Games in Development
Paper-Soul Theater is a 3D role-playing/ survival-horror/ trade-adventure videogame, modeled loosely after Paper Mario: Thousand-Year Door, about a troubled girl and her nomadic allies, who use peaceful communication; violence; powerful ancient artifacts; and spiritual help to return home, all while discovering the true history of their world. (It'll contain elements of tactical role playing.)
[ Check out the official Facebook for Paper-Soul Theater ]
2017
For Paper Soul Theater updates from 2016, scroll to the bottom of the page.
PHANTOMATICS:
2017
Meat Quest:
2017
2016
The Road Goes 601:
... is an isometric, comedy, action RPG with a battle system that is 20% Space Funeral, 20% Undertale, 40% Knight Move (1990), and 20% Breath of Death 7. The game is about a strange young lady who, after being drugged at a party, thinks she accidentally left her body in a deadly cave. Now as a floating head, she needs to beat up all the lame asshole that stand between her and her goal. The perspective is likely to be isometric fake 3D but time will tell.
2016
SnakePit Zero:
2017
2016
2016 (Paper Soul Theater)
[ Check out the official Facebook for Paper-Soul Theater ]
2017
- September 2nd - We are in the process of rewriting the Game Design Document, as it is 12 months outdated. I think this will help to bring more focus and direction to the team as well as how we present the game. Otherwise, progress has been embarrassingly low due to my focus being put on university work, dating, quality time with friends, and getting enough sleep. There's never enough time in the day for everything is there? I want so badly to work on this game but I often find other things come first, and I've made peace with that.
- August 20th - So I'm back at my university, and the last couple days saw me putting the game on hiatus so that I could adjust to college life again. Sadly, progress is going to slow down again. We've updated out public image, but not much else is worth reporting. Trevor brainstormed a few story ideas and I continued to review the code inherited from Tyler.
- August 8th - This week went by fast. I've been focusing on setting up exterior programs to work with our game engine so that we can import 3D models properly, unlike before in which Tyler had set up a bad long-term method. Our artist made almost no progress, but the writers and I got a lot accomplished. We decided the game needs to start earlier in the timeline so that the player has a chance to properly be introduced to Aponi and Tuari. This change means a large scene will need to be rewritten and I'll need to lay down a general outline for my writers to tackle the start. Interviewing people has not been successful this week, but on the bright side, we collected seven more people for our Newsletter! In other news, I've started to feel uncomfortable by how outdated our website and social media have become. I'm not sure when I'm going to find the time or the people to help updated everything.
- August 2nd - The writers and I are on a role! Between up, we've written one and a half full scenes, which is a lot more work than it sounds because that includes careful revision and taking every single work seriously. We try to get it right on the first draft so that we don't need to rewrite a scene several times, even if the means working overtime to debate each sentence. Our artist many several great pieces of concept art, and I designed a new name logo for Paper-Soul Theater.
- July 23rd - The team had a summer break from working on the game while I vacationed. I got back this morning so I have not much to report. I've been thinking about the game while I was away, and being one step back from the game as allowed me to make a lot of connection between loose ideas! I can only describe it as putting together a 500 piece jigsaw and discovering simultaneously that 5 pieces fit together in a line. I think that is one of the few benefits of taking a lot time to make the game; there is a lot of time to let ideas sit on the back of my mind and slowly work themselves out. If this game was rushed, these deeper design decisions would never happen. I think that is why planning should always be revisited so that fixes can be constantly made to improve past ideas and build on them in ways that make them fit together better or grow deeper.
- July 11th - Tomorrow I leave for vacation and plan to analyze Tyler's game code while I'm away. I asked my team to relax and take a break from Paper-Soul Theater while I'm gone and unable to talk with them. Trong made some great concept art of the flooded forest where the first area takes place, some background information about astronomy was decided, and I began talking with a potential mechanic designer for the game. Also, Paper-Soul Theater hereafter has a hyphen in the name to abide by grammar rules, and to avoid any ambiguity of what the title means.
- June 25th - We made some headway with updating Tuari's design as well as Mossgravens'. I'm making steps in understanding Tyler's code, such as how it remembers where you were before a battle, and the way the code loads models. We began writing a new draft for a long, interactive dream sequence. Trevor and I have very different visions for it which is causing minor issue. Most importantly, we've been deciding a lot about Tuari and Aponi which is important to know moving forward.
