Hello everyone!

This month, I made a lot of progress on Project RPS, my incremental game inspired by Rock, Paper, Scissors.

As of today, the main hook is that you need to beat sequential opponents in games of rock, paper, scissors, and each opponent has progressively better odds of beating you. You need to win to earn currency, buy upgrades to increase your chances of winning, and continue until you beat the last opponent.

A nice simple game to start out.

What’s new in September

1. Implemented the upgrade system (using the math I mentioned from last month’s newsletter).

2. Added save and load capabilities, including autosave.

3. Got a rudimentary sprite sheet-based animation working.

4. Learned how to implement “game feel” - these are the little things that add up to make it feel like a “real game.”

Some of the game feel I’ve been working on includes jiggling buttons, short text animations, and highlighting upgrades you can afford:

What’s next?

Looking at the timeline I shared last month, I’m feeling fairly on-track. The trick is when I say internal playtesting starts in November, that really gives me until the end of November 😅 Since I’m still working through contracting art assets, the trailer will likely get bumped later.

The biggest thing I plan to focus on in October is having a beginning-to-end playable game that I can use to iterate on balance and fun. I hope to use that to answer a bunch of questions:

1. What is the right amount of time to progress between opponents?

2. How many opponents are needed?

3. What upgrades need to appear as you progress to keep things fresh?

Also maybe play around with sound and music? We’ll see.

See you next time!

That’s all for the September newsletter! Have a drawing of an early opponent: an aggressive dolphin.

• If you haven’t yet, please subscribe to the newsletter!

• You can find all previous newsletters in the archive.

• Follow along on any of the socials: Bluesky, Instagram, or X.

Thank you as always!

Matt

Founder, Kuhanten Games