#arcade game development

[a-mushroom-dev]

get this post to 10k notes and I'll add a familiar that follows you around in the game.

(Draft designs below)

Purrrple the cat - @crystal--runeheart

Oldwin the dragon - @alhex--the--reporter

Gladius the cat - @the-final-knight

Smokes the dragon - @a-scientist-reborn

Names, designs etc may be changed, some may not end up in final game, as my plans and the game are very heavily in the drafting stage when it comes to new features.

[elbiotipo]

Perhaps the worst game design choice in Skyrim is when you are told to go kill nameless bandits who you can't talk to and just exist as random enemies, and then when you're fighting one they yell "I yield" and you're okay, that's fair, I'm just here to get some random sword I don't actually want to kill you and after all, the game tips say that if they yell "I yield" you can sheathe your sword and they'll stop fighting

Then you find out that's COMPLETELY FALSE, the game does NOT allow you to do that, the nameless bandits like all enemies in the game are programmed to fight to the death, and that's what you do, you fight them to death, because they have no names no lives or anything, they are there to keep attacking you and fight to the death for a chest with 124 gold and boots with a bonus to enchantment.

Or what's worse, the game makes them yell "PLEASE NO MORE" or "I YIELD" JUST as you deliver the killing blow. It would be an interesting comment on violence in videogames if it wasn't just a fakeout because the nameless bandits aren't actually coded to do anything but to fight you to death.

Okay, that's a bunch of poor game design choices, not just one.

[kingzombear]

plz give me the encouragement I need to draw ragapom as veronica and christine respectively

*GRABS YOUR THROAT* Literally ur brain is so huge cuz I'm doing my 1 millionth New Vegas playthrough rn. Fucking GENIUS

Being dropped into a nightmare scenario in an unfamiliar, inescapable location, cognitive issues, not good with words but good with numbers, so tired, doesn't want to be here (also bald lol): Pomni 🤝 Christine

A sweet, caring girl who constantly tries her best, loves the 'family' that she's stuck with even though they can be abrasive, always has a positive attitude, an angel that lights up a room and can throw a hard punch: Ragatha 🤝 Veronica

If you drew them my heart and soul would be yours <3 I can see Ragatha in that cute sack hood with a powerfist now

[ethan-acfan]

Every interaction between Ender and Alai is so homoerotic that you really begin to question if the author was doing that on purpose

[despair-tea]

this was just an observation my friend made a while ago but it got me thinkin' a little bit. Personally, I got over my aversion to sports by fencing in college. Coz it turns out I didn't hate sports. In fact, I think training and learning the rules and pushing myself to improve is super fun! That's the same stuff I like about video games. And despite being a life-long poindexter, all that physical activity felt GOOD, and it was nice to connect with folks.

What I hated about sports as a kiddo was the shame. I hated people acting like I ought to know this or that (despite being a know-nothing child). I hated being excluded and looked down upon for not being good. I despised the way the adults around me treated kids wrt sports. Also I couldn't see and had asthma and neither of these problems got treated until I was on my way out of high school (getting my first inhaler was one of the main reasons I was able to fence at all, in fact).

combat sports are great to me because they're all about that individual journey. I didn't have to worry about letting a team down who might yell at me later for my performance. It's just me and my own heart and my love for the game - THAT'S sports.

[mvfm-25]

" Super Meat Boy postmortem! "

Game Developer Magazine (GDM) Vol . 18 n04 - April, 2011.

[lunawings]

I loaded up Aikatsu Cinderella Lesson because I heard that you can scan older Aikatsu cards into it (i.e. cards that aren't on My No. 1 Stage like Aoi's initial PR) but nevermind scanning QR codes, I've been playing for like 10 minutes and I haven't even figured out how to do an audition yet....... I'm just wandering around Starlight Academy collecting cards?? It also doesn't look or sound like Aikatsu at all. Like...

Look at these coords!?! Hahah what.

[vvizardbone]

Gregory (Watchful) Conrad (Wise Counsel): A masterfully perceptive fighter, he reads movements and delivers punishing counter strikes in a delicate balance of energy conservation and oppositional destruction.

[gleemill-games]

CARnage release and postmortem

Today Friday the 13:th at 13:49 we pushed the green button and released our little game out into the wide world!

It's been quite a ride, we've been at it for almost 3 years, it takes some time to juggle day-job with game-dev for sure, and the last 6 months was quite hectic. But now it's done, it's out and about and already on the first day we've pushed a bug-fix that I managed to see in a twitch-stream.

We first thought that we would spend around 1 year of development for this game, but it quickly turned out it would take a bit more time, before we started we were participating in quite a lot of ludum dare's, so we thought we would be ready for the real deal. We were of course, but man, it took it's sweet time to come to the finish line!

What I can say now is that we did not have a clear image on what we wanted to make, we thought we knew back in them days, but CARnage has become a beast quite far away from the first blurry vision we had for it in the early days. It actually started as a Ludum Dare game (and we called CARnage CARnage 2 for a long time (the exe file still is named carnage2.exe I think)). The good thing with not having a super clear vision was that we used an agile mindset during the development, we tested out a lot of things in the early days and around the 18 month into development we finally found the right balance of things! Weapons was something you bought upgrades for in the start, but after we tested having weapon powerups on the tracks instead we found our winner!

