dev work. Also, very quickly, I finally have a new computer on the way to work on (my current one has been having issues, which has admittedly made me afraid of my work failing or corrupting, particularly the stored p̸r̸i̵m̵a̸r̸y̵ ̷p̸r̶o̷j̴e̵c̴t̵), so I am very excited to be working on that soon! With the new computer I will also be gearing-up to start doing random streams, most-likely starting in the new year.

Finally, the next One-Page-One-Shot is out! Because of the delayed rotation this game is going directly to the public and if freely available over at itch.io! The game “Super Ultra Fast-Fast Racing!” is all about out-driving and destroying your fellow racers in a drag-race to the death! It’s an exciting little fast-paced strategy game about wacky cars, insane tracks, and lots of weird weapons! Check it out!

That’s it from me! I may try to post earlier next dev-diary as I’d like to have it out of the way pre-Christmas so I can enjoy my little holiday period, but we’ll just have to see how much work I can get done this month!
Till next time; stay safe, be careful, remember black lives still matter, and all the best~!
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 81

October 30, 2020
2 min read

Hey y’all! Hope everyone is safe! ^-^

So, you might notice I’m posting a few days early! What, that’s nuts right!? Well, there are a few reasons as to why. Very sadly, I barely got any work done this entire month. Due to some unforeseen circumstances I did not have computer access most of the month, only getting everything set back up a couple of days ago. Even then, I’m still bound to some personal duties which will take up extra time, and I need to replace this current computer asap (looking like it’ll be within a month at least~), so work over the next month will be slow while I deal with that. However! I am adaptable, and luckily had a large to-do list of work I could handle physically. I was able to get a bunch of writing done, and a LOT of drawing done. Mostly churning out all the concepts for the visuals for M.I.S. but I got so many done and I am very happy. I’ll even include a sneaky-peek into my M.I.S. workbook as an apology for not getting more done this month~ 😉

Concept Art

The sad news continues as I was also unable to write up a new OPOS this month, so to make up for that I will be rotating the one from Ko-Fi to itchio as per normal, and next month I will release the OPOS directly to itchio! No donation wall just straight to free-play! 😀

Which brings me to the other reason I am posting early; to release in time for Halloween I have already published this month’s OPOS! BoneZ is a weird, spoopy, RPG about being a funny-lookin’ skeleton and trying to escape to freedom with your skele-pals. The twist? You can only critically pass or fail! Watch as you and your friends accomplish amazing feats or collapse into a frail bone-pile! Also ghosts! So go play it! Yay!

Anyways, that’s that from me. I’m going to keep working on everything and keep making sure things keep happening! Hope y’all are staying safe, have the spoopy times this Halloween, and, till next time, all the best~!
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 80

October 1, 2020
3 min read

Hey everyone! You better all be staying safe and doing good for one-another and all!

Picked the pacing back up this month and worked on several upgrades for Management IN SPACE!! A small aesthetic improvement is I got a nice intro for the game up and running. It isn’t hugely important, but because it changes based on game progress it was something I had to integrate sooner rather than later. Plus it looks pretty cool! (but I might upgrade it further down the line~) I’ve also continued work on one of the sub-menus/new mechanics for the game as well, and ensured the new mechanics now run with the game properly; when they were first implemented suddenly the game was looking for old data that was no-longer there and had been replaced by new data, so had to hook everything back up and rejig a few things. But it’s (seeming) to work now which means the progress on the new mechanics is getting along!

The next stage for MIS! is pretty long and boring, but super necessary. I have to make spreadsheets of all the content of the game and ensure it is all correctly set-up and runs as intended. So far I’ve taken stock of quite a lot of the content and already found a good handful of gaps in my code and collections, or content that exists in the code but has no way of spawning in-game. This stock-take of the game’s content will ensure everything is where it is meant to be, and makes the final upgrades to the game all the more possible. The game still has a bit to go, but it’s getting to the stage where the remaining steps are about media-content (art, audio) or just aesthetic work (stylising menus and UI). Honestly, was not expecting this project to become as big as it did, and I miss working on the primary project, but it’s coming along so well and I’m very keen for it to exist! ^-^ //The primary project is impatient.

In addition to main game work, I’ve continued my occasional editing work for LMBS, and got the next rotation of OPOS games out! The new private game (available at ko-fi) is Bonez, a weird game about skeletons, right on time for spooktober. (Actually, I might early release it this month…) The new free OPOS is Runner’s Edge, a free-running RPG game about dashing through a city to complete heists! It’s a bit more of a serious theme than most of my previous OPOS’s but I think it turned out alright and has some pretty cool ideas behind it! I hope people enjoy it!

That’s it from me! Gonna jump back into work!
Hope you all are staying safe, wearing masks if you got outside, not forgetting that black lives still matter, and being wonderful to each-other~! <3
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 79

September 1, 2020
1 min read

Hey everyone, hope everybody is staying safe!

Sadly I don’t have as much as normal to report this month as I had to take some personal time. I did still manage to get some coding and general game-dev work done, but nothing really worth discussing here. Beyond that, I’ve continued my video work for LMBS, and of course rotated the One-Page-One-Shots around!

