2024 mid-year update and some new music!
Hello! I’m on vacation this week, so I thought I’d take a look at my goals for 2024 to see if I’m on track. But first..
Some new music!
I spent last week trying to get my games’ music sounding like the sort of slightly-distorted MIDI jazz fusion that you might hear in a mid-to-late 90s arcade or on the Sega Saturn. I managed to get close enough that I’m happy with it, so now I can start actually making some music!
Switching my goal from imitating arcade music instrument sounds to composing original music took much more of an effort than I thought it would, mostly because I had just spent a week listening to a bunch of 90s arcade game tracks over and over again and they were stuck in my head when I was trying to think of some original music. I found this post by paper aviator and this video by Miles Morkri useful in getting out of this rut, along with just listening to a wide variety of music so I could get those specific arcade songs out of my head.
But once that was out of the way, I was finally free to make some music. Here’s a preview of a couple of tracks I’m working on:
I think the first track will be used in a slightly more laid back area and the second track will be used in the final area, but who knows where they will end up in the final game. Let me know what you think of them!
2024 mid-year update
It’s halfway through the year, so I wanted to look back at my goals for 2024 and see how I’m doing. For some reason I was in the mood to ramble in front of a camera, so I recorded this in video form! My original plan was to only post this video on my Patreon, so feel free to ignore any Patreon references I make in there…
If you don’t want to sit through a video of me rambling into a camera, here’s a quick summary of how my gamedev goals are going:
Make a fun game that people can play with their friends. I really want to include co-op in the game that I'm making! The game won't be out this year, but I really want to make it as fun as possible in co-op.
Try really hard to get my game engine's online multiplayer working on Nintendo Switch. This is very difficult and I haven't made any progress on it yet. I'll give it another try towards the end of the year.
Learn to make 90s-style arcade game music. I love my new music! It's not 100% accurate arcade game music or anything like that, but it's exactly what I want it to be.
Express myself more with my games' art direction. My game's enemies are exactly what I want them to be, but I haven't finalized my main character yet or designed the world/background. I'll have to make sure I express myself with those, instead of going with generic-looking characters and locations.
Make games for people who like arcade games. I pushed my game's combat pretty far and included some very hard difficulty modes, so I love where it ended up. I'll have to make sure that the game’s adventure mode is something I'm passionate about too, instead of just throwing something together that I think will appeal to an imaginary average action-adventure fan.
Make and release a tiny arcade-style game for fun. I want to give this a try towards the end of the year! There's a good chance that I'll end up prototyping something, finding out that it's bad, and throwing it away. But if I come up with something fun I'll try to release it!
That's all of my goals. Aside from a couple of issues like Nintendo Switch multiplayer, I'm pretty happy with how it's all going. It's nice to feel my new game starting to come together!
Let me know how you feel about me rambling in front of a camera, by the way! I certainly don't plan on replacing any of my text posts with videos, but it might be fun to be on camera every so often if people like it.
It’s the summer sale!
It’s the summer sale on Steam and itch! If you want to save money on my games on PC or if you want to convince your friends to buy Chessplosion so you can play it online with them, now is a good time to do it.
My games on Steam / My games on itch.io
Anything else?
I cleared the arcade game Gun.Smoke on the highest difficulty setting! Here’s a video of it with commentary, if you’re curious about why I like this particular 39 year old arcade game so much:
I’ve been learning Blazblue Central Fiction too (I’m very bad with Rachel but I’m having fun) and playing the old Capcom arcade game Son Son. It has free horizontal movement but your vertical movement restricts you to a few discrete lanes. It’s halfway between a normal action game and the grid-based action games that I make, so it’s no surprise that I like it. Maybe you’ll like it too!
And that’s all I’ve been up to. I’m going to get back to my vacation and I’ll see you next time!