What I have been up to in 2019...

     Hey everyone! I wasn't really expecting to come back to this dev blog in 2019 and make another blog post again. I have been away from blogging for so long. I decided to just quit doing it because it felt like a waste of time and I wanted to focus all my energy on just making the games instead of talking about them. But you know what? I was wrong. Blogging isn't a waste of time. I built this thing up over the years and it's a great way to keep everyone updated in detail on what I have been up to. I don't do youtube vlogs or really keep track of my "evolution" as a game dev really well. And posting tweets on Twitter about progress and whatnot can't really fill that role. Also, I have a lot of history on here and this blog kind of fills as my personal archive and journey as a game developer. I still can't believe I started this way back in 2011. I have learned so much and changed a lot as a game developer and 3d artist over the years. It's crazy to look back at my older posts, artwork, and games.

     Anyway, let me just get right into it and give you guys an update on what I have been up to all this time. First, I would like to say that I am not dead. I'm still very alive and very obsessed with game development. More obsessed with it now than when I first started.

     I know that 2019 has been a pretty dry year for me so far. At the beginning of the year, I launched my official website and ported my most recent game "Giraffe Town" to Xbox. That's it. Other than that, I kinda disappeared. By the way, Giraffe Town originally came out October last year. It's pretty old now for being called "my most recent game". That was the last game I made. So, it's been almost a full year now and I haven't even hinted at a new game. Nothing new on my Youtube channel and I haven't been very active on Twitter lately. (But then again, I have a special rule for myself when it comes to Twitter. And that is to remain secretive and not post screenshots, footage, teasers, early wips, dev images or anything from my new game project(s) until they are finished. I don't like to share any of that stuff until after a project is finished or released. I'm just weird like that.)

     So what gives? Why haven't I done anything this year? Did I just get bored with game development and decide to quit? Did I run out of ideas? Did I get a new career as a hot male model instead? No to all of those things. I know 2019 has been a pretty slow, unexciting and dry year for "Snowconesolid Productions" aka the "greatest independent game dev of all space and time" so far but, that doesn't mean it has been an unproductive one. As a matter of fact, I feel like this has been one of my most productive years ever so far. But a different kind of productive. Not the kind of productivity I can show publicly in an end product like a new game release. It's more like, "behind the scenes" or I guess "under the hood" kind of stuff.

     No, I haven't been spending all this time just working on one new game or my next "big idea". Instead, I have been working on all areas of myself as a game developer and an independent studio. I feel that I have made it pretty far as a small-time game developer from when I first started years ago. This is something that's actually my career now and I would like it to remain so for as long as possible because I sincerely love creating games and have so much respect for the art form that is video games. I'm really fortunate and grateful to be where I am today and have the opportunities to do what I love doing. So, if I want to continue to pursue this thing, I wanna do it right. While I'm proud of my previous game, "Giraffe Town" and it was a major step up from my first game on Steam, it still showed a lot of my weaknesses as a game developer and designer. Giraffe Town showed a lot of flaws and many areas that I could still improve in. I've really started to take my career as a game developer more seriously after that game. Giraffe Town was a big milestone and a major turning point for me.

     Instead of reusing assets or mechanics I have made for that game and just quickly cranking out another new slippery controlled game in a shorter time to ride off of that momentum, I decided to take a step back and rethink how I approach making games and completely just rebuild myself as a game developer. I've said before many times that quality and polish are super important to me. I don't want to be seen as another hobbyist developer that just threw a game together and put it on Steam but, instead, more of a professional who knows what they are doing. I really want to deliver cool experiences and games that are enjoyed. I'm trying to step things up and I think rebuilding myself (I am a machine) is a good first step.

     So, what have I been doing this year so far? I have been planning and becoming more organized. I have been learning and re-learning, researching and experimenting with new approaches to game design, game techniques, optimization, improving my skills, trying to create my own unique 3d art style (I think I have found it). I have been building a pipeline for my own style of production instead of just being all over the place so that I actually have a good format to work off of so that I'm not always confused and lost about what I was doing. I have notepads full of ideas I want to create and I have started several new game projects. I created a ton of brand new 3d art such as new characters, environments, and props that I have never shared and so much more. So, pretty much, I have just been setting myself up for the future and getting ready to really operate like a game developer. I haven't been thinking about my next game (that will come in time), but instead, I've been thinking about where I want to be and what I want to accomplish as a game developer. Just really putting in a lot of thought into everything, how I can accomplish creating an idea a certain way and so on. I have so much cool stuff planned and things that I'm working on. I really feel like I have come a long way and really improved a lot since creating Giraffe Town and hopefully, that will really show in my next projects. I've really invested a lot of time into rebuilding myself and I think it's all worth it if it means my creative output will result in better quality games.

