#independent game developer

[jettpack]

10 Tarot Cards I illustrated for the game Where the Water Tastes like Wine back in maybe 2017

[bugbeast]

Self promo for my newest card game, Jewel Thief; but you can play it for free! First, though, let's cover the basics...

TL;DR - Its a 4+ player competetive card-matching game with four rule variants; buy it here or look for the orange text in this post to learn how to play it with a regular deck

"What is Jewel Thief?"

It's a card matching game with a villain; one player tries to match jewels in a 36 card grid while their opponent, the titular Jewel Thief, periodically steals cards from the board. You can check out its page on The Game Crafter for more information, but it'll spoil the rest of this post

"What makes it special?"

The game's turn structure would theorettically allow you, perhaps via some kind of infinite cloning machine, to play a round of Jewel Thief til the heat death of the universe. While I wouldnt recommend that, its lack of a player cap (and ease of set-up; seriously, all you do is put cards on a table) makes it a good party game choice.

But that's not all!

There are three extra rule variants that drastically alter the gameplay while keeping card matching and stealing as main mechanics. I believe the cards are versatile enough to allow for many custom games, too

"Okay, but why should I buy a silly game from some bug nerd?"

First off, ouch. Second off, that's the best part; you dont have to buy it to play it! Jewel Thief can be played with a standard 52 card deck. Here's how:

Step 1. Remove the 10s, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Jokers

Step 2. Download the free rules from the shop page

Step 3. Play the game, matching cards based on their values. You'll need to designate a value as the Diamond jewel for game 4

-------

That's it for my little self-promo. If you dont buy the game, I hope you'll at least give it a try and consider supporting my future projects.

I also post art and photography, which you can find under the bugbeast art and bugbeast photos tags. I hope you check them out

Thank you for your time <3

--------

Edit (Mar. 25, 2024) : Thank you to everyone who liked and reblogged this; if you play the game I encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments and/or reblogs (even if you hated it). Feel free to share any custom games or house rules you come up with, too. I'd love to try them!

Edit (Aug. 10, 2024) : Final edit most likely; gonna blaze this one more time for good luck then maybe start work on a postmortem for the project, maybe give a little backstory for anyone who cares. Life is a little rough right now, but fate willing, I'll be able to work on/post about my future projects, including the future of Jewel Thief itself

[edenprime]

One of the strongest points of Mass Effect, if not the strongest, is just how well written the characters are. From Shepard, to the squad, to the side characters like Anderson and Bakara, to barely-there NPCs like Ereba and Charr the lovers, Etarn Tiro the enthusiastic turian merchant, Kargesh the krogan who wanted a fish, Lia'Vael, the quarian who gets falsely accused of theft, and the Salarian who wants to buy a memento to his asari lover to remember him by once he's dead.

I feel like so many of them are memorable, and they all serve a purpose to the overall world building. The krogan show that they are not the violent thugs the galaxy has made them out to be. The salarian shows the struggle born out of building relationships with people of a species with a life expectancy so beyond your own. Lia'Vael illustrates what Tali says about the quarians being treated like second class citizens. Those small little side quests have a meaning and a purpose, it doesnt feel like they are Just There, and they add more to the lore of them game to those who care about that stuff.

[larkingame]

hello friends! the first version of larkins demo is up and ready to play!

features:

create your character

chase vampires through the city of saint laurent

interrogate guild hunters after you

meet wyatt and a vampire character that really bites <3

a note: this is the last version of the game that has me as the sole person working on it (as is a good chunk of this has been edited by the lovely @gwaha) i really hope you enjoy :)

[blueskittlesart]

*sigh* thoughts on Nintendo's botw/totk timeline shenanigans and tomfoolery?

tbh. my maybe-unpopular opinion is that the timeline is only important when a game's place on the timeline seriously informs the way their narrative progresses. the problem is that before botw we almost NEVER got games where it didn't matter. it matters for skyward sword because it's the beginning, and it matters for tp/ww/alttp (and their respective sequels) because the choices the hero of time makes explicitly inform the narrative of those games in one way or another. it matters which timeline we're in for those games because these cycles we're seeing are close enough to oot's cycle that they're still feeling the effects of his choices. botw, however, takes place at minimum 10 thousand years after oot, so its place on the timeline actually functionally means nothing. botw is completely divorced from the hero of time & his story, so what he does is a nonissue in the context of botw link and zelda's story. thus, which timeline botw happens in is a nonissue. honestly I kind of liked the idea that it happened in all of them. i think there's a cool idea of inevitability that can be played with there. but the point is that the timeline exists to enhance and fill in the lore of games that need it, and botw/totk don't really need it because the devs finally realized they could make a game without the hero of time in it.

[thefalloutwiki]

Fallout Release Date: October 10, 1997

On October 10, 1997, exactly 26 years ago from today, the first Fallout was officially released!