The velocity of the development did have some ups and downs during the 3 years, we both have day-jobs of course, and at times you get really really tired of making the same game for a long period of time. But during the last 6 months we both stepped up our pace and made sure all the last pieces fell into place. This time was probably also the most difficult period as you need to make the whole package tight and complete! Putting the last pixels down was almost cathartic and pushing that green button finally were for sure.

Now we both are looking forward to a looooong rest from game-development. Back to only have one full-time job will be quite a vacation! But when the time feels right we'll go back to the trenches and start our second title. This time we'll try something completely different, so keep yer peepers pealed for that one (but not in the near future).

Lastly I will have a bit of good and bad bullet points concerning CARnage, I'll start with the bad so that I can end on a good note. These are more personal opinions from me (Glenn, the graphics guy of the team).

The Bad

Timeframe - we thought it would take around a year to develop, it took 3, 2 would be nicer, but I guess for our first title it's ok, a lesson here is to keep the scope tight and start off with a more clear vision of the end product.

Time - making a game on the side of a day-job really eats up all your time, I have been a bit less available to family during these years, something I feel a bit sad over and something I don't want to repeat. Next time I will look into reducing day-job hours and stay at at least bellow 10 hour work days with game-dev time included.

UI - I still aren't super happy with the UI we released, but it's far from the worst! We had some really gnarly variations going in the start. Having some wireframe planning on this would be great, but most of the time I was just stumbling around in the darkness. I do like how it turned out in the end, but it's far from optimal.

Promotion - This is probably the worst. We are really bad at promotion. I am quite tired of all things social media, and I think it shows in my tries to spread the word for the game, on X we have 4 followers after I tried my best to do some fun and casual promoting of the game. This will bite us in the back-end and is the basis of the last bad point.

Sales - As the first day of the release draws to a close I can immediately see from the first numbers coming in that CARnage will not be what you would call a success, we got 8 sales for the first day, mostly from people we know and that want to show support. We will probably not break-even due to us using our funds for sound effects and a last gonzo try to promote the game through keymailer to see if we can get some traction from influencers and streamers. So it feels quite nice to just go back to the day-job and get a proper pay without having an extra job on the side. And of course, you always dream of being able to slowly take the step to work more on games than the regular grunt work. I still hope this will become a reality in the future when we release other titles. But in the end CARnage is quite a meltdown when it comes to the economic side of things.

That was a rough ride for sure! Now over to the sunnier side of things!

The Good

The Goal - the goal of this whole process in the end was simple. Make a real game and release it on Steam. In this we totally succeeded! We are super proud of the product and I actually still think it's a nice game to play! Even after putting down countless hours of playtesting during these 3 years, and I think it's a brilliant game for what it is. A classic combat-racing game that has taken huge inspiration from the past! We can finally say that we are proper game-developers! We've gained a lot of experience during these 3 years, and our next title will not take the same amount of time to create for sure!

The Game - It's fun to play, and I personally believe that if it finds it's right venue it can actually sell quite well, so apart from us being the worst when it comes to promotion, if at some point it shows up on the right stream or youtube channel, I can definitely see that it can boost sales, so maybe a sleeper hit.

The Expectations - We really didn't have any expectations that this would be our breakout hit, it's our first game and hopefully the first of many. As it stands today we are just 2 very happy game developers that enjoy the process through and through. We've started GleeMill proper as a LLC and we have a start with CARnage. This will not be the end of GleeMill, but we do need a long vacation for sure!

The Experience - We did it! We made a game. We know what it takes to go the full 10 miles and we can now proudly sit back and see if our creation finds fans all around the world. This was never about the money, although it would be nice to have money to do this full time we are very happy to have crossed the finish line this time around.

Final Lap

That's all from me this time around! I will for sure start shouting about our next project when it starts up, but for now it's time for a long rest and just enjoy seeing people playing CARnage. We hope you will try it out and if you do, don't be shy and tell us what you think! Now I will cozy down in my bed with a good Terry Pratchett book and just rest my head after a wild ride that it has been!

Cheerz!

Glenn of GleeMill

[jayextee]

Not dead, just busy making games. A sideproject here, tailored specifically for the pick-up-and-play nature of the Steam Deck. Bit of an arcade-style thing starring a character I created as a young child.

[harutofun]

Super SpaceMail [Mechanic]: Wormholes! (The purple ones)

Sometimes you can use them and sometimes you can't, which makes them somewhat unpredictable. But when they decide to work, they'll take you to another (purple) Wormhole available. Good for running away and getting lost!

[a-mushroom-dev]

couple of characters done!

from left to right:

@a-mushroom-wizard @combustion-wizard @ivy-the-royal-wizard @the-gnomish-bastard @aileaxthevoidien @leo-the-first @underpaid-guard !

[sesatapomang]

Feed Bunnies!

(the game)

I'm working on a small silly game where you go around feeding bunnies.

Still very early in development but there's a itch.io page with a video in the latest dev log!

https://sesatapomang.itch.io/feed-bunnies

This game is inspired by the 8-bit style mini games found in the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise.

The platforming/movement is inspired by the movement found in Super Metroid!

[zanzanryu]

I modded the demo character by adjusting my drawing to the game into BMP. I didn't expect it to turn out very lovely and calm. It feels like actual art in a Mugen game! I thank @ddddd-pixels for including a rivalry end quote with my OC Fanhua. The two do get along! :)

[catmilk-catmilk]

An updated title card the Gossamer Matrix