meadow

I'm continuing to have an incredibly good time in Seattle, my first time in the city and a place I quickly grew to love, the same way it didn't take me long at all to love my own city of Bristol. And while it's felt full, and fulfilling, I've managed to keep a good amount of time to parallel with my partner and I've had lots of headspace to think about my life and about game design.

I've had various ideas swirling around in my head, for months, for long enough in fact that I probably could've even made a game or a couple smaller ones in that time, but it's just not how I operate. I think my motivated and active times seem to be on a seasonal schedule and I need a long time to recover from large, significant projects or life events. Plus, I just feel... so much more alive during the warmer months.

One idea has taken form though. One that started as a possible remake, or sequel, to my original game but that is enough of a lowkey, cute lil project I did that it's not something I need to really stay attached to. Aside from a couple posts, I was happy to hit the publish button and send the game to the winds. The ideas that informed it, however - an adventure game based around freeform exploration and discovery - has stuck, and a combination of lots of thinking, writing, doodling and a particularly beautiful mushroom trip has left me with a concrete idea in my head.

Originally I was going to do a bunch of prototyping and see what shakes out, and I don't want to put the cart too much before the horse, but right now I feel a burning desire to create a more fully fleshed out design document. A place I can lay out the game flow and individual puzzles and try to get something that feels like a cohesive whole to work with, and no doubt alter and improve and iterate on later. The full pull-back-and-reveal of discovery, and the world, and the (silent-ish) protagonist's development. Something that feels big and significant, but still a cute and pocket-sized adventure. Something that, if I can do it right, will bury in the heads of those who allow themselves to get stuck in.

I don't wanna talk a big game because I'm still an inexperienced game designer, but I guess I just want to express that right now I feel awake - I feel this burning desire to commit to game design fully over programming or art and I'm incredibly excited by the potential of the game space I am carving both in my head and in a document, and no doubt will be on a bunch of scrawls on paper too.

In my head, everything is cohesive, everything makes sense, everything flows, everything is pieced together elegantly. But this is an abstracted feeling - I just have to work on it, and capture it, and build it.

anyway good morning

I have 1.5 pieces of music to write for my game and then I can start testing it in earnest! Even though the game wasn't done, finishing the ending and "credits" scene and seeing it play out and back through to the title screen was an incredibly cathartic moment. There'll no doubt be some polish to add, and I might go through and add some more facial expressions for the characters too.

After the ending, I had two more updates to the game logic I had to make (adding counters to 100%ing each area individually, and changing cutscene backgrounds dynamically depending on the map you're in), which seemed like they'd be an absolute pain, but I found a far easier solution than I expected for both!

I've been deciding whether or not I want to move on to another game, start a sequel, or make a Riverbank Snaps DX type deal where (if I can find any other creatives willing to partner up) I can turn it into a more full-fledged Game Boy Color type deal with more detailed character art an slightly more breathing room for the explorative elements. All options are really appealing to me! But I think it'll depend on feedback, and people actually playing it outside of my friends - I'm not too fussed either way, I made something by myself, that I like.

I might just do some prototyping and make some super small scope momentary distractions. Snaps is very easy-going mechanically as a game, with no reliance on reaction speeds or multi-button inputs, so it'd be nice to try something on the other end of that spectrum. I really really love fast platformers, and have often wanted to make one. It'd be a hell of a challenge on a Game Boy, but I wonder if there's much trickery you can do to pull off that illusion...

over two million bytes. imagine

I'm making a game! and I'm still making it!! (seriously are you kidding me)

it's a joyful, queer, poly and non-violent adventure game for the Game Boy. it's about discovery, singing, food, girlfriends & partners, and cuddles. and alchemy. the working title is Riverbank Snaps. I've been working on it basically whenever I have spare time which is why I've been quiet lately!

I'm completely new to drawing sprites + tiles, animation, composing music + using trackers, game design, fiction/character writing, basically all of it but after a lifetime of Game Playing I'm just kinda going off of my intuition. honestly the whole process has been an absolute joy and I can't wait to finish this goofy lil story I'm making.

I might post small updates here and there but if I don't I can assure you it's because I'm just in supermegahyperfixation mode, scripting more headpats or whatever.