Dev-Diary: 86

Hello everyone!

Another crazy 2 months have passed! I have an incredible amount to discuss so get comfy~

Firstly, I’m going to begin with some sad news I’m afraid; I will be shelving the project Management IN SPACE! for the foreseeable future. Since the last post 2 months ago, I’ve been working diligently on my current projects, both my own and for others, including clients and the co-op. During this time, at several points I stopped to reflect on my work and my progress. I looked at where I was and where I hoped to go. When it came time to review the task-list for M.I.S., I calculated that realistically it’s development time would be much longer than I expected. I was faced with a choice; dedicate another year to rebuilding half the game and getting everything working correctly, dedicate a third of a year to quickly churning out art and putting duct-tape over the bugs, or put it away to dedicate that time to new projects. I have chosen to dedicate myself to my current projects instead, of which I will be discussing later in this post.

I want to emphasise a few major points here. Firstly, this was not an easy decision. It took a great deal of back-and-forthing with myself to make this call. The project was in a mostly playable state after all, and reaching the end-stages of development! But the more I looked at it, the more I realised how far it honestly had to go, particularly in rebuilding much of the core functions. Secondly, while the work and the assets will be put away, the time spent working was not wasted. I can attribute so much of the developer I am to the learning process I endured while working on M.I.S.. Is that project representative of who I am now? No, but it is of the journey I walked to get here. Thirdly, while I have no immediate intention to work on this game anytime over the next couple of years, it may yet return one day. I love the idea it grew to become, and I hope it’s stories can be told, perhaps bigger and better than they were first dreamt!

Finally, I would like to thank a handful of people for their efforts towards the project; Duncan for his constant effort towards producing the amazing soundtrack we had for the game. We had some amazing tracks in the works and I look forward to Duncan’s work shining brightly in my future projects! I would also like to thank Rose for her help with nailing down the Xeno designs and her contributions to the some of the story work. I would like to thank Cargham for the constant support, from late-night design session calls to helping me wrap my exhausted head some art and hurdles. Finally I would like to thank all the guest writers who contributed everything from quirky prompts to full discussions about interesting ideas, I hope one day I can give life to your stories.

I have created a permanent archive and tribute to this project that never was, and it can be found at this link here:

On-to other news! Firstly, and very quickly, I gave the website a quick work-over! Okay, not that quick it actually took a fair amount of effort as I am definitely not a website designer, but hey it happened! I’ve removed the comment system from this site, as I by-far prefer people to contact me via my socials, which I check much more frequently (and I must say I receive some truly lovely and supportive messages from you delightful people, thank-you!). I also tidied up the pages a little, removed some clutter, and organised some stuff~ It isn’t a huge difference, and there is definitely more that can be done, but I’m happy with the current result!

Next, one of the main projects I’ve been working on over the past 2 months is a new mobile game by the working title of ‘roll’. It is a meditative ball-rolling game with calming graphics and audio. It features fantastic effects, engaging physics, a seed-based generation maze, and a plethora of secrets and hidden content! I started working on this game because I love a good peaceful mobile game before bed, and I thought this would fit that bill wonderfully~ It’s been an absolute trial to get this performing acceptably on mobile phones, especially as almost all my recent work has been in computer development, but I’ve learnt an incredible amount and made fantastic progress. Currently the game runs smooth and stable on a very average-quality mobile, even with the HDR effects! I’d love to really polish this game and fill it with content, maybe boosting the optimisation just a little more, but the core of the game has been built and I am hoping for a release later this year! Here is a little teaser shot to tie you over till then~ <3

Thirdly, I am proud that I get to discuss with you one of the external projects I have been involved with! Over the past good many months I have been on a team working for a fellow game developer who has started producing a fantastic YouTube series exploring the concepts of redesigning the Pokémon series! I am a massive Pokémon nerd, and I am genuinely thrilled to be the video editor and animator for this project! The first video is linked below, and a second one is already up on the channel! Go check it out and subscribe as we’ve got some real deep-dive content nerding-out over Pokémon for good dozen episodes still in the works!

What’s this, I’m not finished? You bet! Because while I have plenty to be keeping me incredibly busy, there is one more… super crazy project I am working on right now! A couple of days ago, 4 to be exact, Square Enix announced a competition for content creators to promote their latest addition to the NieR series. On the previous topic of talking about games that I love, the NieR series is way up there; the approach to story and lore, as well as it’s approach to maximising, and even reworking the medium of interactive media, has been inspiring. Of course, while the competition is aimed at cosplayers, digital artists, video editors, and streamers, I have declared that I will be producing a game for this competition! I have been crunching for the past 4 days, powering through to get this project produced within the incredibly tight 3 week deadline I have remaining. I already have the game’s script written out, a pseudo-structure for the code and mechanics, and a previously named musician whipping up an (honestly truly beautiful) original soundtrack. I don’t want to give much else away, but when this comes out I will be posting everywhere about this! Why? Because, due to the nature of the competition stipulated in the Terms and Conditions, at any point Square Enix (after or even during) the competition, they could request the public removal of this game, and I would (happily) oblige. There is a very real chance that this game will exist only for a brief moment before disappearing forever! So before I leave you to return to my incredibly hectic schedule, I leave you with my well-wishes and a teaser for this project~

I hope everyone has been wonderful and safe during these continually difficult and trying times~! Don’t forget to get vaccinated if you have the capacity and accessibility to do so, and to wear a mask whenever you can. Black lives still matter, and we still need stop Asian hate~ Be kind to one another in this beautifully chaotic universe we find ourselves in, and till next time, all the best~
^,,^