Our Steam page is LIVE!!!
Plus more exciting news, plus some behind the scenes art / boss fight stuff etc.
Hello again! It’s been a minute, how have you been? We have been well. We’ve had a handful of sprints, a few playtests (with a few more to come) and some exciting news to share!
Three pieces of exciting news actually:
Exciting news item one: STEAM PAGE LAUNCH
Big news for our little team – we’ve been working on this game for over a year and change, and our Steam page is finally live!!! 🎉
For the uninitiated, Steam is the main place indie games are sold online (though we’re also aiming for Nintendo Switch). Game studios publish their Steam page during development as a way to create interest and get the word out. If people browsing Steam like the game, they’ll often “wishlist” it, which tells Steam to show more people the game. About 20,000 Steam pages go live every year, so if you could give us a wishlist, it would be a huge help towards us being seen!
Wishlist solicitations aside, this is a huuuuuge milestone for us. For me personally, it feels like completing Act One. We’ve put a lot into figuring out what this game is about / how it plays, and we’re finally ready to start showing it off.
Exciting news item two: Teaser Trailer
And one way to show it off is with a trailer! We spent a few weeks putting together this teaser for our Steam page. Amanda stitched it together beautifully and our buddy Carlos Andujar generously composed music and SFX. It flows really nicely and the ending logo animation Amanda and Patrick put together is so satisfying with the music. Check it out!
Exciting news item three: DreamHack ATL
The last piece of news I wanted to share isssss we got invited to show off our game Oct 31st - Nov 2nd at DreamHack here in Atlanta! We’ll be running a booth with two demo kiosks so you can come and play 10-15 minutes (or IDK 30 depending on what type of completionist maniac you might be). We’ll have some stuff to give away and some cool decor thanks to Amanda hand-crocheting us sound sprites.
I tried to convince Patrick to do flash tattoos at the convention but he informed me that it’s probably illegal / unsanitary / unwelcome there. Another time, perhaps. He will be guesting at Afterglow while he’s here, so if you’re in the market for a new tattoo check him out!
What else we’ve been doing
We’ve been heads down tightening up our demo. We got a lot of great feedback from our Brooklyn / Atlanta playtests. Here are a few things cherry-picked from our recent sprints:
The Lamplighter
Sound sprite visual designs
Before (dev art by me)
After (Patrick pass)
Frog Boss Greyboxing
A loose Zelda-like boss battle I started greyboxing last week (meaning I created it with just basic 3d shapes). Our game is more geared towards exploration vs. combat, but we do want to have a few encounters like this to keep players on their toes.
We didn’t have any music for it so I threw in one of my favorites from the SNES era + some SFX from another game. Curious if anyone recognizes them. :)
That’s all we’ve got for now - we’ll be playtesting in ATL again at My Parent’s Basement on October 7th. Feel free to come play our game! Or try out others – there’s lots of really fun / varied games to play around with.
Game of the Month: Silksong
You already know. Or… you might not. There are two camps right now. One that was anxiously pressing refresh the day Silksong released and broke every store it was launched on. And the other camp has probably never even heard of the game. No judgement from me either way.
I’ve gotta say this is one of the hardest games I’ve played in recent memory. I’m about 1/3 of the way through it and I’ve almost snapped by Switch in half ~20 times in rage. My children are worried about me. But I will prevail. Patrick’s already beaten it, but I’m taking my time… relishing the details and the rich story (aka sucking at it).
Honestly, the level of detail that Team Cherry put into this game is unbelievable.
It’s a 2d game that reads like a 3d world. The environments seem to recede infinitely into the background. Every bit of ragged cloth or damp moss reacts to Hornet, the main character, acrobatically bouncing around the environment. It’s been in the works for a long time, but I think it was well worth the wait. Even if I do go to bed every night with bloodshot eyes (from eye strain, not from crying because I keep dying during the runback to the Last Judge).
Thanks for reading - see you next time! 🎵