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playing with some overworld designs to match the book schematics!

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Postmortem for Mudborne is up!

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Close to 100%ing mudborne, and I really love it! TY for making this game!

Thank you so much for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!!! It really means so much to me <3

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Congrats on the release!

thank you so much!!! :D

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MUDBORNE IS OUT!!!!

my funky little frog game about genetics, science, frogs, mud, bugs, and dreams is out now!!!

well ok, yea it's been out for just over a week now - but with nearly 15,000 players in the first week to say i've been busy with patches has been an understatement... not only have i been overwhelmed with the volume of bugs (that weren't even tasty ones), but in general i've been blown away by just how much people... actually... like it?

there was a large portion of development were I just lost all faith in the idea, too many things unsolved, so many doubts - i'd spent too much time in my own head that's for sure. but now it's out, and people are loving it, and the reviews have all been just so lovely. thank you so much to everyone who has been playing, it really means the world <3

whether you've played APICO before and enjoyed it, or never seen either of the games, if you love menu management, and frogs, and MATH, then I think you'll enjoy it! (there's also a demo so pls do try before you buy) also there's a story and it's good (imho), and it was my first time doing music and that's not bad either!!

I'm relieved, and finally able to sleep, and I'm glad it's all over and I also can't wait to do it all again! :')

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Okay it’s not release I meant release DATE LOL still congrats you’re nearly at the finish line!!!!

haha you were just given congrats from the future!! thank you so much! nearly there now 💚

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Hewwo! I've just seen the release date for Mudborn, congratulations!! If I want to cover the game on my tiny YT channel, is there anywhere I can ask for a review key?

Hello!!! Thank you so much :DD The fine folk at Future Friends are publishing this one so they'll be managing all that so I'd say best bet would be email them directly around the time hello@futurefriendsgames.com <3

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Mudborne Release Date + New Demo!

Hey friends! Been a hot minute, I've been swamped with getting Mudborne finished off and munching through SO many bugs however I am pleased to announce that Mudborne is going to release on March 20th - World Frog Day! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2355150/Mudborne_Frog_Management_Sim/ To celebrate the occasion I've also uploaded a brand new demo to Steam + Itch.io so you can get a taste of what's in-store for you <3

If you loved APICO I think you'll love this - and if you've never heard of APICO and just rlly fuckin love frogs then hoo boy this is for you Pls wishlist + see you soon!!!

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got my first ever trophy for gamedev! mudborne won 'tastiest jam' at GWB 2024, a category for games that started life as a gamejam entry <3

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Year In Review

Hey friends, and happy new year <3 I hope you all had a lovely break and are ready for the 2025!

Here's a little recap of what I've been up to this past year:

Personal

2024 was the first year of me doing gamedev full-time, for the whole year! It's certainly different to back when I was making APICO on the side of a full-time job (and later freelance work). I feel a lot more pressure that what I make has to be 'good', and by 'good' I mean good enough to pay the rent.

With a lot of APICO's gameplay, I just did what I personally thought would be fun, and the end result is a weird combination of things but those who get it, love it. With Mudborne I've been trying to do the same thing, but I have a lot more worries about certain mechanics or moments that I wouldn't have if it wasn't tied to keeping the lights on.

I can't say I'd ever go back to my old job all the time I can sustain myself making games (the big red date on my whiteboard tells me I have until October 2026 until I run out of money!), but it definitely has been a noticeable change doing art for money instead of hobby.

With APICO done, all the games I'm making are all in my own engine built on top of the LÖVE framework, and it's made things so much quicker to create. At the time of writing Mudborne is very nearly finished up, and it's taken only 8 months in total working full-time on it. I'd love to get into a place where I can comfortably making a game every year or so, without feeling rushed. I have so many different ideas I'd love to make, and only so much time!

APICO

APICO had it's 3rd and final (sorry) content update, "A Hive Of Industry". This update added a bunch of automation machines, plus a lot of stuff you all asked for, including pets, decoration and a butt-tonne of QoL tweaks.

I've also done a few little bug fix patches here and there which I'm sure gave you all a bit of false hope on new content when the download queued! It was nice to finally 'finish' up APICO - sometimes I wish I never did any of the content updates but I think looking at it now I'm happy with where it ended up, even if it's still a lil janky and bloated and I think all the art looks wack.

