It's my birthday! Finishing my arcade mode, thinking about tile-based games
Hello! Today is my birthday, and I’m taking a bit of time off from celebrating to write this newsletter. Sorry if it’s a bit shorter than usual!
I finished the patron build of my next game’s arcade mode!
My new game’s arcade mode is now fully playable from start to finish, with branching paths, continues, and a whole ton of gameplay improvements! Patrons in the Ducky tier of my Patreon can even give it a try if they want.
I got a bit carried away working on this last week, spending far too much time making dozens of small improvements to the game’s controls, mechanics, enemies, HUD, balance and so on. I’m not happy with overworking myself and I came up with some plans to stop myself doing it again, but I’m happy with how the game is feeling!
I’m on vacation this week but I’m looking forward to moving forward with other aspects of the game when I get back. Maybe I’ll work on the background sprites, the music, the main character’s design, or something else entirely. Who knows?
Today is my birthday!
Yay! I celebrated with friends these last couple of days and I'm celebrating more tomorrow, but right now I'm just relaxing.
Just like every year, I discounted my games to celebrate. so if you know anyone who wants to save 50% on Chessplosion (steam/itch) or save 40% on Ducky's Delivery Service (steam/itch), let them know!
New blog post: movement in tile-based action games
If you've seen Chessplosion or my new game, you probably won't be surprised to hear that I love top-down games that take place on a tile grid. There are a few different ways that character movement can work in those games, and I realized I had never seen a writeup of all the different options and their advantages and disadvantages so I decided to write it myself.
Check it out here:
Character Movement in Top-Down Tile-Based Games (blog post)
Anything else?
Last Thursday was national poetry day here in the UK! Go celebrate by reading or listening to some poetry. I heard aja monet - black joy on the radio that day and I loved it, so maybe you will too.
This week I’ve played a lot of UFO 50, spending most of my time on the game Rakshasa. It’s always nice to have another game in the Ghouls n Ghosts-like arcade platformer subgenre!
That’s all I’ve been up to recently. I’m going to get back to celebrating my birthday, so I hope you have a great couple of weeks and I’ll see you next time!