#game dev blog

[twoconfusedgamedevs]

Animated the lil health potion I drew a while back! Just a fun project for me to play with animating liquids; my original pixel art and an in-progress gif are below :) -M

[wishbonegame]

Wishbone Summer Y1 Beta Release!

At long, long last, the Wishbone Summer Year 1 Public Beta is COMPLETE! Download it here!

For those who haven't been following the project: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. The town of Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane--albeit full of weirdos--at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.

The Summer Year 1 beta represents a complete vertical slice of the first 25% of the final game. It contains around 10-20 hours of playtime, depending on how thorough you are.

[bioware]

We asked the game team what jobs our #DragonAge companions would have if they worked at the studio. Check out where our devs thinks their favorite heroes would fit into the BioWare family!

[brightatmidnight]

Hey Tumblr, do you want to live out your space smuggler fantasies, piloting your very own ship in a galaxy full of adventure? Do you enjoy casts of diverse oddballs and misfits with lots of heart? Do you like Star Wars-esque universes and the writing style of Kid Icarus: Uprising? Do you want to support two queer game developers? Then we have the perfect game for you!

The Chaser's Voyage is a 2D single-player space flight adventure game where you have to pay off your debt to a notorious pirate lord before it's too late. Shake off hostile pursuers while transporting clients to earn money. Pilot your ship while also managing your systems to survive your voyage!

Cool things our game has: • Random Runs! Your clients and encounters are procedurally generated, so no two runs are the same • Fun and lovable characters! Fully voice-acted and with lots of backstory • Cool, creepy, and cute aliens who all have a story for why they need your help • Multiple difficulty modes for gamers of any and all skill levels (Including one-life modes for those seeking a challenge) • Tons of written lore, split up into over 300 entries, complete with crew commentary • 23 unlockable modifiers that drastically change how the game plays • Complete control customization for gamepads and mouse and keyboard • Customizable ship colors • An escalating war between two galactic factions • Asteroid fields, ship graveyards, minefields, and other obstacles await • Face bloodthirsty pirates, ruthless bounty hunters, and more!

Buy the Chaser's Voyage on Steam now!

[akabaka-dev]

Double art reveal day? Yeaaaah double art reveal day ✨️

Aka has been COOKIN' this week 👀

Hh'eily, the Color out of Space 🌈

[carnyx-int]

The wait is over! (Finally) Introducing Carnyx Interactive, a BRAND NEW game development studio made up of queer and neurodiverse game and art industry powerhouses. Founded around the goal of amplifying voices hushed by colonialism, our games emphasize the innate worth in every being. 

As a studio, we are passionate about making the games we want to play, and driven by the lightning-in-a-bottle feeling of experiencing our favourite games for the first time. We’re very intentional about the stories we tell and choose the genres and gameplay that will best support those stories, rather than the other way around. This allows us a flexibility to creatively explore all ideas and the constant ability to grow our skills, game after game. 

The third pillar of Carnyx is mentorship - each of us is coming in with a unique set of experiences and skills, and we strive to create an environment where we both play to our strengths and leave space to mentor and be mentored in return. We grow best when we grow together. 

This ethos drives every part of our business - from the stories we choose to tell, to our approach to research, to the way we treat our coworkers - every person is worth the space and time they occupy. To this end, we strive to create and uphold an environment of compassion, where every voice and idea is considered equitably.  We’re very excited to share our journey with you! Stay tuned for our first two project announcements (one launching this year) and check us out at https://www.carnyxinteractive.com/ and https://carnyxint.itch.io/ for more information and dev blogs.

Also! Join our Discord!

[omeletcat]

I have had this joke stuck in my head for weeks now and i finally decided to crudely draw it i'm sorry y'all this is the peak of my comedy skills.

[larkingame]

Hiring Community & Social Media Manager (CLOSED 12/3)

Hello!

My name is KC Malik and I'm hoping to hire a Community & Social Media Manager for the commercial text-based RPG "Larkin". As of right now Larkin is being worked on by a small team of creatives and we would love for you to join our team.