- June 18th - Between Jun 1st and June 11th, I hired an artist/ designer who is very talented! I gave him a few simple assignments and he did a really great job. Having a new member who is highly skilled has been a wonderful blessing and my passion for the game has been renewed as a result. After that, the team took a long break because of E3. We may not work 9 to 5, but having days off was just what we needed, and a good way for the team to get to know the new member. Starting yesterday, everyone went back to work on coding, writing, and drawing concept art.
- June1st - This last week has been nothing but awesome. We were interviewed by a gaming journalism site, which was then read by over one hundred people, we unveiled a screenshot of our game for the first time, and I fixed a fatal error with our game creation software! Otherwise, I'm currently commenting on the code to help me understand what Tyler wrote before I took over, and once I finish doing that, we can resume adding code to the game itself. Everyone else is off working on writing outlines for scenes at the start of the game.
- May 25th - In the last month, hiring a new member went sour, but I've managed to obtain a backup programming software so that I can take over programming for a while. I finished another spring semester of college, but decided to take summer classes online to help me graduate on time. Summer classes, I've discovered, gut you of your free time worse than ordinary ones because of their hyper completion speed. Development on this game is and will continue to be slower due to this. I recently have been working on a surprise with a third party that has been occupying my time. In my absence, I had our members draw race designs, and work on world and story building.
- April 13th - We've recently been tackling the dilemma of how to advance with no game-creation software and no programmer. These are both very temporary issues, so try not to worry. You might be surprised to learn that these two weren't caused by the same event. We plan to return to business as usual, and will just plan out what will be coded in great detail so that when we actually have to input the code, it will be as simple as transferring the plans, sorta like buying something on a credit card and actually paying later. In other news, one interview is going good, and I haven't heard back from the other person. We've been talking a lot about the new direction of the game.
- March 30th - To see how progress has been going, read our blog post titled "Rebound." There isn't much point in me repeating information that's already on our website.
- February 25th - I've been working on redesigning Tuari, and in doing so I had the idea to make Aponi's eyes more detailed to make her seem more a live and less like a doll. I might reverse that change if needed. Tuari's redesign is going well so far. Meanwhile my designer is having a hard time mapping the hexagons in the editor, and my writer and I are discussing the first rough draft he wrote for scene 2. Him and I are making good headway on perfecting this method, since writing rough drafts of each little scene is a new experience for both of us, and a clear sign that the demo is fully in production. To be honest, I was hoping I would have time to make the hexagon art by now, but more pressing work had to be done first, such as redesigning Tuari. As of now, my number one priority is finally to make the textures. I hope we can get a screenshot out before the middle of March.
- February 16th - So we lost two members yesterday, well officially. They were both gone beforehand for different reasons. Our 3D modeler left one day without telling anyone for no stated reason. Our new artist left because she felt it was premature of her to join the team with the responsibilities she has to deal with currently. She was never a real member because of the one-week length she was with us, but she was able to help us decide on a permanent texture creation software and tested out the art style for me which was a big help all things considered. Because we now have a stable set up, the only thing to do now is hire a new artist and make the art while we wait for a new artist to come help with that. I personally feel like a big weight is off of my shoulders now that I just need to make the assets and arrange them.
- February 7th - Our plan for the scene shown in the future screenshot is solidified at last. Now we just need to find a solution to what art program we will use, because our current situation horrible for the long term. Finding a free program that does a watercolor look is not easy.
- January 24th - Sorry that there hasn't been an update here in a long time. We hired a new writer, but lost an old writer and an old artist, which was incredibly sad for everyone who had grown to know them for such a long time. A few camera and log window mechanics were tweaked and added, and we made a list of all the art assets we'll need made before the screenshot can be shown off.
- January 1st - The new iteration of the plot has been accepted, which means it is now solidified and not a concern anymore. I'm glad to be moving on. The plot has caused many-a debate in the past recent months, and I don't think it will anymore, with the exception of the ending which is still a little fuzzy.
For Paper Soul Theater updates from 2016, scroll to the bottom of the page.
PHANTOMATICS:
2017
- September 2nd - While I haven't worked on this game in several weeks, it is currently the second most prioritized project behind Paper-Soul Theater. The goal is to finish updating it before the end of the month, but that might be wishful thinking considering how much work is still be to done and how little time I can dedicate to gamedev these days. The game now has an option menu but most of the options presented aren't yet added into the game and more content needs to be added. I have already planned out how the story will be altered and about how much more content I want.
