#indie devlog

[aclypse]

Recently I stumbled upon an Indie Arena Pitch Party hosted by Indie Arena Booth, so I've submitted my Inkwell Institute deck there. Hope the game gets noticed! I'm showing only a few screenshots of the pitch deck as it is confidential, but I know I will iterate upon this deck in the future (as it usually happens) and who knows, maybe the pitch deck will make Inkwell Institute's release date closer 👽

[clarismakesgames]

Devlog: Aug. 8th, 2023

Hello, gamers! I have several updates since the last devlog, so let's get to it!

1. I attempted applying for Code Coven's Introduction To Game Making With Unity program - and didn't make it in.

This was kind-of crushing to find out, given that it would have been an amazing opportunity to do so. However, I will keep an eye out for future opportunities with Code Coven or similar organizations in the meantime.

2. I ended up dropping the other game course that I started auditing back in June.

This is because the course required me to have beforehand knowledge of a coding system that I had no knowledge of. And sadly, I didn't know that the course required me to have knowledge of such a system until after I signed up.

Things haven't been the smoothest for me on the game development side of things this summer. Meanwhile, developments on other aspects of my life (such as being an author and poet, freelance writing, etc.) have been picking up a bit more, so I've been devoting more focus on those in the meantime.

I hope to participate in a Game Jam sometime in the fall, just so I get some more practice with game writing in at least. In the meantime, I'll be focusing on other aspects of my work life and those developments! If you'd like to check out my author/poet work, check out this Carrd for more info!

Thanks in advance for your support!

You can check out my portfolio here to see samples I created from the Pixelles Game Writing Program (Jan. 2023- March 2023). Samples include cinematics, barks, character design, stage/quest design, and item description. You can also check out my Itch.Io page here to see games that I’ve written and published myself!

[auranym]

I've been working on a godot plugin for controlling how pixel art behaves with lighting, and I'm almost done with a really basic version! (more info under the cut)

this plugin is based on some techniques I have been developing over the years, featured most prominently in silt spawn.

it's a huge step forward though, since it requires no setup whatsoever, and it works with any normal light sources in the engine. the way it works is by generating an encoded sprite and a bespoke shader that can really quickly pick the exact color to show for each pixel based on how well-lit it is. as this gif shows, the plugin works with existing light sources and sprites, so you can really use these pixel-picky sprites as much or as little as you need!

now that the main feature is done, all I need to do is finish the UI in the editor, and then I'll feel comfortable releasing a bare-bones version of this plugin. I'm really proud of how it's coming along, and this quick little gif is just the beginning! :D

[hydralisk98]

Blackhand devlog#3

Referenced materials that this post follows up upon are presented above as hyperlinked banners.

Social context values / indications

[WIP]

Where?: They inhabit in the forested suburb town of Masknaw, in the Shoshoni Union, on the Angora planet. It is often set in the 46th century of their calendar (eq. 21st century AD) but has moments across other points in time and space.

Who (sketches / doodles / drawings)?: Not even started just yet.

Why Interested in Characters? Depends on above.

Why Audience interested? Depends on above.

Project Why-s? Depends on above.

Audience's Why-s? Depends on above.

Toybox 'Worldview' and target audience(s)

Millenials, Zillenials & Gen Z folks, mostly young adult women & edutaining manifestation enthusiasts. (Contemporary pagans, witches, Non-Binary people, queers and neuro-diverse folks included)

The 'toybox' has a major emphasis onto variety of languages, technologies and immersion levels, to feel more like a eponymous sandbox of tools and toys a consumer / licensee can reuse to their whims* for manifesting and plain curiosity-driven stories. As such, there should be some breathing space / mysteries that are left ambiguous for most people to interpret specific content sections further than initial expectations, encouraging imagination and creative expression out of the initial material.

Probably will use a either a weak copy-left license or some other open source dual licensing model with possibility to use a fair & libre-like Creative Commons license.