Larkin is a Vampire-Western that focuses on romance, religious-horror and complex family dynamics. It's rated 18+ for violence/horror and sexually explicit content. It will be released in an episodic format on itch.io, Steam and the Google Play Store.

Here is our website.

Intro Post

I'm looking for people with specific proven experience in social media platforms like twitter/X, discord, twitch, tiktok and instagram, especially those with an interest in indie game development and an understanding of interactive fiction/visual novels/dating simulators and the communities that surround them. Traditional degrees are less important to me than demonstrable work experience.

Your main responsibilities with this position will be:

Helping grow Larkin fan communities on platforms like Discord, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram

Moderating communities like Discord/Reddit/Tumblr Community

Engaging with community members & building a relationship (examples: helping answer asks/questions, replying to messages, etc.)

Social Media Posts/Planning - using social media strategies and timelines to produce growth in terms of audience & reach

Payment will be done via Paypal at the applicants usual asking rates.

Traditional Applications Are Welcome, But Please Be Sure to Include:

Estimated Pricing

Examples of previous work (like posts, accounts, something demonstrable that you've done.)

Links to your social media/website/somewhere else your work can be found.

Work experience, if applicable

Confirmation you'll be able to work on the project for an extended time frame (10+ Months)

If interested, please email the above information to:

larkininteractivefiction@gmail.com

While a more traditional "job post" will be made along the usual avenues in a few days--I wanted to reach out here first as Larkin's tumblr audience is what fostered it's initial growth <3

Thank you and Reblogs are very much appreciated!

[ourloveiselectrifying]

OLIE NOT SO MONTHLY UPDATE!! :3

Happy holidays everyone!

Have a Kevmas card :3

Spoilers and bruised up/bit up Kev below!

Full on twitter soon >:))

Sorry I keep dissappearing! OLiE is still in the works, I'm a little all over the place with the ideas, theres a lot I want to add in that I should probably be sensible about, I am one person after all haha

Things I've been working on!

Mostly its been story/writing stuff that I can't really show, but I'll show you some sketches!

- More word prompts!

- Reworking the phone side images!

- Revamped the about screen to be more! informative and to all be actual text/not images so text accessibility features work on it!

- Tutorial/warning/switches for certain content to be shown at start of new game!

- New fonts for new characters with the help of my lovely boyfriend! <333

- Tried to make a side image for MC, I then learnt that I have to redo the customisers code because I'm a big idiot and condition switches were a terrible idea!

- Working on a new character!

- Sketches of more CGs!

- New routes/endings!

- Neat little interactive screen, theres hidden buttons on it, and you can look around with the cursor!

[last-sprout]

Last Sprout Dev Diary - Nov 22, 2024

Hello sprout folks! I'm Valerie, or @oneominousvalbatross, and I've been working on Last Sprout since July, and I'm wildly excited to share some of the things I've been working on with y'all.

Ignore that Twiggs' hat falls off that's natural.

I'm aiming for a Dev Diary once a week on Fridays, and I'm just gonna be giving a brief look into making a game! I'm learning how to do a lot of this stuff live, so I'm sure there'll be a ton of massive rewrites and changes. I have probably a dozen huge systems that are already built that I'm not going to be getting into in this post, since I'm already half a year or so into development, but I'm sure I will find space to include them later!

XP

I spent most of my time figuring out exactly how we wanted to represent XP in the world. We were pretty certain that we wanted XP to exist physically as a substance you picked up, so I started with a system from a previous build.

In that version, we just created a bunch of XP objects and scattered them into the world, then had some code that scooted them around. Of course, that means that we're tracking an individual unity GameObject for every single instance of a point of XP which is, uh, slow.

This is what we call 'suboptimal.'

So obviously we needed to not instantiate an entire transform every time we needed to spawn XP. Even if we re-used objects that would just be prohibitively expensive for an object that really just needs a position.

