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a shame the section this plays in is so short

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"Hm, I need a unique enemy that's different from the legion of rats i have"

the trusty slime rat:

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Vulkan Pong - New (?) Game

I just put up a new game on itch.io (completely for free):

Vulkan Pong!!

A Pong clone made in C++ and using the Vulkan graphics library. The code is open source and available on GitHub: https://github.com/Hirund-a/Vulkan-Pong

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check out this 🐀

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the longest delay

woah what its been 4 months 6 MONTHS NEARLY A YEAR?! please keep following me im not dead check out this COOL and NEW gameplay clip.

So - there's a lot of changes. A whole new UI! A whole new control scheme! It's turn based?! An actual combo system with a timer?! some new assets?! some random bugs?!?! Wasn't this a platformer with nice looking movement?! What even is this game??

You will find out... hopefully soon! You might be wondering, wow - this is what Resharc has been doing for the last while... This isn't nearly enough progress...

I have, unfortunately, been playing... video games... Specifically, Dragon's Dogma 2 (which I had been looking forward to for a while!).

the good news is, i finished dd2. half a year ago actually. i'm currently going through undertale yellow (for research i swear). Ironically, I had meant to post this back in may, while I was playing through the DD2.

but you know, longer you go without posting something, the more you want to make sure people aren't disappointed... which means you spend more time working on stuff... which means you go longer without posting something... then you lose motivation for a bit... which means you go longer without posting something...

Until you realize it's been a year and you should show off something.

which brings me to the bad news. I might be dead again. I've been working on more story focused stuff (the first chapter is completely grayboxed and nearly fully playable!) so the more recent stuff is more story-focused. I might show off stuff that I think isn't as important (like enemies, or new moves, or new party members). I mean - one of my original goals was to post progress of the game, so there was a nice timeline of how the game evolved.

Which I've really fucked up, huh.

But - I am planning on announcing something later. I'm hoping to finish it by the end of the year. So please, look forward to that.

I know I am.

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i legitimately forgot i had this on my os requirements when i sent it for steam approval anyways wishlist it now??? ( unofficial launch until i make a trailer) https://store.steampowered.com/app/3044100

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ALLRIGHTT I AM HAPPY AND PROUD TO ANNOUNCE MY FIRST EVER DEMO FOR MY GAME SOULSHATTERED IS COMING OUT VERY VERY SOON!!!

I am not sure if its actually a demo? or a gametest? BUT I'M RELEASING SOMETHING!!!!!!!! I have been getting more and more close to finishing the main combat mechanics in my game!!!! And to make sure the main mechanics are all functioning i am planning on releasing a super itty bitty demo to see if people like it!!! I will try and gain as much advice, critique, tips and any other kind of help to improve the main combat system!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And just the game in general!! any art tips as well!!

It will take a bit of time before that is ready tho! Here is a tiny list of things that i will need to add/fix before i will release this demo!!!! - All player animations are finished and added!! - All attack code is written and functioning! (I am expecting massive amounts of gamebreaking bugs and glitches so i will try to find some stuff myself before i post this demo just to minimize the insane amount of bugreports.) - At least 1 functioning enemy with all their animations (Already have this! just need to fine tune the animations to be less ugly and fix the ai a tinyyyyy bit!) - An Hp system and a death screen!! - A small tutorial to explain all the attacks and mechanics!! - A small play area where you can spawn new enemies and test out the game!

Most of these things are already 75% finished but still need to be completed!!! And besides those things i also would like to add these things but they aren't rly that important and could be skipped if y'all think it isn't that important. -A short repeating music track! -A title-screen!

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THIS GAME AND THE FIRST EVER DEMO/PLAYTEST!!! AND WANNA KEEP YOURSELF UPDATED FOR WHEN THE DEMO IS COMING OUT FOLLOW ME CAUS I GIVE BASICALLY DAILY UPDATES ON ART, WRITING AND PROGRAMMING FOR MY GAME SOULSHATTERED!!

and thank y'all so much for following me so far already!!! i would have NEVER been able to get this far without the support i have had from all of you!!

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what da heck? it's a dogs

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a recap on jam

It's been a few weeks since I finished the Acerola Jam 0 (check out the jam if you haven't, there's a lot of cool games!) and I've had a bit of time to decompress and think about my experience. I also was literally unable to do this until this week so hahaaaaa.

If you haven't already, please check out my game jam game, Gunmatic Aberration. Some of what I'm gonna go over will make more sense if you've played it.

but maybe you like having no clue what I'm talking about, in which case, read on

A Summary

This was a good experience and has given me a good bit to think on for the other game. Which is both good and bad: part of the reason why progress has seemingly stopped is because of this. I've been working on stuff behind the scenes and polishing up bits (and rethinking others) to show off later.