     So, although I might have been a little quiet this year with nothing new to show so far, I promise you will hear a lot from me down the road. I haven't abandoned game development and I'm really excited to eventually start putting out new content. If you read this far, thanks so much for sticking around and listening to a crazy person ramble on. This has been a super long post and I normally don't like spending time typing up big blogs that are just all talk like this but, I feel like I had to post an update. From this point on, I probably won't ever make another blog post like this again though. And, I still probably won't post updates here very frequently. Just going to keep hammering away on the actual projects from now.

Before I go.
I shared these screens on Twitter a while back, but here they are again in case you didn't see them. A couple examples of some of my newer 3d work and what you can expect my next game projects to look like. I'm very proud of this 3d style. If I had to describe it, I would say that it's a weird mix of cartoony/stylized and early uncanny "realistic" computer graphics. Think early 2000's (maybe a little earlier) 3d game promotional art. The renders of promotional art you would find for Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie or Donkey Kong for example. I loved that kind of look and that's really what I'm kind of trying to go for.

Alright, that's all for now. Thanks, everyone who still visits and reads the blog!

Not good at having an online presence

     As usual, here is another late overdue blog update. The last few posts I made have been art and game design/development related which is really the whole point of this blog I guess. I mean that's why I started this whole thing to begin with. To talk about game design and share my works of "art". This post is kind of different though. I've been doing this indie game developer thing for a while now. Years actually. And I don't know what it is, but I feel like I haven't been doing it right. The main thing especially is communicating. Sure, I have this blog that I post updates on every once in a while to share what i'm working on, or talk about video game design or just have some kind of presence online. But, it just doesn't seem to be really doing it. After releasing "Potato Thriller" (which was my first commercial game) I felt like I had to really go back and pursue this indie developer journey more seriously. Learn more, improve myself, build up my skills to produce better quality and more polished games and so on. And I have been doing that. It feels like I have been working on improving my game developing skills forever now.

     I haven't released anything at all since Potato Thriller as of this post because I have been spending so much time reinventing my skill set. But it isn't enough. Going back to the communication thing, I feel like I have been terrible at communicating. I have a YouTube channel, but I barely ever use it and when I do, I just post some random shitty weird animation I pieced together. 90% of the content on my YouTube channel makes absolutely no sense at all. I have two twitter accounts, my main one which I occasionally use and my "productions" account which I made to exclusively just self promote my work, my games, art and brand or whatever. You know, like those company/studio accounts that the big boys have to self promote their brand. I thought, "i'm a game developer, I make stuff, I should make an account to promote my own brand!" - I barely ever even look at that account.

     I don't know. I'm just not good at having an online presence. Not good at doing PR stuff or whatever. You know what I mean. And I see so many other people who are just so naturally good at having an online presence. It's like woah! These people are so much cooler than me. I don't know how people do it but, it's impressive for sure. I applaud those who can pull it off. It's hard to have an online presence and communicate with people. Like, it takes some real talent and skill to manage. Social media is hard! I'm not an old man or anything. Age 25 as of this post. But I am just so naturally bad at social media. But then again, maybe that's because I spend all of my time dedicated to working on my game projects. But sometimes it just makes you so out of touch man! Game developing. It's a lonely and cold thing.

      I'm not really sure where i'm going with this blog post. It's kind of all over the place. Just a rant about myself. But I do want to reinvent myself. Or at least try to be better at the whole online presence thing. I really need to reinvent how I communicate, use twitter, YouTube this blog. YouTube especially, that's a big one. It definitely is the best and most efficient way to share, get info out and communicate with your audience. I mean, I don't even have a freaking comments section on my blog. I get daily page views and visits but I don't know what people are saying. I can't interact with anyone on here. I mean I can. I can just add comments, but it's just different from a comments section on YouTube. So I really want to get into YouTube and start using that as my main platform of communicating, sharing updates and rants and whatever. And I know, I think I have said "I want to get into YouTube" like a hundred times on this blog throughout the years and never really follow through. I guess blogging is just easier and quicker than filming a video, editing and uploading. But I want to do it! I might go back and clean up my current YouTube channel or just start a new one entirely to have a fresh start. I would still post updates here on the blog as well of course.

     Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post that kept jumping around. Kind of confusing rant I suppose. It's different from what I normally talk about here on the blog. I'm not sure if this was even really worth posting. But I already typed it, so why not.

     As for new projects, as mentioned many times already in previous posts, I am working on multiple new game projects and I still believe that 2018 is going to be a great year. I have so much new content I want to get out there and my new games are a major step up from anything else I have ever developed. I'm excited to continue creating games and sharing them. My next game will probably be announced and have an official Steam store game page within the coming weeks. I'll definitely keep you guys posted!

"Snowconesolid Productions"

Snowconesolid Productions logo

     Let's talk about "Business". This is a term that I personally cannot stand for many reasons but mostly because I am just bad at it. However, if you are serious about something or want to pursue your dream beyond it just being a hobby then you will probably be faced with this term numerous times. More specifically, lets focus on one of the most important parts of your business and that is "Branding". Whether you are a new YouTuber or Twitch streamer trying to make it big or a small indie solo game developer such as myself, the branding means everything. I think that building up your own brand is very important because it creates an identifiable image or name for your company, for your product and most importantly, for yourself.

Snowconesolid Mascot thing...

     As you can see by my own logo and mascot, obviously i'm not an expert on branding. But having or building your own brand is cool because it allows you to have this alternate name or alternate persona that is associated with your work. I started learning how to create games back in late 2010 and ever since then I have always identified myself as "Snowconesolid". This is the name I decided to go with as a developer. I know it is a very strange name, and I have talked about this before on the blog - it is really just a silly name that has no meaning. It was something I came up with years ago and then just started using it as your typical "online screen name" or online persona. The purple-cat mascot thing (above) also has no real meaning. It was just something that started as a terrible random drawing I did on paper years ago that continued to evolve. For some reason I decided to make this my logo and something that would identify my work. I started placing the words "Snowconesolid Productions" in all my games as if I was an actual game studio and ever since this has just been something I continued to roll with.

     Anyway, as I continue to hit big milestones in my journey in game development the more serious I am starting to become as a indie game developer. I know I don't make the greatest games but I am constantly working hard and doing my best to keep improving. I have been doing this for years now, but the more I do it, that need to continue creating just keeps getting bigger. I am normally the type of person who tries something and then eventually gets bored and moves onto something else. But with game development that is not the case. I am very passionate and love creating games so much. I am starting to realize more and more that this is something I want to continue doing. So I will continue to make more games and expand my brand as much as I can. 

     I recently created a new separate twitter account: @SnowconesolidPR

This account will be the account for "Snowconesolid Productions". I'll be honest though, I will probably only use this account to spam "promote" my new stuff  such as new games, Steam greenlight campaigns, etc. Hopefully I won't come across as too spammy promoty (that's not a word) with this account.

     Anyway, my main account is still: @snowconesolid
This is my original account. It will still be the account that I will use more and be more active on and get to actually just be myself on. So if you are interested check those out. (Or don't. Totally not trying to advertise my twitters right now...)

     Anyway, to end things off I just want to quickly take the time to say thank you to all of you out there for constantly giving me the motivation to continue doing what I enjoy doing. This blog has been up for years now. It was dead when I first started, but as I continue to post and look at the stats for it, i'm seeing that it is starting to get daily visitors and the numbers are growing. More traffic is coming in. More people are starting to reach out to me on twitter and take the time to say "hi", or "your game is cool". And more people are checking out my games and letting me know what they thought of them. And that is just so cool to see. Seeing people take the time to play something I created or take an interest in my work makes me genuinely happy. It keeps me motivated. So thanks everyone. You are all awesome and I am so grateful for all of you. I look forward to sharing the journey ahead!

