Sugarplum Devlog: IRL stuff, bugs, concept art

IRL Things

I'm going to GDC in March! I bought a weekend pass before the layoffs, and I can't get a refund 😅 Might as well try to meet some gamedev mutuals and idols in person. I'll bring a demo for playtesting too, if anyone will be in SF for the week of March 17 I'd love to meet up - don't need to have a GDC pass, we can meet at a cafe or something!

On a less bright note, most of this month was spent job hunting and studying for interviews. I was hoping that getting to the interview stage meant good things, but I've mostly received rejections so far if not ghosting. To be honest this has put me in a depressive funk all month combined with all the terrible news in the world right now, so I haven't really had motivation to work on Sugarplum partly for that reason. The other part is-

Bugs

I have been trying to reproduce bugs found by Ursa Major players and have been totally unsuccessful. Feels like I'm hitting a brick wall right now to be honest!

I did upload a new version of the Patreon build with built-in error logging, so if you are interested you can visit the Google Drive link if you have it and read the accompanying txt file for instructions. (If you don't have access, comment below or message me and I'll send it over!) It would be most helpful if you can record your screen, as the logs may not capture everything.

Sketches

Despite all this, I did want to give you some sort of update, so I sketched some stuff to get them out of my head!

I wanted to take a stab at redesigning Lady Marshmallow because I suddenly remembered marshmallow twists exist and wanted to try drawing them as braids. I do love the old curly hairstyle, but I couldn't pass up a chance at drawing pastel rainbow hair! And honestly I do use the old curls a lot, so I could probably easily give that to another lady.

The right one might feel more like marshmallow twists since the candy tends to be cut short. But I prefer the flowiness of the left version, it's kinda giving Melony from Pokemon Shield. But let me know what you think!

I also wanted to get a rough sketch out for Ruby Chocolate. It's a relatively new type of chocolate that has a pinkish hue. I haven't tried it myself, but I hear it doesn't really taste like chocolate because like white chocolate it's mostly made from cacao fat. It apparently has a more fruity flavor?

Anyways, I couldn't get the concept of a matador out of my head, with the pinkish hues and all. I do love the intricate details of matador costumes! I don't think Ruby will necessarily be a bullfighter though - in my head I saw her as a fencer because I think that would be less cruel? Maybe her title will just be a generic "The Fighter" to be safe.

 The gold accents were my original intention, although I worry that it's giving pink lemonade, so I have the version on the right as well. This is definitely lifted from my Mega Pearl design if you're noticing similarities, haha.

 That's all for this month! I really appreciate the support, especially during this weird time.