Important world details

This world has a divergent yet familiar enough history backlog to stay hooked into its "fantasy" of manifestation. Mostly diverging in the early 1910s as no figure like Woodrow Wilson got elected, neither in 1912 or in 1916, leading to some delightful changes that impacted the rest of Shoshoni history in a powerful and constructive way by a full century. Not everything is butterflied away though, but many fascinating changes came, from technological progression to ideologies, going across geo-politics, economical matters and local social intrigues ensued. Like synthetic servitor sapience, nuclear weapons' race & MAD coming way later, morphological freedoms chart and a couple of cultural & technical medium changes, even down to the smart devices and musical genres to listen.

For example, the history of music and its mediums is quite intriguing as far as going from 'Blue Ambersol' Wax Cylinders to 45rpm auto-play mini-vinyl records to Laserdiscs to dual magnetic-optical media Mini-Discs, with some cassette tape storage and flash storage yet to hit in the broader community than educational and home video markets. So you can see it is quite heavily inspired by history with tweaks and touches of flavor to really spike curiosity and show how malleable reality is, even without breaking the usual bounds of historical fiction by that much.

That being said, there is abundance of sapient synthetic serfs by the year 4520 and among them is Ava. There many great means to exercice morphological freedom, and so are the means for spiritual folks, that do live in a nuanced yet nicer and closer-knitted community. And the technical & social details under-the-hood are also intricate and worth my storytelling as well. But more onto such in later entries.

Characters / actors / narrative agents [sketches soon]

I do have a special perspective for my story, considering the multimedia interactive and manifestation toy that it represents too... In a nutshell though, a self-insert is a major key agent, with 3-4 characters surrounding her narratively. There may be more characters distributed with great variety, but this structure is thus far the nucleus of the narrative "cell" at play here. 😉

A couple of 'outsider' idea prompts to guide me here as well...

the virgin "neural network scaling hypothesis" vs the chad "a sufficiently smart hacker could write an AGI in Lisp on a 1970s minicomputer", from a @nostalgebraist-autoresponder ask from user moths-in-the-window

[Add more prompts with a additional Tumblr thread of suggestion material right here]

And yes, there is way more information to come as I play, watch, listen, read and curate more content, as to iterate & improve the wider world into the mixture that my canon base lore is.

(I am still figuring ways to get my own music tracks & remixed content going as far as making cooler video curation playlists and inspirational mood-boards but as audio + multimedia)

But the following should give you a good idea of the tone I try to set through my nuanced yet solarpunk-y bright narrative themes. Because whilst I may use dark colors, narrative components and start with a dystopic premise, I still aim to empower, inspire and get positive / constructive messages out there. Because as much as there is much room for complaints in life, I feel like the driving force to get anywhere satisfactory or enjoyable in a nuanced world is often left to the implicit details, which is quite easy to miss nowadays, especially as a autistic, *-divergent or just regular folks at the top of the ladder.

Cya later with another devlog. ^*^//

[endys]

The demo for Snow White Ashes, a dark, romantic fairy tale VN, is out now!

One winter night, you meet a hunter in the woods: A man so warm and gentle you feel as if you've known him all your life.

But appearances can be deceiving. 

You'd know that well, wouldn't you?

Snow White Ashes is a romance visual novel (GxB) made for a couple of end of year game jams, and playable now on itch.io!

The demo includes:

6k words

1 ending with 2 variants*

Hand drawn artwork (5 CGs)

An original piano-based soundtrack

One charming, not at all bloodthirsty love interest

You, a completely innocent and guileless heroine.

Game link (itch.io)

(For long time friends: Yes, this is a reboot of some very, very old OCs in the Mistwalker verse. I hope you'll enjoy what their new story has to offer!)

[brokenmemorycard]

Did some more work on the lighting and fixed the sliding on the walk/run transition! Here's a little turnaround of the main character! Their name is Maris

Working title is The Tower

[toadtaverngame]

If you like games like Coffee Talk and Va11halla...

you should check out, Toad Tavern 🐸

Toad Tavern is a 1920s bartending sim where you mix drinks, master recipes, and learn about your froggy clientele.

Toad Tavern is currently being developed by a team of 14 people located in Puerto Rico. If you want to see more of the game, follow our development here and on all our other channels.