Happy 26th anniversary Fallout! And thank you to all the developers who have worked on the series as a whole to create something we all cherish! 💜

Here are some excerpts from the development team leading up to the game's release, from the old Fallout website!

You can read more about the first Fallout here:

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Fallout

[sh1-n0bu]

NOBU NOBU

PLEASEEEE CHECK OUT HOMICIPHER

I BEG OF YOU

THERE'S NO DOM READER CONTENT ON IT!!!

im betting my ass you will like either mr crawling or mr scarletta!!

YES YES YES I HAVE COME TO KNOW OF HIMICIPHER AND CAN FULL HEARTEDLY SAY THAT MR CRAWLING AND MR SILVER ARE MY FAVS BUT IM GONNA HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL I GET A PC FOR GAMING TO BE ABLE TO PAY FOR THE GAME AND EXPERIENCE IT MYSELF

[14sunnydaze]

Heya everyone, pushing for another round of ads for our game before we close the early access on Steam. We're a very small team of (2) developers from New Orleans who need your help with spreading the word on our project!!

We've been working on this game for about 5-6 years and just sold our 200th copy! We are very excited to push it before we close early access because we've made some improvements already and want to share them with the 🌎. We are hoping to be able to use the funds from this push to finish the game and start developing the next one.

Our game emphasizes choices and replayability. It contains multiple endings and really is a lot of bangs for very small bucks! It's an adorable 3D JRPG with some charming characters and a world that will only become more queer and diverse as we continue to update it over time. It has a fantastic soundtrack that features a few local NOLA artists.

It's the culmination of a lot of work and heart from two people (one of whom is trans) who want to make diverse games that raise the bar and include people who haven't previously been included. And we want to show that it's possible to make good games without a huge studio backing you.

I've included a few teaser gifs so y'all can see what we're capable of and a bit of the world of Aura and Co.

[norbezjones]

Bez Reviews Independent Books 1: Memory Leak

Hey everyone!  I wanna do little reviews/writeups for the independently-published books I find on itch.io, and so, here I am.  I want to review one book every month or two (or quicker, if I’m lucky); it’ll get me reading more, and get authors who often go without feedback some thoughts on their work!  I think it’ll be cool for everyone!

If you want your book reviewed, the only requirement I have is that it’s hosted on itch.io.  Even if itch is just one of many places you can get the book, I want to review books that have a home there at least.  Feel free to get in touch with me with your books—I’m @NaomiNorbez on Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Pillowfort, Threads, and Instagram; I’m @norbezjones on Tumblr; I’m norbez2.0 on Discord.

Looking forward to seeing your books! <3

__________

The first book I’m reviewing Is Memory Leak by @maxkirin !  M. Kirin is a streamer who I happened to follow not long before their book release.  That’s how I heard about it.  Some light spoilers below, but nothing too big is revealed.  Most of the major stuff discussed you can read about right on the book’s itch page.

The plot is basically this: a trouple made a controversial game that won many awards, and also got lots of hate.  Now, they’re trying to make a new project to follow up such a release, but spooky things are happening.  Will they find out why strange events are occurring, or succumb to the haunting?

Everyone’s trans, and I love it.  Adrian’s trans.  Eva’s trans.  Casey’s . . . idk, very queer at least.  She’s also missing for a while, which has turned the game making trio into a duo as they’re trying to finish their new game based on Twelfth Night by Shakespeare.

Most of the book is about blackouts & memory loss, which occur as development goes on.  Reading about those things hurt.  Especially the part where Adrian says, “It didn’t matter if he didn’t remember. He was making something. Something that mattered.” (pg 17-18).  That hit hard, as someone who’s experienced intense periods of memory loss in the past—that was during my pseudo-dementia era (more on that here if you wanna hear the full story).  I had a similar thought to Adrian when I was making A Single Ouroboros Scale while I had pseudo-dementia.  I was desperate to make an impact because I was convinced I would soon forget everything I knew, including how to make games, and everyone would forget me in turn.  It came out as well as you can expect from a very sick, depressed person (which is to say, not good), as I talked about in the postmortem.  I imagine that for our game development trio, the same result occurs.

The hauntings in Memory Leak are rooted in real-life problems in the game development industry, mainly crunch and overworking yourself in order to meet a deadline.  Though in the case of Adrian, Eva, & Casey . . . was a deadline ever specified?  It’s strongly implied, but not overtly stated, as I recall.  Regardless, as a creator in the internet/social media age, you do have to act quickly to release new works, or the public will forget you.  Perhaps that’s why they feel like they need to work as quickly as possible.  There’s some irony in that—the characters’ rush to be remembered, all while they forget more & more.  It’s sad sometimes, the things we sacrifice to be known.

Also, it turns out the famous game the trio made, King Leer, possibly indirectly caused the death of multiple people, and that isn’t mentioned until about halfway through the book?  It’s surprising how that information flies out of nowhere, like a sucker punch.  If one of my games indirectly caused a person to die, I would be haunted by that for the rest of my life.  But the trio seem to have gotten over it, somehow.

