July

I started July with a small break in game development and decided to spend some time actually playing some games instead. I was absolutely hooked on Environmental Station Alpha and played it to almost 100% completion… or whatever the game calls 100%. I think it goes up to some absurd number that I forget. Whatever, I played a lot of it.

I jumped into grinding out some background art for Super Sky Sisters.

I also took some time to do a quick mock up of a potential Travel Pillow game that I'll probably get around to making someday. I think to really pull off what I would want out of it I would need a team of some people working on it with me, and who knows if I could ever actually make that happen.

In the wild world of my Pathfinder campaign my party ended up going back in time about 9300 years. My Samsaran Oracle, Ryn, got to meet one of his past lives face to face. A psychotic worshipper of Zon Kuthon. She was murdered by the party in front of Ryn as she was being held in his arms. It's probably the most traumatic things I've ever experienced in tabletop gaming and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It was cool, I guess, but I would be lying if I said it didn't actually mess me up on a real level. Anyway here's a drawing of Ryn and his past life, The Seventh.

On a lighter note I made some more cool effects in Sky Sisters using some shader magic.

August

Time to buckle down and grind out a bunch of artwork for Super Sky Sisters! Of course because I added a secret boss to the game I now have to animate those secret bosses. What have I done.

I also thought "gosh wouldn't it be cool if the game had an actual story?" So I got to work grinding out over twenty huge illustrations for the story in the game.

I think all of that grinding on artwork boosted my art skills for this month because I was able to jam out some really cool illustrations of Ryn.

Including one of a bunch of his past lives which I still really like looking at it now.

I think I still felt pretty discouraged about it though because I posted these on tumblr and got no notes! Oh well, nobody really follows me on tumblr anyway.

At this point in the month I knew that I would be heading to PAX, so I dug into some more things on Sky Sisters that needed polish like all of the menus.

September

Through the generosity of one of my best buddies in the world I was able to show Super Sky Sisters at PAX. I had just a little corner of a booth to give demos of people and sometimes I even talked to them if I wasn't feeling so socially anxious that I tried to hide behind near by furniture.

The amazing and talented Chevy Ray gave me FAN ART of Sky Sisters which made me so so so happy. It is the first and possibly only fan art of the game!!

Back in the wild world of Pathfinder one of our core party members died. It made sense for her character, but I still kind of wish it could have worked out differently. She went out in a blaze of glory, so I made some tribute art for her. She didn't really like Ryn that much, so I tried to convey that in my art of her.

After PAX I was feeling pretty inspired to add some few things to the game. I was still trying to figure out things to add that make both players feel engaged at all times. I tried bullet reflectors first which I think I still like, maybe?

One of the coolest things I added though is player specific enemy shields. Later in the game enemies can spawn with shields that can only be destroyed by a specific player. This forces both players to engage with the enemies. Maybe.

And the final new addition which I am still playing around with in present time is the idea that upgrades are not automatic, but instead driven by a task that the two players can do involving moving the orb around a shape.

This month was a blast productivity wise. I was feeling a huge boost from PAX, but unfortunately I would soon feel the burn out that comes after a huge amount of productivity.