March 2023 Update

For the last couple of months, my work has been spread on so many different projects, it feels like I'm accomplishing a lot and very little at the same time. There's been progress on Sunken City, on some webgames I intend to release soon, and on a significant number of side projects that could go anywhere. While trying out new ideas is fun and can lead to some cool stuff, it's time to regain focus and actually finish some projects. We've already reached March of this year without a new release, and that feels wrong somehow.
In this post I'll (very) briefly go over:
- What I intend to release next month and hopefully not too long after,
- How Sunken City is doing,
- Some very vague and limited words on what else I messed about with.

April, and shortly after

Yes, a new game, free and web-based. See screen below and this here tweet. I had hoped to finish it this month, but as usual it turned into something bigger. Releasing next month is absolutely manageable though.

So what is it? The original premise was something like Asteroids, but with a free exploration element, and some more linear levels. The controls slowly drifted away from the "floaty" controls you'd expect from Asteroids, and instead the player character is more responsive. That in turn allowed me to make the levels more tightly designed, adding more precision gameplay and even some mild puzzling. Getting to this point was more difficult than I thought, and had me redoing the controls multiple times.

The plan is to have about 8 "levels" and a big open space in which you can find these levels, along with some events and other locations.

Also, something completely different: remember Ferry Wheel? That casual puzzle game you get a link to when you subscribe to my mail list (Patrons can find a link in a previous post on this platform)? I put it on hold forever ago because I couldn't decide what I wanted the visuals to look like. The currently publicly available version looks like this:

BUT I've been working on actual visuals that don't put you to sleep immediately. It's still a work in progress (most buttons still have ye olde visuals), but my current version looks like this:

It would be great to finish that project next month, but it'll likely take a bit longer.

Sunken City

Excluding all the sound, Prologue is done, Forest is done, Hub World is at about a third. Consider it a puzzle to figure out what that all means and how much work there's still left (SPOILER: a lot).

Sidenote: Cursed Travels' main characters Farold Roberts and Atzlar make a cameo appearance in the brilliant N Step Steve: Part 2 and I FINALLY got back to it and found them, months after release. Those bastards were well hidden.

Other stuff

- I designed early visuals for a very casual game in which you live on the moon. Eventually it should look like it comes straight out of a picture book, but with pixel graphics. I visited the local library multiple times for reference and inspiration. However, on my most recent visit I ended up just reading comics from my childhood.

- Made a prototype for a very simplified tower defense / RTS-kinda game, but decided to go into a different direction. Putting it on hold indefinitely, or until I figure out the best way to go forward.

- Made visuals, design documents, and story for a experimental top down RPG. It'd be fun to make, but I'm not yet convinced most people would want to play it...

- Some tinkering around here and there with projects I've mentioned before, such as Project Amidst and Cataractae's remake.

Bye

Until *actually* soon!