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…

This past week I’ve been mostly working on my new game: Martian Alchemist. It’s a potion making and resource management simulator that takes place in a fictional future on Mars! Imagine Firefly (the TV show) + a little bit of Star Wars + witches. I’ve been inspired by the game Potion Craft (highly recommend if you like cozy, relaxing, potion making games) and I wanted to make a sci-fi version of it! Here’s a mock-up of the main title that I’ve been working on this past week or so:

It’s 12:43 am as I sit down to write this. I’ve just spent the last 5ish hours preparing my app build to publish Space Cats to the App Store. If there’s one thing I've learned from the game development process it’s that I really really hate the publishing aspect. It’s just so…annoying. There’s a lot of extra work that just is exhausting to put together when you’re just ready to hit publish. I suddenly know why game publishers are a thing and why game devs would happily hand the reins over to them 😂

This past week or so I’ve been reading John Romero’s autobiography called Doom Guy: Life in First Person. If you don’t know who John Romero is, he is probably one of the most influential programmers from the early days of video games. He and several of his colleagues founded id Software, a successful PC game studio which famously created Doom. There are many reasons why Doom was revolutionary for the time, but one of the main reasons it’s remembered today is because…

Hey friends. Quick update on Space Cats Mobile. Right now I’m trying to fix some performance settings as I get ready to ship it to the App Store. Sorry for the delay but Space Cats Mobile is coming! Once I get everything finalized I just have to wait for Apple’s approval process and then you can download and play it on your phone 🥰 There’s two new characters so that’ll be fun too.

So this past week I struggled a little bit with motivation to finish the mobile version of Space Cats (if I’m being totally honest and transparent with you). I knew the work that needed to be done but I was just lacking the drive to open up Unity, open up my code editor, and work on the project. But I didn’t want the project to stall so I told myself: okay, just make a list of things you have to do and check off one thing, one day at a time.

Today I wanted to talk a little about the rise of III game studios and how that has warped all of our expectations, gamers and devs alike—not to mention the rise of AAA studios as well. (As a side note, I believe that the whole gaming industry as a whole is going to change dramatically with AI, the recent layoffs in the bigger studios, and the changes brought on by Covid.) I came across…

Hey friends! Sorry for missing last week: I was traveling and didn’t have much time to work on my game and/or write a blog. I do have big news though! Space Cats is officially done! I submitted the builds to Steam yesterday and right now I’m just waiting to hear back if it was approved or not. As soon as it’s approved, Space Cats will go live!

First and foremost, Space Cats is now available for wishlist on Steam. I hope to have the game published and released within the next two weeks so please stay tuned.

After getting my store ready and submitted to Valve for approval, I began working on full controller support. Mostly because I want my game to be playable on the Steam Deck (I'm not bothering with other consoles right now). So after reading tons…

Hey friends. This week’s post is going to be brief but I wanted to give you a little update. I didn’t have much time to work on my game this last week but I am getting so close! I’ve mostly been working to get the game all the way finished: fixing minor/major bugs, testing responsiveness to different screens, and then finalizing everything before the final build.

My game is almost done and I’m very proud of this little psychedelic space cat game that I've been working on for a little over a month. I still have to make sure that I have everything set up for release on Steam, add controller support, and eventually add mobile compatibility. But for all intents and purposes, my game is done. Let me tell you about some of the things I’m proud of:

There’s this saying: “The first 90% of the project takes 90% of the time, and the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time.” As I've worked on the final touches of Space Cats, this saying couldn’t be more accurate. Update this to be a little bit crisper. Add the little sound effects. Polish up this bit right here. Now let’s fix our code so it doesn’t look completely like a monkey wrote it.

This week was the week of debugging. Once I finally got the Cat Nip Effect to work the way I wanted it to, I had to then implement it in my game and that blew up everything lol. And then, after fixing that, I had to make sure that it was working the way I intended, which then led me to discover a whole slew of bugs. But these weren’t just the normal bugs that are usually easy to diagnose and resolve. No, these are the bugs that only happen sometimes.

Hey Space Cats! I hope you guys had a wonderful week; I’ve actually had an absolute blast working away on the game. I’ve made a lot of headway: a working main menu, a pause screen, and full game functionality! Now all I have to do is make it interesting and enjoyable to play lol.

Today I am late writing. Lol. I should have composed this hours ago but I’ve been trying to maximize my productivity during business hours and now it’s after dinner and all I really want to do is relax, but I promised myself I’d be consistent with this blog. Plus, it’s not even that I don’t want to write. I have a lot of exciting things I want to share! It’s just that sometimes I’m lazy……

This week was a week of fails. Lemme tell you about my first one.

So I’m a noob motorcyclist. And although I’ve taken a motorcycle safety course and have practiced in a parking lot and have been really careful, I still have A LOT to learn. Well, the other day, I was out riding with my friend who has significantly…

There's a profound anxiety pulsing among us: anxiety about the planet's climate, the economy, the election, our jobs, our future. Perhaps it's a result of the 24-hour news cycle and the chronically online nature of modern adults and adolescents, including myself. Or maybe that anxiety was there all along, past generations included; it's just that now we have a better understanding of it and are more likely to self-diagnose.