I'm happy I was able to release a project that people could, you know, play. From start to finish, with very few bugs that soft-locked or broke the game. People found it fun too, which was a plus.

However, there's a few things that were problems and I'm unhappy with:

The game is confusing to play without any guidance; there wasn't obvious enough signposting or tutorials, which meant I had to tell people how to play (this is not a good sign).

The balance isn't great: some rooms are too hard. Others are too easy. Some powerups just suck, others are too good.

The boss doesn't take advantage of the core gimmick.

The presentation is lacking.

The last one is the thing that stings the most.

The Problem Of Visibility

In the three weeks the game has been around in the jam, my game was viewed 52 times, downloaded 19 times and rated 4 times. I posted it a few times and passed it around my friends. Around 6 of those downloads were from my friends. These are, by all means, not bad numbers. Someone on the Acerola discord found that the mean number of ratings is around 4 - so I'm perfectly average.

Part of this is just due to there being over 900 entries. Part of it is luck. A lot of it is because the game fundamentally doesn't catch your eye. My visual competency is, well

The biggest problem, I feel, boils down to marketing. Let's list a few problems with Gunmatic.

The game looks like a flash game made in 2008. This isn't bad but there's a stigma against those games.

The thumbnail does an awful job at describing the game and getting people to click.

The screenshots are confusing without context and frankly, suck.

The title sucks.

Part of this is just my own general competency. I am not a good artist by any means. This is something I struggle with constantly - I can, at best, make nice-ish looking animations and use some basic tricks to make it look a bit smoother. You can see this in a lot of my other clips. I also suck at names (honestly, my other game has some awful names...).

Focusing on GA, I could've done a few things better here. The easiest ones here are, add a gif to the screenshots and make a better thumbnail. I've done a quick mockup below of what that could look like (note i spent like 5 minutes on this). I could've used the gif in this very post on my screenshots screen too.

Getting People To Play

The second hurdle was actually getting people to play the game. It's one thing to get people to click, but how do you get people to actually play it?

I had a click-to-download ratio of about 3:1. That's, all things considered, not that bad! However, getting people to actually download your game, in a game jam with 958 entries, is difficult. Why play this flash game you need to download when you can play MEGA CHESS, which looks like a Real Game that you can play in your browser?

It probably would've been smarter if I'd just exported this to HTML5 and embedded it into the browser. This would've reduced the hurdle to play significantly: a lot of the most popular games in the game jam were, expectedly, browser games. And games Acerola had boosted (hint hint haha jk unless..........?).

Playtesting

This relates to my other issue: a lack of playtesting. by people who weren't me, i mean.

This is probably one of the hardest problems I've faced - both here and in my actual game. Unless you have friends who are into game development, it's hard to get someone to sit down, play your game, and give you their thoughts on what works and what doesn't. It's a fairly significant ask of someone! They have to play it for a bit, understand how it works, suffer through any problems, and then formulate their thoughts.

I developed Gunmatic Aberration over 2 weeks while working full time. I had a lot of dead time to fill in those two weeks - I should have been bugging my friends for their opinions and telling me what sucked and what didn't.

I didn't do that often.

This, above everything else, is what hurt the game the most. The game is fun, but it's incredibly unpolished and has more potential than anything else. The randomness of the game hurts it (it's a roguelite, after all): you can effectively just Die if you get a difficult room without the right powerups. It's difficult to figure out how to play without explicit instruction. These are all problems born from the developer being the only person to play it.

This is slightly just anecdotal, but I believe the top games in the Game Jam are both made by exceptionally talented people who also had some people giving them feedback. Maybe some more than others - but there was a conversation that I didn't have until the last few days.

i guess thats it?

So! That's what I did for about half a month in March. Then I went on a holiday and have been ruminating on this since.

You might be asking, "wait a fucking minute, you haven't posted anything since... November! What the hell! What have you been doing for the 4 months prior!"

That's cause, uh

um

woah check this out

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Well.

Well, well, well.

Instead of working on my actual game, I took a break (read: procrastinate) to work on a game-jam game.

This is Gunmatic Aberration - a small roguelite game made for the Acerola Jam 0! There's a ton of cool projects there, so I heavily recommend you check it out.

This was a cool little thing to do. It allowed me to play around with some systems I've, up to this point, ignored (mostly particles) in the other project. It's also kinda given me a chance to play around with other ideas I've had rattling in my head.