I'd love to come back to it one day, in a seperate game. When I drew up the new credit postcards (above) I had fun invisioning a game where you do go to the mainland and help clean up the environment using your bees. I think it'd be nice to take the same APICO gameplay, streamline some of it and make it all fit better (especially the money making side), and then expand the bees to all have functions in restoring nature.

However I think that'll need to wait a while as I have 2 game children screaming at me to finish, and a bunch of other ideas I want to get started on!

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Synthesis

I don't often join gamejams, mostly because of the time limits they have, or I just don't personally have any time - but in 2024 I joined the LÖVE Jam, for games made with the framework.

I was still learning the framework at the time and tinkering with the engine I'd made to create the Snacktorio demo, so I thought it'd be a good opportunity to have a break from the APICO stuff that was getting me down at the time, and learn a bit more of the framework.

I was really happy with the end result - 'Synthesis'. I wanted to make a puzzle game with different modules like what you get with old patch synthesisers. As you mess with the different modules it changes the patterns drawn until you eventually come across the combination needed to match the required shape.

I also made a point not to ever explain any module's function - you just learn through doing very basic levels and then the rest you just learn overtime by doing. I wanted it to feel very experimenty for the player.

It was really fun to put this together! I had 10 days and pretty much used them all. I also did the music for it because I wanted to start practicing music creation for Mudborne, and was interesting in having the music 'evolve' with the puzzle progress.

I think it'd be cool to revisit one day as a 'full' game, as you could have lots of different module types and interactions, and let players connect modules themselves in different orders which then affects the outcome.

If you want to check out the game you can get it over on itch.io here: https://ellraiser.itch.io/synthesis

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Mudborne

Ah Mudborne, my beloved. I've spent what feels like an eternity working on this game, when it's only been 8 months. I think I've stared at frogs more than I have the real world, but I've enjoyed pretty much every part of it.

It's been an interesting process, first I did like concept art for the rough game, and worked on all the individual mechanics - then I worked on the actual world development and story and tied it all together.

After the new demo was finished up, I spent a long time just designing the entire world and how everything connects, then piecing together the story. The writing in this one was definitely a killer as I've never written like a proper big story, let alone one with a few twists and turns. 

I wanted something players could piece together themselves, and get clues from all over the place to work out certain things, so there was a lot involved in making sure it all fit together nicely. At the time of writing this I've just finished up all the final dialogue lines, and now it's just a lot of drawing and polish left to go.

I'm planning to do a private playtest this month for the first time, so I can try and streamline any tutorialisation stuff and see if I've made things a bit _too_ difficult. I'm pretty confident it's a fun game but it's weird how hard it gets to judge that the longer you work on making the game.

Once the playtest is over it'll just be some last little bits to tweak and any changes to make and it'll be ready to release! Crazy to think it'll be my second published game.

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As for 2025, I'm not sure yet what I'll be doing! The only thing I do know is Mudborne will be released this year, which is very exciting, I just can't say when yet. After that, I'm not sure - I'll need a long break that's for certain. I'd like to start working on Snacktorio proper and get that finished, but it depends on my brothers workload  (he still has a 'real' job). He did a lot of the work on the game design of Snacktorio and has a good idea for the levels, so I wouldn't want to really do it without him.

If he is free, then I imagine Snacktorio will get polished off this year, maybe an early 2026 release! If not then I'll just have to work down the list to the next game idea and get started...

A big thank you to everyone who played any of my games in 2024, all of the new APICO players, returning players for the 4.0 update, froggy friends excited for mudborne - without all of you I wouldn't be able to do this and I'm extremely grateful. Here's to 2025! ~ Ell

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yea i guess you could say i'm a bit of a gamer 😏

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you may not like it but this is what peak gamedev performance looks like

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Hello! Just want to say thank you for apico! I got back into playing on switch after a long hiatus and am delighted by the coral reef updates especially 💕🐝

aww thank you so much!! glad you're enjoying all the new updates, lots to catch up on since coral was added :D

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matchin profile pics for u and the gang

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clean up crew!

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going up!

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would bee rude not to have a lil apico reference somewhere