This month the Ko-Fi one-shot is a more serious one called Runners Edge; a free-running RPG, while the new free one to release is Goblin Gang; a silly reverse-dungeon-crawler all about setting traps and protecting your treasure! It’s a bit of fun and should even be enjoyably playable with smaller numbers (unlike many of my previous OPOS’s) so go check it out over at itchio!

Sadly that is all for this month’s post. I’ll be running back into my work this coming month so hopefully I have more to report back on! Till next time, stay safe and all the best~!
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 78

August 2, 2020
4 min read

Hey y’all, hope everyone is staying safe~

This past month I was quite productive! I’ve been able to take more steps to increasing my productivity while also being careful to manage my time safely. I’m rather proud of some of the progress I’ve made! I’ve still been doing work for Lab Muffin Beauty Science which has been an occasional enjoyable break from my game work, as I quite like doing video work! I have also made some fantastic steps with Management IN SPACE!

Something I wanted to achieve for M.I.S. was a proper visual aesthetic, reminiscent of a classic CRT monitor. This look is rather common throughout games trying to achieve similar aesthetics, and there are a good handful of free resources available to quickly getting the results, but I wanted to make it my own and not just drop in the same effect I had seen before. To this end, I did some study of Unity’s shader and render language ShaderLab. It took a bit of time and experimenting, but I ended up with a result I really like and, when applied, adds a fantastic feel to the entire game. The values are also scriptable and controllable so I hope to implement some scripted animation to the effects down the line. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the standard effect in action!

  • Icon without Effect.
    Without effect.
  • Icon with Effect
    With effect.

I’ve also laid the ground-work and made some solid progress on the reworking of the core mechanics. While chaos is still the name of the game, I’ve tried to deviate from the idea of just playing round after round with a disjointed story and focused on allowing the player to directly control (or “manage“~) certain aspects of the game while also giving them a more hands-on approach to the variable progress of the story and game-play! It still has a ways to go before it has been written-in and the original layout adjusted to suit the new system, but this will definitely make the game more enjoyable in the long-run. I’m both happy and excited to see these new mechanic finalise!

In addition to my project and commission work, I’ve continued my monthly tradition of producing O.P.O.S games! ‘The Gang Does A Ritual’ is now freely available on itch.io, and the new O.P.O.S. is available on Ko-Fi! ‘Goblin Gang’ is a reverse dungeon-crawler where everyone plays as Goblins defending their treasure against thieving Adventurers! The game is a little experimental and runs a bit of a fine line between stats and freeform role-play, but the premise is quite enjoyable so I hope people have fun with it!

Also quickly, a bit of house-keeping; it should be obvious I’ve been trialing monthly posts as opposed to fortnightly. I’ve found that not only has this reduced some of the stress of managing posts as often, but it has also meant that when I do post I feel I have a lot more to talk about, creating more interesting reads. As such, I will be sticking to the monthly posts from now on. Additionally, I will no-longer be doing monthly posts on Newgrounds or DeviantArt, however I will still post special announcements to my Newgrounds account as I hold that community in a special place in my heart. <3

Talking about Newgrounds; a visual-article was recently recently published talking about Flash History, and I was fortunate enough to have my work included! It’s a fantastic little dive into the old-era that introduced the work to indie game development, so go support the creator and check it out!
www.flashgamehistory.com

That’s it from me for this month! I hope everyone is staying safe, keep loving and supporting one-another, and till next time all the best~!
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 77

July 1, 2020
2 min read

Hey y’all, hope everyone is staying safe!

This month has been transitional slowly back into my regular work-load, however while still juggling different projects. I’ve made some head-way on M.I.S., getting some more UI art done and continuing work on the updated menus and new mechanics, while also continuing with some video commissions for Lab Muffin Beauty Science! Hopefully over the next month will continue to see increasing productivity in both endeavours.

I’ll be returning to posting my monthly O.P.O.S. this month as well. ‘Isolation’, a social conversation and deception game, will be moving from Ko-Fi to itch.io [Available Here], and a new game, ‘The Gang Does A Ritual’ will be uploaded into Ko-Fi [Available Here]! Ritual is an interesting game where I tried to merge ‘Werewolf’ with a personal favourite of mine, ‘Betrayal At House On The Hill’ resulting in a social deception, role-play, exploration game. While adhering the the exercise’s guidelines, the rules page is a single page, but it also comes with a few pages of printable tokens/cards. The game is fast-paced with constant twists and turns; if I wasn’t already working on other projects I would probably put the effort into actually publishing it haha! But alas, it will sit behind a paywall for one month before being freely released.

Another small update, with the Internet in Australia *slowly* improving, I’ve started working on plans to do Twitch streaming, focusing on doing challenge runs/speedruns of old favourites. I’ll be continuing to post about it as that develops, but it isn’t at the top of my list right now~

That’s it from me for this month. All the best to everyone fighting hard, and I hope everybody is staying safe~ <3
Till next time, all the best!
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 76

June 2, 2020
2 min read

Hello all. This one will be different.

