Hello! I spent the last two weeks working on the menus for Hyper Bun Buster’s multiplayer modes, including an new game mode I’m experimenting with that isn’t quite ready to be announced.

Local co-op menus

Hyper Bun Buster supports local and online co-op for up to 4 players, but until now I hadn’t actually made the menus that let players join the game and pick which color they want to use.

My original plan was to leave these until the end of development along with the online lobby menus, but the more I thought about it the more I felt bad for future me having to spend weeks making menus. So I gave her a head start by implementing the local co-op menus this week:

I want Hyper Bun Buster to be fully playable at a 4:3 aspect ratio, menus and all, which meant I had to crunch everything down enough to fit four button config menus into the 4:3 screen area. I might make a small adjustment or two before release but I’m happy with it for now!

My original plan was to make single player games go through this menu too, so you’d just join up with one player and go from there. However, as much I streamlined the menu to make it easy to mash through, I still preferred the convenience of not having to go through it at all. So I’ll just split the main menu into Solo / Local Multiplayer / Online sections like in my previous game Chessplosion.

Experimenting with a new multiplayer game mode

I’m halfway through designing and programming a new multiplayer game mode that I’ve been thinking about for the past year or two. The parts I’ve made so far are fun, but it’s not quite ready to announce because one of its main gameplay mechanics is still missing and I’m still not fully sure how I want to design it. But if it all works out, Hyper Bun Buster will have a fun way to compete with your friends in a slightly more direct way than just comparing leaderboard scores.

Even though the game mode itself isn’t quite ready to demonstrate, I can still show off the stage select menu I made for it:

I love those chunky stage diorama buttons and I will get as much use out of them as possible. Also please try to ignore this menu being slightly too far to the right of the screen; I promise I centered it after recording this video!

Anything else?

I cleared Capcom's 1991 belt-scrolling action game The King of Dragons on the hardest difficulty mode! I recorded commentary over my run talking about the game and the strategies needed to clear it, but the gist is that Capcom took their arcade beat 'em up formula and simplified it all the way down to just one main attack and a jump, leaving you with something that feels more like a belt-scrolling Castlevania than a Final Fight. It feels like the first entry in a subgenre that no one else ever made a game in, so I hope someone makes a game that expands on its ideas someday!

Here are the best smoke spots in yume nikki, in case you were curious.

That’s all I’ve been up to recently. I’m on vacation for the next week or two so I’m not sure if I’ll have anything to show in the next newsletter, but I’ll figure out what to do later. Maybe the next newsletter will be three weeks from now instead of two, or maybe two weeks from now there will be something I really want to post about. We’ll see how I feel! Either way, I hope you have a fantastic two or three weeks and I’ll see you next time!