Meat Quest:
2017
- April 13th - I continue to work on updating the art, and I have been planning out new ideas for the future direction of the game, but very recently I've run into a bug when I transferred my copy of GameMaker Studio that fucks up the games that I make, so until I finally buy a new game-creation software (or program my own engine) I'll just have to update the art and plan.
- February 18th - Recently the music has been my biggest worry, so I spent the morning seeking out music that could be legally reused in a sold videogame. I found 4 classical songs, and a song from the early 20th century that I plan to remix and overlay with a handful of remixed recordings of wind. It will take some effort to make it feel ethereal and ominous like how I hear it in my mind's ear, but it should be a really fun process. I also still have a flute song, composed by an old friend of mine, that was made for this game but cut due to time constraints. He was the same composer who made the Forgotten Time song in the Everlasting Night OST, so I'm excited to finally use it!
- February 1st - Today, if I am available, I will begin working on this game again for the first time in months, marking the official shift from Snakepit to this. Looking at it again with fresh eyes made me realize that I will need to devise a plan for music. Most of the soundtrack is remixed, rather than unique compositions, which is a problem given that I want to sell the game.
2016
- September 24th - I worked on the art for the game and placed some of the GUI into the new location for the next room. Progress is slow but I'm having a hell of a lot of fun. This is a good game to work one in order to take breaks from PST.
- June 23rd - Recently I have been improving the graphics of the game up until the end of the beginning cutscene. Two backgrounds are more crisp and detailed. I also fixed Meatius and the player's hands. The bugs had a bug were they would fail to play their animation but I fixed that and also tweaked their AI to be easier and slower. I began work on moving the buttons over to the side. The bug score is now consistent with the art style of the game. The game was updated yesterday.
The Road Goes 601:
... is an isometric, comedy, action RPG with a battle system that is 20% Space Funeral, 20% Undertale, 40% Knight Move (1990), and 20% Breath of Death 7. The game is about a strange young lady who, after being drugged at a party, thinks she accidentally left her body in a deadly cave. Now as a floating head, she needs to beat up all the lame asshole that stand between her and her goal. The perspective is likely to be isometric fake 3D but time will tell.
2016
- October 1st - The Road Goes is officially on hiatus. I will not be working on this game in the near future because other games have risen in importance to finish in the near future. For those who are potentially angry about my "unfulfilled" promise to release this back when we just got our 100th follower, what I meant is that I'll revive the game and one day release it to the public. I did not ever intend to release the game immediately after announcing the game on Twitter.
- September 22nd - I uploaded a new song to the official soundtrack. That'll all that's new.
- September 9th - I've made little progress lately but I did redesign the battle mechanics, add a new title screen, and change the story and projected length of the game.
- June 29th - I improved Diane's sister and the dialogue with her. I decided all characters need to look consistent with the art style which made me want to go back and fix her.
- June 22nd - I updated Diane's design, making her more goth/irritated. I decided that battles with only give you two of your four options each turn to make combat more like a choose-your-own-adventure book, and faster paced.
SnakePit Zero:
2017
- January 28th - If you read the recent blog, then you already know that this game will be downsized in scope and absorbed into Meat Quest. I don't feel Snakepit, on its own, is worthy to be purchasable because I predict it to be on par with mid-high tier free browser games. I still want to expand on the story a little, but the RGB 3x3 pixel design will have to be cut so as to make the game fit with the window of Meat Quest. I might reuse the RGB for Peanut Caravan or something else. From now on, if you want updates on this game, you'll have to read about it through the Meat Quest section. In fact, this particular section will be deleted in about a month.
2016
- December 15th - I've been working on coming up with a plot to Snakepit, because it doesn't have one any deeper than "a crazy wizard turns you into a monster so you want revenge in hopes it will turn you back." One of the things I admire about Gargoyle's Quest is that it uses story in an elegantly brief way to both explain things really well as well as give the world a sense of depth. Zelda 2 did these things too, but being on a Game Boy, the inclusion of a deep story had to have come at a sacrifice and as a challenge for the devs. I feel most platformers these days are in bad need of narrative sense.
- October 30th - I've been working on this as my secondary game since Oct. 15th but I haven't made much progress, since my time is better suited for Paper Soul Theater and my personal life. Recently, I've been working towards upgrading the intro text while also trying to add gamepad/joystick support. In a few weeks, I'm going to go back to working on Meat Quest as my secondary project.
- September 28th - A week or so ago I began work on resizing the game and changing the screen resolution to be bigger. That means I need to update like 60% of the art and all of the dialogue. Progress is slow but it looks such much better!