His name is "PonyTail"

     Today I wan't to talk a little bit more about the main character of my next game "Samer Hills" and reveal some more information on the game. This is a character I created a while back and even posted a "making of" section here on the blog which you could find here: "Making of PonyTail"

     His name is Ponytail. Why? because he has a ponytail. (I am very good at naming my characters) 

The information that follows in the rest of this post are considered minor spoilers for my own game. But knowing me, I am terrible at keeping quiet about my work and just can't keep things secret. Also, I really enjoy sharing each step of the development process here on the blog.

      So anyway Ponytail is the main character in "Samer Hills" - a chubby, mustached pink wearing stylized comical character who sports a ponytail hair style. I have always enjoyed games that are closely connected with their characters and show how their characters evolve throughout the game as the player advances deeper into the story. This is what I want to achieve with "Samer Hills". The game itself will really be focused around this character. 

    A couple days ago I posted this picture on my twitter saying "brothers or same person?" And right now is the time where I begin to give away minor spoilers for the game. So the bearded man is actually the same character as the original pink wearing Ponytail character. As I was just saying, this game will focus on the main character and his evolution throughout. At the start of the game you are this worn down big bearded crazy looking guy who looks like he has had a pretty tough life. As you progress more and more you get see how he changes. 

     Eventually Ponytail looses the beard, gets a cleaner look and begins wearing this pink uniform (which will also be explained more in the game) The character himself is going to be a very strange and questionable character. If he is good, bad, crazy, sad, etc is really going to be left up to the player to decide. 

     This game is all about character building. I think that Ponytail is going to be a really unique complex character to play as and will make the game an interesting experience. I am working my best to deliver this experience as it will be the first time where I make a game that focuses on building who that character is instead of focusing on the game world and its enemies. Of course the game world and other characters will contribute to the main character as well. As always, it will turn out to be a really weird game but I am really excited to share it with everyone once its done and then maybe what I am saying now will make a little bit more sense once people have actually got to play it. 

More updates coming soon!

Im back. Updates. Making a new weird game + future plans

Hey everyone. I am back and have a lot of cool stuff to talk about. I'll just cut right into everything without rambling on and on. The character you see above is a new character I recently created. He has a ponytail. I named him "Ponytail". I am experimenting around and plan on using him for my next game. What kind of game will it be? I don't know yet. I never plan any of my games. I always just create stuff randomly and throw that stuff into the unity engine and eventually come up with a game. Maybe that is why my games end up turning out so weird. *cough* Potato Thriller *cough*

Anyway, I created ponytail, I threw him into the unity engine and made a small prototype demo. 

Again, just messing around at the moment with no real game design plan.

Hey, remember those donkey characters I made a while back and also showed off a working prototype demo of? You know, these donkeys ?

Well guess what, they are back! See!

I will probably make the donkeys and ponytail part of the same game instead of making two separate games. Who knows, maybe down the road I will also make a separate game for each character. But lets focus on whatever this project is going to turn out to be first. 

Here is another screenshot from the new demo. If you remember, the coffin models here are the same ones I made a while back when I announced that I was making a cartoony game about a vampire and garlic. Do you remember? You know this one over here. Yup, I posted an update that day, said I was making some game featuring that vampire character and then vanished. I haven't updated the blog since. What happened to the vampire game? I don't know. I might eventually go back to it. But for now, my interest has shifted to making a game featuring my new ponytail character. 

If you guys haven't noticed by now, I make a lot of 3d characters and 3d models in general. I have so much 3d stuff I create, esp characters and then end up not using. I literally could make dozens of new games with all the 3d models I create on a daily basis. But that just isn't really my development style. I like to work on something until it feels right to me. Until it feels like it came from me. Until it feels like it has that "Snowconesolid" type feeling to it. Not sure if this makes sense to anyone. But it does to me. I can't really explain it. 

Anyway, I will probably end up making some kind of new horror game with my new characters and the donkey characters. I don't know yet. We will see how things go. But I am definitely in the mood for developing something new. I want to post a new "Making Of.." for my Ponytail character later on the blog. Which I will get to maybe later today or tomorrow. 