I'm not going to go over each step in the process, but after experimenting with GPU instancing to just draw a bunch of XP objects at once, eventually I landed on extending Unity's particle system, since it has a lot of the settings I wanted access to.

To make the XP move how I wanted, I wrote a pretty simple process that iterates through all the little blobs and checks how close they are to a designated collector, then uses an exponential decay function (with thanks to Freya Holmér) to make them move towards Twiggs.

I think every game should have an action that can be best summarized by making the noise 'SHWOOOOOP.'

Parrying

Parrying was a good deal simpler, but it still has its issues. Essentially, all a parry needs to be is a hitbox and an animation, with some callbacks to enemies to let them react to the parry. Whenever an attack hitbox intersects with either a Parrybox or a Hurtbox, it checks its tags to see if it's interacting with the appropriate entities, to makes sure enemies aren't hitting or parrying each other constantly. If it passes the test, it calls GetParried() on the intersecting object.

GetParried(), idiot.

For the basic behavior, parrying just interrupts the attack in progress and knocks the enemy back by a set amount, but there's room in the system to add all sorts of neat effects, which I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of in the future. It's been a challenge to juggle the various kinds of hitboxes, but it'll definitely be worth it going forward!

Of course, between all these bits there were a ton of bugfixes and little experiments, but that's a topic for a later dev diary!

[necroticspider]

Hi everyone. I've just created this page. Here are some screenshots from the game i am making in Godot.

Wishlist Dungeons of Blood and Dream on Steam

[angelswithscalywings]

Happy Anniversary, Angels with Scaly Wings! (+ Sequel Development Update)

Another year has gone by as today marks Angels with Scaly Wing's 8th birthday. Wow! It's hard to believe it's been this long. When I was initially planning the sequel (around 2017 if I remember correctly), I knew that the game with its increased scope and planned improvements compared to AwSW would take a long time to complete. It was then that I decided to create the webcomic Angels with Broken Hearts to both bridge the gap and give greater context to the setting and characters - which will be very relevant in the sequel. Of course, AwBH then turned out bigger than I initially expected as well, which I suppose is only fitting as it continues to tell new stories about the AwSW characters while I diligently continue working on the sequel. With over 300 pages already released, we may end up with over 400 in total when it's all said and done.

For the last few years I believed the end of development for the sequel to be in sight, and we have never been closer to that than we are now. However, after missing the previously announced 2023 release date I am hesitant to make any announcements I may not be able to keep. As such, only expect one when we are very close to release and I'm sure we'll make it this time - even though I do already have a date in mind I'm aiming for. But while development has certainly taken its time, for me it is finally starting to feel like we're getting there. Why am I saying that? Because in our current build, the first playthrough of the game (seeing the first ending) is already fully playable, including the possible endings and all main character routes. Why is this such a huge milestone? Because the first playthrough alone will take the average player longer to play than getting 100% in AwSW (with all achievements and endings). As such, it should be no surprise that the script of this build is already significantly larger than that of AwSW in its entirety. So, what is the current state of development? What have we achieved so far, and what is still missing? Let's break it down: - Planning / Game design is 100% done. This includes the plan for the overarching story, mechanics, mini-games, characters, main and secondary character routes, all endings, etc. - Character designs are about 95% done. - Backgrounds are about 90% done. - Music is about 90% done. - We have finished sprites for 30 story-relevant characters so far.

The sprites for about a handful of these characters are still missing (which makes a total of ~35 characters with story relevance in the game), and after that we only have to add an extra sprite to a character here and there based on other aspects of the game (such as what happens in certain endings and playthroughs beyond the first). AwSW had sprites for 21 different characters (with story relevance) + 8 one-off characters (cameos which only had a very small role in the game). The sequel will have many one-off characters as well, though they are handled differently this time. The current build has about ~30 of these so far.