[qkayoostudio]

OUT NOW! A Tavern at Night: Firelight

Past, present, or future. What fate will the cards uncover?

After striking up conversation with a wandering terrifying mercenary in a remote tavern, he's agreed to travel together for a while before you go your separate ways. 

That separation is approaching soon.  To commemorate your final night together you suggest reading him his fortune; might be useful for the road ahead, right?

Except neither of you are particularly looking forward to saying goodbye..

PLAY IT HERE!

features:

♡ a cosy campfire

♡ chooseable pronouns

♡ a variety of fantasy-tarot readings

♡ multiple endings

[notoh-dev]

The Doctrine of Perseverance Plot Summary and Main Characters Reveal

Story

The city of Noxton takes its name from one of the eight founding families, the Noxton family. Renowned publicly for their contributions to the city, privately, they are linked to the mysterious 'Drift.' Tragedy strikes the family on Melrose Noxton’s thirteenth birthday, marked by a horrific house fire following the appearance of the titular doctrine in the guesthouse. Three years later, the mystery remains unsolved, and life seemingly moves on, but not for Melrose – she remembers everything.

This story unfolds on Melrose’s sixteenth birthday, where you will uncover the inescapable horrors of the doctrine, unravel the secrets of the Noxton family, and confront the spirits of the 'Drift' that relentlessly seek to butcher anyone in their path. Happy Birthday, Melrose.

Main Characters

An old soul and reserved girl. Her birthday serves as a haunting reminder of the house fire and acts as the catalyst for the story.

A mischievous girl with a cheerful exterior. She is a close friend of Melrose and Dace’s daughter.

An unfiltered and hot-headed boy. His family harbors distrust towards the ‘founding families' in the city of Noxton.

A well-mannered and intelligent boy, slated to be the next head of the Noxton family. He is the son of Josie and Klaas, and also Melrose’s cousin.

An introverted and inquisitive boy. He is Melrose’s childhood friend and is from another founding family, the Skallow family.

A calm and warmhearted woman. She is Melrose's aunt and Milton's mom. Her and Florence were in a state of no contact for years prior to the fire.

A composed and educated man, he is Suzetta's dad and a long-time close friend of Florence before the fire. He works for the Noxton Police Department.

A brisk and 'rough around the edges' kind of man, he is the current head of the Noxton family and the uncle of Melrose and Milton.

A diligent and zestful man, he is Milton's dad and works for the Noxton Police Department.

Developer's Note

Bios and artwork are subject to change before the final release of the game, and this post may be updated.

I currently have about an hour of content done, this is with all of the dialogue, and knowledge on how to proceed in-game. I imagine it'll be longer for new players. Currently working on the next portion. I'm hoping to have chapter zero available to play early 2024 on RMN, Steam, and Itch.io.

I've also been posting youtube shorts, I'd be super appreciative to anyone who likes/comments on them!

Affiliated Links

Youtube Twitter RMN Tiktok (Posts are being Processed)

[xenonfossil]

version 0.3 of my character creator is live! link in source to wishlist on steam or play the browser version on itch for free~

🎶 music is by crashtroid!! 🎶

new stuff: 🐈 face & body markings!! 🐈 a ton of new body parts and sliders! 🐈 a lobby where you can watch your lads run around! 🐈 down with flat ui! it has now been  b e v e l e d

enjoy, and dont forget to show me your creations!!!!

[akabaka-dev]

Fun fact: Akabaka made this trailer without actually "animating" anything

I'd love to go in-depth on the "making of" when I have some time. He used limited animation techniques to mimic the effect of motion without having to draw so many individual images. Aka is a self-taught artist and had not made any animations before the first Sucker for love trailer. Really wanted to replicate the feel of a classic anime op or trailer, so had to get creative

He used the same techniques in his other two trailers, taking cues from other openings like this Keep Your Hands Off Eiziken op and this Candyman trailer.

[andy-jam-blog]

Andy Jam Devlog #2

Hello Jam Heads. Here is the second Devlog on the game side of things.

