Hyper Bun Buster: Rocket Hammer Action!
Hello! I’ve had an extremely busy couple of weeks. I gave my game a name, finished up its demo, submitted it to SAGE and started working towards announcing the game to the world. SAGE 2025 starts on Friday September 19th so I’d really like to get a trailer and Steam page up before then!
Hyper Bun Buster: Rocket Hammer Action
Because my game is top-down, cute and takes place on a grid, I worry that people will glance at a screenshot and assume that it’s a puzzle game. So I really wanted to give it a name have that screamed "THIS IS AN ARCADE ACTION GAME, NOT A PUZZLE GAME!"
I also wanted to follow in the tradition of game developers making up cool genre names for their games, just like how Metal Gear Solid’s genre is Tactical Espionage Action, Bayonetta’s genre is Non-Stop Climax Action and Senran Kagura’s genre is Flying Out Enormous Breast Drama Hyper Battle. So I went with Hyper Bun Buster: Rocket Hammer Action.
I gave it a logo too:
Key art by NomnomNami
My friend NomnomNami drew some incredible Hyper Bun Buster key art!
It's everything I asked for and more. I love seeing my characters come to life in someone else's art style (although in this case, Nami was the one who designed the main character Tess in the first place). Thank you so much Nami!
Last-minute demo improvements
I finished up the game’s demo and submitted it to SAGE! Other than adding the game’s logo, I mostly just fixed bugs, made some more music, made slight adjustments to the scoring system and added some setpieces here and there.
Here’s how the chicken stage looks right now, with a new room where you get locked on a center platform and pelted with bombs:
I’m pretty happy with this! I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks about the demo when they can try it next Friday at SAGE.
Anything else?
I saw a physiotherapist about my ongoing headaches last week and they found the likely cause of them! It's just some regular old muscle tension in my neck, presumably caused by me sleeping at a weird angle or having to look down at everyone all the time (I'm very tall) or spending too much time staring at computer monitors (let’s be honest, it’s probably this one). I've been given a bunch of stretches and exercises to do and they're already making things feel better than before, so hopefully I'll be back to full health soon.
Last weekend I went to VeXpo, a UK vtuber expo. The event itself wasn't my kind of thing (I'd personally recommend going to fighting game tournaments or videogame expos instead) but it was wonderful to meet a bunch of vtuber friends who I usually only see online! As always, spending time with friends is worth it.
Silksong is out! I've been too busy working on Hyper Bun Buster to play it but it looks great, and I'm going to give it a try as soon as I've got some free time.
That's all I've been up to recently. Hopefully a week from now everyone will know that Hyper Bun Buster exists. It will be interesting to see how people react to it! I hope you enjoy the demo when it goes up next Friday and I'll see you next time!