My main little nitpick about the writing is that Adrian is referred to as “the young man” quite a bit, and I didn’t like that.  It felt too impersonal, distant.  That’s also something I do in my own writing, referring to the character as anything but their name to avoid saying their name too many times in a row (I blame my OCD [which I literally do have, that is not a figure of speech]).  So maybe it irks me because I see myself in that repeated action. 

As much as I like the writing style, I do have to acknowledge that it keeps us as a distance from the characters.  They’re young men, young women, lost souls.  It’s like we’re also haunting them, a ghost from beyond getting a peek into their lives from the top-down.  The chapter openers reinforce this: in those, you, the reader, are brought into the story, from a second person perspective, and given information about Starling games from YouTube videos, forum posts, messages, etc.  We see them win Game Of The Year, watch as fans deride & praise them, stuff like that.  It’s definitely an interesting way to give us information.

A big issue is that we’re told a lot that these characters love each other, but that bond isn’t quite shown to me. One can argue that it is between Adrian & Eva at least, but Casey?  In the beginning, it seems like she dislikes Adrian & Eva, but then there’s still a scene where she cries while apologizing to Adrian for yelling at him, saying how much she loves him.  I got the sense that she clings to Adrian & Eva because she used to love them, for a long time, and she doesn’t want to let that go.  Because to let that go would be venturing into unknown & very awkward territory.  How do you break up your polycule if you rely on them to earn a living and make games?  Short answer: you don’t, so you pretend instead.  And when you pretend enough, it can become real again.

This is a problem because the love these characters have for each other is a core tenant of the book, especially in the climax.  I wish we could’ve spent more time seeing how they fell in love with each other, back when Starling Games was new.  At least Casey’s love for the others becomes clearer as the book goes on; that’s a good thing.

As for the big twist, I saw the first part of it coming from a mile away.  That’s not a bad thing—a good twist should fit the plot & themes, not be 100% unpredictable, and this twist did.  The second part of the twist is mentioned on the book’s page, but the execution is so interesting you can almost forget that fact.

Last note: I was hoping the book would tell us why the works the trio make are so fucked up, if they’re a reflection of the soul, or just dark spurts of creativity.  The reason is revealed, and it’s fascinating—after all, if we’ve learned anything from The Beginner’s Guide, it’s that art doesn’t always reflect the author.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book.  It was a very interesting story about the struggle of game development, and how our search for a legacy can haunt us.  The characters are interesting, and the story is very well told.  I would recommend it.

If you want to read Memory Leak, you can do so FOR FREE right here!  Give it a look!  Please!  I’m begging you!

Thanks for reading!  The next review will be of To Wield The Darkest Night by Beau Van Dalen.  But I don’t know what I’m doing after that, so please send me your lovely books!

[fepreuss]

Just finished my first game, Incompetence inc. a point n' click where you work at a private customs office where your job is to not allow illegal merchandise to get in your country. Your objective is to make it through the work week in one piece. I've also got a lot more stuff in the works so feel free to give any criticism you want as im more than willing to improve. also feel free to follow for updates on future projects

[mystybelle]

Truly Cursed WS - a jjk RP(G)

Something cute built on WS - I'll expand it later, but this was a lot for 2 days lol

and the WS SRD again, in case you forgot~

Have fun! I'm gonna crash till I can polish it a lil more

[baeshijima]

i am predicting that sunday will be a nihility character to contrast robin's harmony (hoyo PLEASEEE make him a dot buffer 🙏 i really want him but if he won't synergize well with kafka then i fear i'll have to skip...)

honestly at this point i just want sunday to be drip marketed and released and in my account 😭😭 like i will be pulling him and his lc no matter what his synergy with the charas in my account are bc i need him. carnally. and desperately.

[crehador]

🎉🎉🎉 VRMMO YURI REAL 🎉🎉🎉

[panmanart]

I'm not really sure how to do this, but-

Hi there! I'm working on a little sort-of-proof-of-concept game, an admitting simple boomershooter-esque roguelike!

Still pretty early in development and in dire need of better art assets BUT the gameplay is pretty far along, so I'm showing it off!

I'll likely be showing this off more as it's developed, but I hope what I'm showing off now as least catches some eyes!

Also, don't mind the AntonBlast music, it felt weird recording in silence so I had it in the background lmao

[thefalloutwiki]

Fallout Wiki: Our founder is officially working on Fallout: The Roleplaying Game

We're proud to announce that one of our wiki's founders, Kate Darrow, is officially working on Fallout: The Roleplaying Game as an Editor and Proofreader!

We're extremely happy to have a wiki team member working on an official Fallout game and we can't wait for what's to come!

We'd like to thank Modiphius Entertainment for allowing her the opportunity to work on this amazing Fallout game, as well as the community for their continued support of us! It sincerely means a lot to us. 💜

[goddamneddemons]

pssst I’m the visdev for this ⬆️⬆️