Here is the follow up Q&A video as well:

Thanks for reading the comics and watching the videos and all that great stuff. You can see early edits and join in the Q&A on my Patreon. OK I will aim to have another Devlog out next month. Bye.

[auranym]

my pixel art shader plugin for the Godot Engine is out now! it's called PickyPixels, and you can check it out here

this plugin is still in its early stages, but the reception to gifs I've posted using it have been amazing, so I was excited to get something out there!

if this is something you've been waiting on, please give it a try! and please let me know if you need any help, or run into any bugs. happy pixeling :D

[hydralisk98]

Blackhand devlog#2

/[Insert cool updates from Butch Hartman course]?

As far as I imagine the agents are involved, I think mostly of felines, deerfolk, moths, bees, foxes, nagas, hares, bears, humans and androids (instruments, robots, droids, synthetics...)

For the backdrop environements, I feel like emulating my quite forested suburb of a hometown with alot of additional unique flair would suffice plenty, albeit with tweaks over the geography and human geometry, like adding Y2K translucent solarpunk buildings, some edwardian park landmarks and 70s stylish constructions. With much cyan + some magenta neons signage and lights from a bigger coastal city at night, and the warm woodland (browns, amber, olive greens...) tones at day.

Definitely gonna try my best to use much linguistic diversity here, considering the subject matter of several cultures (timely and divine wise too) taking much material from my constructed world project and IRL...

I imagine this cartoon world between a game and a productivity suite, in a place akin to software toys but agnostic of medium. That being said, I play around with the technical parts of my conworld down to the history of data processing, operating systems, and alot of technological matters that are ~80% similar to OTL. There are morphological freedoms, geo-syndicalist political culture (not yet solarpunk but quite closer) and a strong sense of navigating past present and future as one that goes beyond nostalgia.

Library economy and heavily stylized graphics are present. Also, I am inspired by a huge thread of franchises, from Halo 2 to Bionicle, with elements from Helluva Boss, Lackadaisy, Quake 1, Portal 2, Powerpuffs, Wakfu, Alien 1, Wolfenstein The New Order, The Stanley Parable, TIS-100, Quadrilateral Cowboy, The Witness... and overall history & contemporary culture.

Also got some 'Game of Prosperity', Prospero, Landlord's Game, Monopoly, Cluedo, Werewolves of Miller's Hollow Pact, Century A New World, Carcasonne, Hypnospace Outlaw, Senators, print & play games, GURPS, Cyberpunk RED, D20 system, Pathfinder and many many indie TTRPGs.

My mainline story concept rn is pretty much a curiosity-driven addventure where Klara & Nil, assisted by Ava & Constanz get to adapt and overcome trauma as they integrate into my fictional world and empower themselves and others to do the same. A couple of sidearcs are present, one about synthetics' rights and another about accepting oneself to reach their full potential.

It happens in my conworld, initially around my hometown of Maskoch and then extended to the full ranger of the planet

Core target audience are Zillenials, with some Millenials and Gen Z folks included. The actual number of actor characters goes beyond the recommended maximum of 20.

I will disclose the specifics for the main actor agents / characters on a later date... but like I wrote, the main goal of the narrative is to improve the world around us and empower ourselves too. And also better relate to autistic folks like the author that I am.

*The meta-narrative may include heavy use of time travel, some use of mystical magicks, nostalgias, controversial social issues, profound topics, politics, autism, furries and queers, among many other taboos.

[nihilogames]

Meet N. Bautista, the protagonist of CHERUBIM – our action RPG currently in-development!

After waking up in the Afterlife, Bautista must traverse a hellish landscape to forge community and fuel the fires of 🔥revolution🔥! Save the denizens of hell while beating up monsters; but beware of corruption when using Bautista’s abilities, which causes them to become increasingly unstable as they exert themself. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, so grab your hammer and let’s get to work, comrades!

Follow us for devlogs, works-in-progress, and more! 

Twitter | Itch.io | YouTube

(concept art by @ghostlysleuth)

[brokenmemorycard]

What is this place..?!