I'm getting ready to make my next game
Hello again! It's been two weeks since Ducky's Delivery Service launched on Steam and itch.io, and one week since it launched on Nintendo Switch. I hope you're having fun with the game so far!
As always, I'm blown away by the amount of support everyone has shown. Thank you all so much for buying, playing, reviewing, streaming and talking about the game. It really does make a huge difference. I didn't think there would be an audience for such a strange game concept, so it's a giant relief that people are giving it a shot.
I assume I'm not allowed to give exact numbers for console sales figures, but I will say that the Nintendo Switch sales figures just overtook Steam! I love playing the game on both systems, but as I said in last week's newsletter, some of its biggest inspirations were games on handheld Nintendo consoles (Kuru Kuru Kururin, Balloon Kid, Tingle's Balloon Fight DS) so I'm not surprised that lots of people are choosing to play it on Nintendo Switch.
I wrote a blog post about last week's patch
In last week's newsletter I talked about how I released a Ducky's Delivery Service patch that added some tiny animation improvements, and now I've written a blog post about it. It's mostly just the same thing as last week, but I also mention that back when I worked at Yacht Club Games I was always surprised at how often the pixel artists could make an object smoothly animate from one pose to another by adding just one animation frame.
Getting my game engine ready for my next game
This week I've been preparing to start making another game. I use my own game engine for my games, but when I say "game engine" I just mean there's one big blob of code that does all of the engine stuff like loading files and rendering sprites, and all of the game-specific stuff like Ducky's flying physics.
When I first started making Ducky's Delivery Service, I took all of Chessplosion's code, copied and pasted it into a new folder, and painstakingly removed every individual part of the code that I wouldn't need for Ducky's Delivery Service. It took a few days, which isn't too bad in the context of a year-long game, but I really don't want to do this every single time I start a new game. Especially because I would love to enter a game jam sometime, and making a game in a week or two would be even more difficult if I had to spend the first few days just cleaning up the code so I can get started.
So I'm going through all of my code and splitting it into three parts:
- Engine code that will get reused in all of my games, such as loading files, managing memory, rendering 2D sprites and text, playing music and sound effects, and unlocking achievements.
- Code that gets used in some games but not in others, such as the real-time grid-based movement that I used in Chessplosion, or the 2D sidescrolling physics that I used in Ducky's Delivery Service and the old unfinished metroidvania prototype that I talked about in an older newsletter.
- Code that changes in every game, such as a specific game character's movement physics, or a specific game's list of achievements and all of the rules for unlocking them.
This is a lot of work! I've spent four days on it so far, and I won't be surprised if there's at least another week of work left. The end goal is to have three empty templates that I can use to make new games: a sidescrolling game like Ducky's Delivery Service, a real-time grid-based game like Chessplosion, and a completely empty "engine" template that I can use if I want to build a game in an entirely different genre such as a puzzle game.
So what game are you making next?
I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to make next. I know I want to make another game with Chessplosion's real-time grid-based movement and dodging mechanics at some point, and another 2D sidescrolling game, and even maybe some games in new genres at some point. Once all my code is in a place where I'm ready to start prototyping new games, I think I might try making a Chessplosion-style prototype first. It will probably have completely new enemies instead of chess pieces and completely new attacks instead of bombs, but there's something fun about hopping around on a grid and dodging attacks so I can't wait to try making another game in that genre.
It's all still in the "let's do some experiments and see what's fun" stage, so I have no idea what I'll actually end up making. But I'm looking forward to giving it a try!
What else have I done this week?
Not much! I watched a few Ducky's Delivery Service streams, played Mega Man 5 (the enemy sprites are really cute!) and spent far too long thinking about jungle music production for some reason. If my next game's soundtrack ends up being full of 165bpm breakbeats, blame this YouTube video for making it look so fun to make.
Thank you all again for supporting Ducky's Delivery Service, and I'll see you next week!