npckc

marron's day on steam next fest!

i have a new demo up on steam for steam next fest for marron's day! check out the spiffy new wrapper!!!

this should allow me to have stuff like steam achievements in the steam build as well as include the manual in the digital version which is cool & exciting.

(for those of you who prefer a more no-frills approach, you can still use the old sameboy simple wrapper by switching the app branch in steam settings, or you can just grab the rom to play on your flash cart/emulator of ...

sample package for marron!

i printed samples for marron's day gb package and it turned out well! going to print more for a small run of cartridges i want to sell at an in-person event next month.

download: toranoana web-only assets

today i'm participating in the indie web only event early takes (you can visit here! https://event.toranoana.jp/web-only/238842/ from 10/5 10:30 to 22:30 jst!) & i made some assets to use in the venue, so i'm sharing them here!

the avatar is the pixel art i use in Marron's Day but enlarged while the booth is a rework of the default toranoana booth but made to work in only 4 colours to match th...

october update! + a little download

now that i'm done with tokyo game show (thank goodness) i am going to back to my regular scheduling! here are my plans for this month.

• finish marron's day!!! so i'm not announcing this publicly yet until i'm sure i can actually finish (& also get a hold of the person i want to buy pcbs from so i can flash my game & actually sell physical cartridges) but my goal is to if possible release Marron's Day on 11/3 since i'll be exhibiting at digital games expo & i want to ...

  2024-10-03 13:33:57 +0000 UTC View Post

september postcard & thanks page!

i just exhibited at tokyo game show this weekend (four days) so this month's postcard is a silly combination of a drawing + a photo i took at the event!

i was thinking about what size marron & everyone in the game would be & realised i think of them all like... sylvanian family sized more than regular human sized, so if you put a marron next to an edgeworth they would be only about this tall (or smaller...!) i like the idea of the game taking part in a tiny miniature worl...

marron's day demo update

i made a quick update to the demo - now the minigame has you picking turnips & not flowers! (i just thought it looked cuter so i changed the graphics...)

i'll update the steam demo shortly but it's also already up here on itch on the old marron page: https://npckc.itch.io/marron-helps-a-friend

new demo for marron's day for TGS!

the new demo for Marron's Day is up on steam for the tgs sale page that went up today!!!

it features a different part of the story than the previous demo (& a little fishing 🎣) - check it out now or in-person at tokyo game show next week!

also made a spiffy new trailer for it! keen listeners may notice that the music has also been remixed a bit 👀

i was supposed to have an announcement to make an hour or so ago

the new marron's day demo is up on steam now & i'll post about it publicly later...

but the sale page for tokyo game show that was supposed to go up at 7:00PM jst today (2:00AM pst) has not gone up on steam yet👼

the funny thing is 7:00PM jst isn't even 2:00AM - it's 3:00AM in pacific time right now because pacific time is in daylight saving! but it's ok because it's 8:00PM in jst now & the steam sale page is still not up 😔i keep double checking that today is 9/18 (i...

download: tokyo game show demo - early access

edit: demo was updated a bit (added some extra info re: fishing controls)

i have finished the Marron's Day demo in time for tokyo game show!!! the game is also coming together very well.

the demo has the beginning of the game plus a little bit of fishing because every game is better with fishing 🎣

internally i finally decided to stop using the same build for both main game and demo & this made things a lot less troublesome.

previously i had only one build which ...

you're just imagining it coming to steam!

so this is sudden but you're just imagining it will be coming to steam!

click the link above to wishlist (& share it with people who you think might want to play it)!

the game got into Aesthetica Short Film Festival so i wanted to make a steam page for it... so i really quicklly did that earlier this week & it passed the steam check so here it is!

the game will release on november 6 on steam with new translations to go along with the festival wh...

working on marron's day steam demo...

with some image size issues! 😂

currently the steam version is a very simple sameboy edit which just boots sameboy directly, but i am getting some help to make a cuter wrapper for it!

this is a sneak peek at what it should look like (though with an overly large logo...)

if this goes well, i should be able to implement steam achievements too, so fingers crossed!

september update!

it's september & this month i'm going all in with tokyo game show prep...!

these are my plans for the month.

• finish new demo for marron's day for tgs! (this will also be online on steam for people to play)

• other tgs prep for the in-person event (flyers, stickers, business cards, &c.) - i'll share photos once i have them!

• get most of marron's day finished so i can start prepping for physical cartridges & stuff...

• ...

  2024-09-02 04:10:30 +0000 UTC View Post

august postcard & thanks page

hello! i've sent out august postcards - this one moves! it's my first time playing around with voxels & it was interesting working in a 3d space. i might try it again in the future.

i've also updated my thanks page for my site here. https://npckc.net/#thanks

thank you for your support this month! 💖

(in other news, i did a little update for a pet shop after dark since it was the 2nd anniversary today - t...

interview by kamoyanagi housoukyoku

i had a quite long interview with kamoyanagi housoukyoku & the article is out today! the article is in japanese but i talk about things like how i got into indie dev, the visual novel scene in japan & elsewhere, & my favourite media.

wrote an article for after journey's end

the article i wrote for after journey's end, an online game design journal written by game designers, is out now!

it's in english & japanese on my own personal blog (linked above) & you can read all the articles in this volume in english here: https://substack.com/@afterjourneysend/p-147799629

it was fun for me to go back & actually lay out why i made the choices (heh) i did in ...

marron's day progress (animated background tiles!)

i've had a lot of progress on marron's day these last couple of weeks - here's a little peek at one of the maps!

i have figured out how to do animated bg tiles in gb studio so now there is a bit of an animated lake (:

the way it works is i replace unique tiles with a different tileset, so you see in the left with the actual bg there are weird tiles in the middle of the water. these are replaced with the water tiles to make the animation!

right now i still plan to release m...

some writing about A YEAR OF SPRINGS - early access

i wrote a short article for something a friend is putting together which will come out online later this month, but you get to read it first!

it's about how i show the choices you can't take in A YEAR OF SPRINGS.

you can read it now at this google docs link.

i don't actually write about my game design process that often so let me know your thoughts!