- September 6th - The game has been lightly updated and ported onto GameJolt. I plan to work on this game a lot in the near future since the next planned update is fairly small and deals heavily with adding content, which is one of the more fun parts of making any game.
2016 (Paper Soul Theater)
- December 20th - I'm working on pitching my fleshed out version of the plot to the team, who agreed that it would be better for them to take that and modify it rather than create it along side me. It seems like a great deal for me as the founder of the project, and I think it will set a new precedent for how the writing is going to go for now on. In other news, I now have a personal deadline for a few important milestones like releasing a screenshot, starting on final-draft assets for the demo, and the demo release.
- December 3rd - The team has been focusing on developing the details needed to be understood before content can be made for the demo. Before that, we were even discussing the overall story of the demo.
- November 18th - We had to let a writer go a week or so back, and decided to not hire a replacement. I now feel like three writers, one being myself, is plenty. We've been discussing the story of the game as a whole in greater detail and it's lead to mild disagreement and me no longer feeling satisfied with my original plot line. In other news, we officially choose an art style for 2D images like characters, fauna, and some flora. We still need to decide on an art style for 3D, but I consider this a big milestone.
- November 3rd - Recently, our programmer acquired and heavily modified a level editor for our content designer and I to use to design the layout of the demo. Unfortunately, the editor is mildly complicated and neither one of us have learned out to use it yet. Our team recently had a Halloween party (even game developers need to relax as a group once in a while. "Office" parties are important no matter what occupation you have.) and it went very well; every single team member except one attended. Regarding assets, or even the story, there has been an annoying lack of any progress in the last week or two. This school year seems to be buying up everyone's time more than last semester, and as a result, the team members, myself included, have a less time to focus on the game and haven't made much progress. I'm beginning to wonder if my policy on "no deadlines" is doing much more harm than good.
- October 22th - Now that I've worked out all the basics a while ago, we've shifted into writing out a more vivid idea of the events that happen in game before the chronological start of where the demo takes place.
- September 28th - I'm in the process of revising, and adding to, our written plan for the game, which the writers think is an important prerequisite to writing out the story. Until we write the basics of the story, we can't start working specifically on the demo for the most part. It's frustrating, especially because I'm extremely busy with school right now.
- September 19th - We had a big meeting recently in which we decided a lot about the foundational ideas for the game. We also made decisions about the story. In other news, I might be hiring two different new members for animation and side work.
- September 10th - The team and I decided a lot more about Aponi's partners and the races that are in the game. We debated and then decided not to change the games name. I was worried that having the name "Paper { something}" would not only be too close to Paper Bugs and Paper Tails, but would also give Nintendo a bullshit reason to send us a cease and desist letter.
- August 24th - We are beginning to rewrite the story for the demo today. It will likely be revised since some writers are taking a break from the project at the moment. A few core mechanics have been redesigned in exciting ways.
- August 13th - We made the hard decision to stop working on Project Lemon and partially start over with Project Dragonfruit. We did this so that we could change the story to take place within the main story, to test more core mechanics. Project Dragonfruit is planned to be made public (most likely) which means we needed to go back and do things differently. We have so far planned the foundational aspects about the demo.
- August 3rd - Many people have been working on art lately so that we can finally get this starting room finished. Music and writing are also underway. The gang is getting together to play a game tonight which is exciting.
- July 20th - Now that the 10 day vacation came and went, we are struggling to get things back on track. Most progress we are making at the moment is planning related in several aspects of the game. Physical assets seem to be taking a back seat which I'm not too happy about. I plan to shift my time into helping with art more.
- July 5th - Very little as gotten done recently except for a few things of concept character art, tweaks to the demo, and a new writer being trained. I have to prepare everyone for when I go on a 10 day vacation soon. We plan to have a big group meeting later today.
- July 1st - I helped my artists know what the flora, in the location of the demo, will look like so that they can start official art. Another inn building was made by our programmer and we discussed scaling art in-game. I looked over the pantheon of gods that a writer submitted and made sure everyone knew what they need to do for the next few days.
- June 30th - Nearly the entire team came together to discuss what all needs to get done in the near future from music, to revising important documents, to designing the GUI, to art assets, etc. Before the meeting yesterday, I interviewed a new programmer/artist. I updated this entire website this morning, which also meant updating information about the game.
- June 19th - Tyler (our main programmer) and I worked out how to export models and give them proper textures; this was a very fundamental task we will be doing often in the future.