- Programming/writing is about 80% done. I still need to write and implement everything that is not available during the first playthrough based on my extensive notes for what we have planned for this. This includes secondary character routes, certain endings and things that can change throughout the game based on prior playthroughs. While nothing to scoff at, this is dwarfed by the content that's already in our current build. - CG Illustrations: ? These are pictures that are usually only seen once during a playthrough, such as when meeting a character for the first time (like Adine in the rain in AwSW) or as part of the story. We haven't made quite as much progress with these yet as with the other areas, mostly because many CG illustrations are dependent on certain other things in the game being finalized first. But with the previous milestone being met, making more of these illustrations is a focus for us now. The good thing is there is really no upper limit to how many of these we can include. Most likely, we will just keep making more until it's time to release this game. With all the progress in mind, I feel like I can finally start to share a lot more about the game in the coming months. For example, I already have a gameplay clip in mind I want to release soon. Of course, I know people still have a lot of questions about the game. I believe these are answered best by experiencing the answer, rather than just being told. To that end, I am also considering to release a demo for the game that would feature the entirety of the game's first chapter. With over 70.000 words, the script for chapter 1 alone is already the size of a novel. Preparing something like this might only be possible once we are close to release, though. Perhaps another option could be to release a smaller chunk or two of chapter 1 as their own demos. What do you think? In the meantime, I'll try thinking of more fun and interesting ways I can share more about this game.

[bellamby]

TFP DATING SIM?????????????? I AM ON MY KNEES IT SOUNDS SO COOL IN IN TEARS

do you have aby plans where it will be available????? :33

Heya! I'm planning on adding it to itch.io when it's finished, and updating it with the different episodes weekly!

Still in early stages right now, but progress is looking good!

As a rough timeline, planning on finishing it over the Summer, but (if work gets in the way) expect it more towards the Winter months. I want to make sure it's the highest standard that it can be.

(P.S. if this part takes off, I'll add a whole second part for dating the Decepticons 👀)

- bellamby

[simbishy]

Heyy. I just wanted to shout into the void about an open world survival video game I'm working on with friends. It's kinda like a mix of minecraft, 7 days to die...and I can't help but put sims-esque building into it haha. On that note...I haven't had much motivation at all to work on the sims sorry, maybe one day I'll return to it but for now I really wanted to learn Unreal Engine which took me here for this moment. Here are some shots of the environment I worked on. I laboured over those trees so much we unofficially call this 'the tree game' now. It's still super early stages and we have a playtest going to collect as much feedback as possible. It's been a fun learning experience thus far :) Thanks for reading xx

[azidraws]

Been a looong time since I've updated here!

First, I had been working as the Art Director/Lead Artist on Rift of the NecroDancer since 2021-ish. I developed the game's overall art style, developed the game modes alongside the Director, and 95% of the characters. Unfortunately, 1.5 years ago, 50% of the studio were laid off, and I was part of that group. Development on Rift continues without me, and it is what it is.

On the upside, since then I have had the absolute pleasure to work on BEASTIEBALL with Wishes Unlimited as the Lead (human) Character Artist. Beastieball is a creature-collecting volleyball RPG that is available NOW on Steam in early access. It is fully playable from start to finish, and the team is absolutely moved the reception. A huge thank you to those who have supported us! And if you haven't done so yet, check it out!

I would like to make more Beastieball posts here in the future, going over some of the dev process on my end. There's something like 100~ unique characters and NPC's in the game made without any kind of character creator besides the playable main character. Please look forward to it!

I'm still semi-active on X (Twitter), but I've been migrating to Bluesky for the sake of my sanity.

Twitter: https://x.com/penciltest Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ccezra.bsky.social

[akabaka-dev]

Aka has been noodling on concept characters for SFL 3

Meet Nan'si and Yan'si, the Twin Blasphemers🕯👯‍♂️🕯

Based on Nug and Yeb, the spawn of Shub and Yog-sogoth and parent(s) of Cthulu

"As for little Nug and Yeb (only ten feet in diameter when in their average form), they are a bit destructive sometimes, though it's only a playful, good-natured roughness. I like to have the little fellows about (even though they sometimes do dissolve visitors and passersby, and cause occasional troublesome enquiries), for they are basically very friendly and companionable"

- HP Lovecraft