#06
Hey...
it has been a while, (about 141 days to be exact as of writing this)
2 months is a while? well double it and give it to the next person!
I think It is time to write a news update, I have a TON to cover
I do not want to format this update like the rest, because most of this is just where I have been rather than updates on specific games.
I will order it by each month I went without updating, because there is plenty to go over!
JUNE/ JULY
DREAMSPACE 2 OST
June was around the time I started to get more and more into music creation. This is roughly around this time I made some songs for Gappy and the Red Eyesore. and I have been friends with @clintmdev for a long time. so when he wanted to create a sequel to his game DREAMSPACE, I approached him about doing some music for it and he said yes, and I created a handful of tracks for it.
We both loved the tracks that were made, Clint wasn't happy with how the sequel was shaping up to be, and wanted to restart the development to get something he was happy with, he has a better explanation in this post
THE REST OF JUNE
I spent most of June trying to learn how to make unity games, but after the whole pricing debacle that they went through, I think I will just learn Godot...
JULY
July was a very busy month, not only in real life but with several different things
FROGGER TOWER DEFENSE DEVELOPMENT
Towards the first of the month, us at Boss Club (kawaii-chan creators) were working on KC2 ideas, and @UnculturedMutt came up with the idea to enter in the GMTK JAM 2023, I was definitely hesitant to do it, but I eventually came around to it after some convincing. So we all made sure our weekends were clear and we were waiting for it to begin
When it was the morning of, we got the theme; "Roles Reversed" and bounced around several ideas throughout the morning
Some ideas were interesting, like a fighting game where you have to keep up a meter to make the audience entertained, or a game where you craft explosives for an AI to diffuse, but those ideas seemed too complicated to do in just 48 hours.
so we created a video game where you play as a guy trying to defend his house from mutated frog creatures, with a firearm and things like traps, logs, and a vehicle.
It was fully created with nearly 9 hours to spare!
Here are some concept arts that were created during the development process
Results
Out leaped Frogger Tower Defense!
The game had a tiny issue with the salamander character, where their code would add another enemy to the list of enemies to defeat in the code instead of removing themselves from the list, making it very easy to get soft-locked. and I fixed it and uploaded it
Unfortunately, the game would not launch when people tried to play it, and got disqualified from the jam.
We did not expect to win the jam, it was the largest game jam ever hosted online, but it was a sad way to go out for our team and we were disheartened by the news.
I now know to show the install button no matter what now on an itch-io page. I am grateful for the help from the itch-io support team for helping me with fixing it so anyone can play it now on itch-io!
The game did SIGNIFICANTLY better on newgrounds. with it currently being my only project I fully programmed to get a frontpage, and be both my most played and highest rated game I fully programmed.
Even with it being 4 months, I am still surprised on the reception for the game, I am really grateful for newgrounds being in my life, it has genuinely been an amazing way for me to get my stuff out to world!
The best part of newgrounds is the fact that no matter how big or small you are on the site, there will be people to play your games, watch your animations, or rate your art. I could never thank NG enough for helping me get this far!
The game was ultimately a massive success for boss club! and was definitely worth doing!
AUGUST
this month was fairly uneventful, just coming up with game ideas and practicing music creation.
Most things I did were for projects that are not out yet. that and focusing on learning 3D printing software.
I actually went through 2 faulty 3D printers before getting the functioning one I have now ☠︎︎
SEPTEMBER
MADNESS GAME (KINDA?!?)
This one is interesting...
we (Boss Club) made an attempt to create a madness day game, but the scope of it was just not possible in the 3 week timeframe.
The idea of the game was to combine the gameplay of Madness: Project Nexus , with rouge-like generation for the levels
The First Few days were spent trying to make a roguelike engine in scratch. I didnt get it done in time to put it in the game, but tinkering with it after the deadline made it actually work good surprisingly in scratch with no mods!
Here are some screenshots compiled showing how crazy I can get it!
each block is a room in the layout, I can control how big the grid is, how much rooms to spawn, how long hallways are, and several other little things to make it a very versatile engine
Like I said earlier, we did not get to put this into the game unfortunately, so you might be wondering what the game looked like if it wasn't randomly generated?
Here is a screenshot:
It need MUCH more time, so we did not want to put out a game with one small cutscene and 2 rooms. we may shelf this game and come back to it when we know we can fully create it!
If I didnt learn my lesson with working way earlier for larger games, then I DEFINITELY DID in October
OCTOBER
MONSTER TAVERN
literally a day after we decided not to put out the madness day game, @rileyverse had an idea for a Halloween game, but the name for a game called "Monster Tavern" was stuck in my head for about a month at that point, so instead of going with the game they suggested, I sketched up a doodle and pitched a simple game loop for a theoretical game called Monster Tavern.
This was the 3 minute sketch I created to show off the idea of the game, its VERY rough
But the idea was set, and for all of October, I worked on programming the game to see if it would work, and I got my friends @MassiveMarioLuigi700, @GetterRocka, and @aplovestudio to help with music and assets
Last year, I made some music for @Just-a-ng-dummy 's Fantastic Spooktacular game Minimum Mage Effort , which was a great success for everyone involved, and I am still thankful for the opportunity to make music for the game :)
So the plan was to create a Spooktacular game with the monster tavern idea!
as of writing this, the game has had good reception and was worth the grind! but it would have definitely been wiser to not start development on it a little over 30+ days until I launched it :)
So that catches us up!
What's Next?
I have a few things I plan on doing for the foreseeable future.
MONSTER TAVERN UPDATES
What you all got was just a half of what I have planned for it!
I released the video game with an endless mode by default, there are reasons such as;
- 1: get the game out so I would not go overtime on the deadline which was already extended for me
- 2: create replay value for a short game
So Now that it is out and I have had a few days to relax and play Alien Hominid Invasion, I will drop more updates for the the game to make a more quality playthrough! Starting with one this weekend, to add things like a leaderboard with the Newgrounds API and make the drink shake minigame faster by you clicking fast. There will be more after that update, because I want this game to be as good as it can be! I am extremely appreciative of the reception of the game so far! and I promise to upkeep it to make it even better!
COMMERCIAL GAMES
Earlier I mentioned I was learning unity to create more advanced projects, but starting next year I plan on creating games with Godot and putting them on platforms like Steam.
I have not decided what I will create first, I will need to learn Godot and switch to it. but I have plenty ideas I can do.
Just know that if I go quiet for a few months , I am always working on things! and I will be happy to show them when they are finished!
End of Updates
I really appreciate you reading trough this if you did! it was a long period of silence, but a fairly productive one at that! I stay at it for you all! and I hope to keep it that way
use #gavmcoolfanart or any of my game's tags to let me see fanart, I will put it in here!
see you all later!