I might make a quick write-up of the dev process (spoiler alert: never do a game jam when life decides to shove a fuckton of stuff down your throat) at some point, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

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who the heck is "resharc"

I got tagged so i guess now im "it".

Who were you named after?

My real name shall remain a secret. the meaning of my name is unfortunate and i dont need omegaverse weirdos in my life

The name "Resharc" is something I made up years ago and used as a username. I just kinda stuck with it, it doesn't mean anything.

the blog name "pwdev" comes from the brief time I was making a Phoenix Wright-inspired game. I never actually posted anything here so it's kinda funny that i still have the blog name

I think "resharc.tumblr.com" is taken. I think.

i might swap it after writing this if i can, so that's immediately becoming out of date

When was the last time you cried?

Damn that's a bit personal

Do you have kids?

Kids? In this economy?

What sports do you play/did you play?

I've played a lot, surprisingly. Baseball, football (soccer for you uncouth heathens), rugby, wall climbing, golf, tennis...

I never stuck with them for very long. The longest I've consistently played a sport is about 3 years, and that's because I was basically forced to.

Do you use Sarcasm?

I don't know, do you?

First thing you notice about people?

I haven't really thought about this.

I am secretly the vainest person alive, so I suppose one's appearance.

Do you have any talents?

I'm not really sure.

I'm okay at programming I guess. Some people like my art. I'm able to quickly read books.

Scary Movies or Happy Endings?

I am taking the forbidden "third" way, and saying "both".

Why yes, I am a centrist, how could you tell?

In all seriousness, I tend to prefer scary movies (provided it's more psychological and vibes). House of Leaves is my favourite book for a reason.

Where were you born?

A small island in the corner of the world that doesn't show up on many maps.

What are your hobbies?

In no particular order:

Video games

Reading

Cooking

Game development

Getting really into game design for some reason this shit's like a curse get it OFF of me

wow thats not a lot is it?

Do you have any pets?

My cat, Midnight, the love of my life. my muse. my shining light.

if you want more pictures of her, I'll start posting them daily or something. This can totally become a "resh's cat pic blog" instead of anything related to video games.

How tall are you?

The exact height where people lie about being an inch taller.

What was you favourite subject in school?

Computer Science, because I'm the biggest fucking nerd apparently

Dream job?

I'd love to properly make games and be paid an actual livable wage. Alas, I will continue to Rise and Grind in my current job until I have something I'm happy with showing the world.

I don't really have anyone to pass this to, so this is a dead end. sorry

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welcome to the FAR FUTURE of DIGITAL WORLDS!! Explore breathtakingly realistic worlds while meeting members of the world wide web all around the globe!!!

little something i had in my head i wanted to make tonight! music is Webinar™ - w w w . d e e p d i v e . c o m

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500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ Post #15

WISHLIST IT PLZ!

Water Ripplez:

I've been playing DMC3 lately, and I noticed some of the enemies in that game pop out of the ground with this warble effect that makes it look as though the ground beneath them in distorting. I asked some fellow devs about how that might've been done and eventually landed on a specific method.

The first step was to go into blender and create this little waves/ripple model and bake it onto a flat plane to get the normal map. If you don't know what a normal map is, it is a 2d texture that tells light what direction it should bounce off it in order to give the illusion of depth. Look them up they are cool.

The next thing I did was make a circular model and align the UVs so that scrolling it downwards would make it look as though the waves were traveling outwards from the center.

Then I brought that model and the normal map into unity and set up this refraction shader. dw about it.

And finally it all came together to become a little ground distortion. Wow, i'm so proud of it. Not proud as in im proud of making it, but proud of it as if it were my son.

Bubblez:

I decided to add in lil bubbles(z) that you can jump into and they pop which launches you up. They've turned out to be really helpful for bridging gaps in level design, and they were easy af to make. Not much to say about them besides I hope they r fun and I'll be adding cool pop particles to them later.

Doctor Spider:

The first thing I did when getting back on this project after my big October break was finish up Doctor Spider.

He is the second target in the desert nightclub area, and he lives up this big ass dome. You gotta bring him some blood wine to draw him out and then shoot him with ur gun. He sucks.

Conclusion:

Uhhhh.. idk. Ima be posting more about this again, so look forward to that or don't if u don't wanna. Wishlist the game if u think it looks cool and hope u have good day tyty

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made a small bug shoota HERE

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a (loosely) kirby inspired original

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I'm playing around with feedback - just figuring out what's a good way to show off you're not messing up. I took a fair amount of inspiration from Mario and Luigi for this - although inspiration from that series bleeds through in a lot of aspects, lmao.

I'll probably revisit it (it needs to be tweaked), but this is in a good place.

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Some ice/fire teamwork