Creating the background for Martian Alchemist has been one of the most unexpected challenges I’ve faced in game development so far. I knew from the start that I wanted the game to feel cozy, but how do you make a rocky, barren Martian landscape feel inviting? How do you turn something that’s essentially red dirt and jagged cliffs into a space where players would actually want to spend time?

The first time I ever truly experienced the magic of world building, I was a young girl curled up in a chair with a well-worn copy of The Farthest Away Mountain. I had picked it up by chance, not knowing that within those pages, I would be transported to another world—a world of enchanted peaks, talking gargoyles, and distant, uncharted lands. I didn’t just read about the protagonist’s journey, I lived it. Every strange forest, every mysterious creature, every silent moment at the foot of the...

Hey friends. This past week I was able to work a lot on Martian Alchemist and I’ve almost finalized the greenhouse! You’re now able to successfully harvest ingredients and have them appear in your inventory. You can then scroll in your inventory as it dynamically expands. And finally, you can now tab through the various parts of your inventory (though I haven’t built out the different panels quite yet. The basic script is there though). The next major thing that needs to happen is I need to make animations for the harvesting of each plant. And besides adding sound effects—which I’m going to attack much later on—the greenhouse is almost done!

Hey friends! Today I wanted to give you an update for Martian Alchemist. The past couple weeks I’ve been working on implementing the inventory system. This seems simple enough and I originally thought it would only take me a day or two of work… Well… laughs 2.5 weeks later...

Running down the planes of Hyrule, intent on solving the mystery of the missing woman in Hateno Village, you get distracted by a rock that just seems so noticeably out of place. You don’t know exactly what it is about its positioning that gives it away, but your internal Korok detector is ringing full alarm and you absolutely must investigate. Sure enough, the slight pause in gameplay, the burst of confetti-like leaves, and the oh...

There’s a popular children’s book titled *We Are Going on a Bear Hunt*. Throughout the story, the children face various obstacles in their search for a bear: long, wavy grass, a deep, cold river, thick, oozy mud, a dark forest, a swirling, whirling snowstorm, and finally, a narrow, gloomy cave. With each challenge, the children can’t go over it, they can’t go under it—they have to go through it.

Lately, I’ve been feeling the same way, except my bear hunt is a growing list of tasks that just won’t...

Hey friends! Happy FRIDAY! Today marks a significant milestone in the progress of building Martian Alchemist! We have a greenhouse spawner! I mean, I still have a lot of work to do and there’s some quirks I need to iron out, but we have a good skeleton built finally.

The way the game works is...

Hello friends! It’s finally Friday. I hope you have some awesome plans with friends. Life is always better when you share it with friends.

Anyway, I wanted to talk today about the progress I’ve been making on Martian Alchemist. I still don’t know exactly how I want to setup the Potion Making Station so as of right now, it’s still...

There’s an ice cream/coffee shop near my house that makes the most delicious, unique, and refreshing soft serve I think I’ve ever had. They’re so extra the shop is frequently overrun with food bloggers and instagram influencers trying to get the perfect shot of their confection. This is the place where your basic vanilla ice cream cone is served not one, not two, but three dollops high, dusted in red velvet cake powdered sugar, and garnished with fresh

Hello friends. This week I wanted to talk about optimizing content workflow. I recently listened to a podcast episode that talked specifically about how we as game devs can make our lives easier by designing systems and tools to help create the content for our games.

Designing a user interface (UI) for a game is a critical aspect that bridges the gap between the player and the game world. A well-crafted UI can make the difference between an intuitive, immersive experience and a frustrating one. Whether it’s a complex RPG or a simple puzzle game, the principles of UI design remain…

Hello friends. I have so many things I want to talk about today. I got sick this past week and honestly didn’t have as much energy to work in Martian Alchemist as I had hoped, but honestly, it was good for me to take a step back and let all my creative juices recharge. When working in large projects like this, especially by yourself, it’s really easy to burn out and get overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of work. But by taking a step back and…

So I was finally able to make the greenhouse! And I’m so pleased with the results. It was definitely the right move to go ahead with the building of the bedroom while I struggled to conceptualize how I was going to draw the greenhouse. I’ve found that the best antidote to creator’s block is to just start working on a different part of the project.

Hey friends! I hope you’ve had an amazing week. I’ve been traveling the past week but I wanted to give you an update nonetheless. Although I wasn’t able to work on MA too much, I still was able to make some significant progress.

First of all, I’ve added placeholders for all the remaining rooms in the game. This way, as I’m building them out, I’ll be able to build them out quickly. Additionally, I’ve added basic UI buttons that control how the camera moves throughout the room. I’m super pleased with…

I have great news! Since last week I’ve been able to make significant progress on Martian Alchemist. After spending some more time in Godot and making a few simple games, I’ve decided to go back to Unity and build Martian Alchemist in Unity instead of Godot.

The first major milestone was…

This past week I’ve been working on the art style and direction of Martian Alchemist. When I first made the title page, I knew that it probably wasn’t going to be the final image, but it at least felt good to put my ideas on paper. But since then, there’s been this gnawing in the back of my mind and something about it was bothering me. I don’t know exactly what, but my execution was…

This week I wanted to talk a little bit about game design and what I think makes a good game. Good games, in my opinion, don’t necessarily have the best graphics (though they can), they also don’t necessarily have the best story (sometimes they don’t even have a story). They don’t even have to have the best soundtrack (though they frequently do). Good games can be found in every single genre, every single art style, and can be created by anyone. Good games are good games because…

Well friends, we are almost there. And by almost I mean not at all 😂 No but in all seriousness, I’m almost done writing all of Martian Alchemist’s game design. I know that I’ll end up making some changes as I work on building it out, testing it, iterating, etc. but I think it’s really important to start a project like this with a firm grasp of where you are going. This way, when I start putting the pieces together, I’ll know what pieces…

Okay friends. I have a confession to make: I’ve been procrastinating diving into Martian Alchemist (the code part) because I’ve been dreading learning Godot. I know, I know, I said I already learned it. Well, by “learning Godot” what I actually meant was that I downloaded it and watched a few little YouTube videos about it lol… I hadn’t actually built anything in it yet. Why don’t I just…

I’m going to be brief but I wanted to update you guys on what I’ve been working on this past week:

I’m still reading John Romero’s book. It’s more dense than I had anticipated and it is taking me longer than I thought to read through it. I still find it very fascinating learning about how he and id Software created all those games…