Firstly, I haven’t been posting as frequently; once a month as opposed to fortnightly. This is two-fold, partly due to adjusting to new work-loads (working on the video editing mentioned in the last post) as well as managing myself and my work capacity, particularly during these difficult times. This is also why my work output has slowed down and I have not updated the CYO Adventure in about a month; I am trying to ensure I do not start engaging in burn-out again as I had previously. Hopefully over the next few months, my work output will return to normal along with a more careful accompanying workflow.

This isn’t to say I have not done any work of course! I have fully implemented a new “emailing” system into M.I.S.. I noticed the in-game chat-log was not the most ideal method for story-telling as it rolled out at quite a fast pace. The new emailing system allows me to deliver story updates, as well as background quirks, in a more detailed manner that the player can approach in their own time. I have also been doing my regular dabbling in various small, non-committal projects to keep my mind creative and sharp.

Additionally, this month I will be taking a break from releasing my monthly One Page One Shot, with the current OPOS remaining at ko-fi for another month, as opposed to uploading it to itch.io. While I do have the next OPOS ready for upload, I do not believe now is the time to be releasing entertainment content. Even with the Covid predicament still very much an issue, the recent uprising to give voice and equality to those in America is incredibly important and one that I believe deserves dominance in online spaces right now.

For everyone fighting everywhere, whether outside or at home, please stay safe and care for one-another. Hopefully, after the dust has settled, we will have won a new system that supports all people, both overseas and here in Australia as well.

Till next time, all the best.
#blacklivesmatter
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 75

May 5, 2020
3 min read

Hey everyone! Hope you are all safe and caring during this time!

Sorry about the delay, as well as the missed mid-month post. The combination of commissions, projects, and the global situation have all been rather intense lately. As such, I’ve been actively trying to reduce my work-load and take things slower. During this time, I’ve heard a lot of talk of people “needing to achieve new goals” or “learn new skills” or “take care of old business” while we are all locked-down. For some this is a fantastic way to self-develop while also distracting from the world outside, and I wholly support those who use their time productively! However, it should be stressed that, even if you are safe or even comfortable, the tension of the world is still real. Now, more than ever, is when we should be taking care of both ourselves, and one-another.

At the start of the year, I tried to push myself quite hard, taking on new mini-projects, opening up to commissions, and continuing my game work. When the added stress of the pandemic slid-in, it became very difficult to mentally keep up. Fortunately, I’ve managed to complete most of my commissions, and slow down my extra mini-projects a bit, specifically the CYO Adventure, from bi-daily to weekly. I’ve also been taking it slower with the progress on Management IN SPACE! and allowing the correct time to make both the recent adjustments to the core game, as well as continue the scheduled progress. M.I.S. was originally looking at a mid-year release, however I will be pushing it back to later in the year for now to better accommodate the situation, and so that I can do it proper justice. 🙂

Additionally, I have also been fortunate enough to pick up some casual video editing work (Fun-Tip: I studied film at university and I’m actually not too bad haha~) doing the editing for Lab Muffin Beauty Science! It’s infrequent enough to be able to slot it in among my other work, and different enough from my other work to be a good, yet still productive, distraction.

As with every month, I’ve cycled the One-Page-One-Shot games around! This month the new game on my [Ko-Fi] page is ‘Isolation’; a very fast social-deception game about figuring out who is sick, and distancing yourselves! The previous OPOS, “Secret Space” is now freely available over at itch.io, link [Here]!

Thank-you everyone for your continuing support! I hope you are all staying safe, looking after yourselves and others. Till next time, all the best~!
^,,^

Dev-Diary: 74

April 1, 2020
2 min read

Hello all! I hope everyone is staying safe~!

Wow March was tense! Lot’s of stress. But I got stuff done! I spent a bundle of time working on commissions; plenty of modelling, texturing, and Unity work! It’s pretty much never-ending, so I’m gonna have to manage my time better so I don’t get distracted from my project.

I did manage to finish up the general Xeno art however! From here I’m going to do a big art import into the game, and start working on the new story updates I have planned! Hopefully I’ll be able to pull this off in-between commissions over the next couple of weeks.

As with the beginning of every month, the One-Page-One-Shots have cycled around! The new OPOS has been posted to my Ko-Fi pages, and ‘One Night With Senpai’ is now publicly available over at itch.io! It’s a fun and fast social deception game about dating your friends! Super cute!

Something new! With everyone indoors I’ve been working on (another) little extra project. A while back I saw a choose-your-own-adventure style story playing out over Facebook, and I decided to try my hand at it! I figure since a lot of people, including myself, now must spend copious amounts of time indoors, why not give everyone something to look forward to every couple of days! Plus I really enjoy writing, and this is a fun improv-exercise~ If you’d like to check-out the story for yourself, just follow this link over to my Facebook page! [Link] There are currently four ‘chapters’ out so-far! At the end, I will publish the archive here on my website.

That’s all from me! Just going to go back to work now! I hope everyone is staying indoors, practicing good hygiene, and being kind to one-another! Until next time, all the best~!
^,,^