>> switched to live link since it's out now!

2024-08-06 13:36:13 +0000 UTC View Post

august update!

hello it's august! july was busy for me & august will be busy again with mostly the same stuff!

• still working on marron's day (aiming for new demo for september & full release later this year...!) & some background stuff for a pet shop after dark!!

• i am also actually working on a very small dev-related short article for a thing a friend is doing which i should be sharing with you here in advance in the middle of this month - stay tuned 👀

2024-08-02 06:24:52 +0000 UTC View Post

july postcard & thanks page!

hello! it's the end of the month so i have updated the thanks page on my site ( https://npckc.net/#thanks )

i have also sent out postcards! check your inbox (: this is based on the art i did for the godot wild jam last month. while that game was all pixel art i had some ideas about what the characters would look like if i drew them out so i did that for the postcard.

it's very hot where i live right now & ...

my game at google i/o bengaluru for the indie games accelerator!

i just came back from google i/o bengaluru and the google indie games accelerator graduation in india, so here are two photos of the event!

(i actually participated in the accelerator with A TAVERN FOR TEA, but i feel like that game is harder to "show" than A YEAR OF SPRINGS so i chose A YEAR OF SPRINGS instead for the little exhibit...)

the accelerator was a cool opportunity to meet a lot of different indie devs & i'm very grateful for it, even though i don't personally agre...

july update!

it's july now, and i have this month's update for you. it's going to be a mostly background work month for me.

• i finally have enough done on this to show more (see screenshot) but i've got controller support MOSTLY working in a version of pet shop! i need to figure out how to deal with some other stuff like text input still but it's coming together & i'll be focussing more on this for jul

• in between i want to work on marron so i can get it out later this year ...

  2024-07-05 00:20:01 +0000 UTC View Post

A TAVERN FOR TEA now in german & traditional chinese!

surprise!

A TAVERN FOR TEA is now in german & traditional chinese! thanks to Antonio Moss (Toni Nerdson) for the german tl & sikv for the traditional chinese tl ✨️

you can play on itch, steam, gog & google play now!

june postcards & thanks page

it is the end of june & the end of pride month so i decided to see if i had enough characters in the right colour palettes & it looks like i did...! 👀

thanks page is updated here: npckc.net/#thanks

june has been an interesting month for me with my first ever food collab 🌮 and a tiny game jam with a friend in godot 🏔️

thank you for your support this month!

ubasute, out now!

i did the art for a godot wild jam game with my friend andrew kiya who did programming and story!

(i wanted to wait until we fixed one game-breaking bug before sharing but we can't upload a new build until the jam organiser gices us permission apparently so here it is for now in its original state!)

https://andrewkiya.itch.io/ubasute

check it out! i haven't done this much new pixel art in such a shor...

game jam notes

i did art for a game jam game with a friend and we (barely) managed to finish! the game is actually already out but the programmer is updating the build to fix a game-breaking bug so i will share a link to the game after that is finished...

but in the meantime i thought i would share this video of the notes i made when we were brainstorming for the game! i just used clip studio which automatically made a timelapse 😆 

take a look to see if you can recognise an...

pet shop tacos collab!

i went to blaise tacos yesterday to check out the pet shop collab menu and it was yummy! the craft cola in particular was really nice (:

the collab menu is running until the end of rhe month 🌮

pixel art for game jam!

i'm making some art for a game i'm working on with a friend for godot wild jam - not sure we'll finish in time but i'm enjoying the process!

here's the player sprite (may still be tweaked a bit...) - i'm pretty happy with how the walking legs turned out.

timelapse of some fanart...!

somebody shared this game on bluesky that looked exactly to my liking so i started playing it on the bus on the way to the hospital & i actually missed my stop because i was so engrossed in the story... so after i got home i drew one of the characters, luna! here's a timelapse of the art in case you want to see how i draw (messily...)

the game is called 黒き竜と黄昏の書［Failed］- it's in japanese and about 2-3 hours and gosh it's just really lovely though the themes a...

june update!

hello! it's june! happy pride!!!

this is what i'm working on this month.

•  A TAVERN FOR TEA update - this is already out on mobile actually (pc will come later) - i've made it so that it should be easier to understand what ingredients you can use in the tea menu since i found people were having trouble with it... sorry this update is coming so late after the game is out! i'm working on new translations for this too & the pc update will come along with the new trans...

  2024-06-07 00:21:00 +0000 UTC View Post

pet shop taco collab stickers

here's a timelapse video of the sticker designs i made for the pet shop taco collab! it was fun thinking up what to do... you can see where i changed my mind multiple times for the first sticker haha