Other Updates:

I also plan on posting a new video update soon. Maybe a new "Cookin Games" episode over on my channel showing off the new prototype demo in action and just to kind of reconnect with everyone who follows this blog and my youtube channel. So keep an eye out for that here on my channel

I also kind of feel like adding new content on my youtube channel. Stuff that is not really like developer updates or anything. I want to expand and get into new stuff. Not just game making all the time. Like I said earlier, I have a ton of unused 3d characters and props. I also have so much of my older 3d stuff from other projects that I could reuse. I don't know for sure yet, but maybe I will start doing animated short series and posting those to my youtube channel as well? We will see. It depends on if I get the time. So I am not making any promises yet.

Final piece of news. I haven't really said anything about this until now and I am not sure how much I can say about it so I won't get into too much detail until later on. But I finally signed with a publisher. I signed my previous game "Potato Thriller" with a publisher and they have a major update planned for it and everything so I am eventually going to go back and work on the update for PT and go live with it on Steam eventually. That is all I will say for now. I'll keep posting more updates here on the blog though. 

Anyway, I have been keeping busy. I have a lot of new stuff that I am really looking forward to get working on and I can't share with all of you. Thanks everyone once again for all the support and stay awesome. More soon!

New game about a vampire and garlic....

     Hi everyone. An update on the blog is long overdue so here it is. I recently started working on my next new game project. I created a bunch of new assets, a new character, etc. I have no idea what the game is going to be or how it will turn out. I am still in testing/playing around with ideas stage at the moment. The game will definitely be something about a vampire and balls of garlic though... because that is all I have done.... for right now....

Anyway, just wanted to post a quick update to prove that I am still alive and making stuff. I'll keep creating. More updates soon.

Here is some more screenshots from development for now. bye!

Release: Potato Thriller Steamed Potato Edition!!! Thank you.

     It is finally here everyone! Potato Thriller has finally launched on Steam! The very special edition version of the game, "Potato Thriller Steamed Potato Edition" includes the full story mode from "Potato Thriller" and exclusive fresh content just for Steam.

You can check out the games official Steam page over here:

 STEAM - Potato Thriller Steamed Potato Edition

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

     Thank You. I know I have said this a thousand times already; but I want to say it one last time because I truly mean it. Thank you everyone so much for your support and votes. My game would not be available on Steam today if it wasn't for you guys and your interest in my game. I honestly appreciate you all. I have been making games for a number of years now and this is the first time I ever get one of my own titles onto the Steam platform. When I first started making games long ago, the idea of having my content on such a platform never even came across my mind. I know this might not seem like a big deal to some people and most people are thinking "A lot of developers get their games on steam. So what?", However, to me it means so much. For me personally this is a big accomplishment and huge milestone as an indie game developer because, although I know I might not make the greatest games and sometimes my games can be very bizarre - creating worlds, characters, stories, video games, entertainment, is something that I am very passionate about and truly enjoy doing. And, the fact that I get to share my creations with you all just means the world to me. It motivates and inspires me to continue making games, improving  my skills to create better quality content and just keep doing my thing in general. For that I am very thankful and grateful to all of you who are interested in my work. Thank you everyone. More blog updates coming soon, more strange games coming soon and just more content in general. I'll keep creating. Stay awesome everyone. 

Preparing for steam release and game updates!

     Hi everyone. Quick update. Ever since Potato Thriller has been greenlit, I have been working non stop on it, adding new features, extra content and really polishing it up. I am currently prepping the final game for steam release which is something I am very very excited about. There are still a couple of things I need to do and finalize before getting it up on steam but i'm getting there. I am currently working on the steam page as we speak. My goal is to have the game up on steam within the next couple days or hopefully sooner. The game is finished. I have all the final builds ready and everything is going very smoothly. I have a small announcement about the steam version of the game that I would like to share real quick before I get back to work. Also I have some updates for the original game.

Steam Version:
     As a way of showing my thanks and gratitude for having my game get greenlit, I wanted to make the steam version a little special. The steam version of Potato Thriller will have exclusive new extra content that the original game is missing and it will be listed under a slightly different name. On Steam, the game will be called: "Potato Thriller Steamed Potato Edition" as opposed to just the original "Potato Thriller. It is the same game but with the exclusive extra steam content. Here are some screens from the steamed potato edition:

Game updates:
     There have been a couple of annoying bugs I noticed and have been pointed out to me in the original game that I released over at itch.io such as the mouse staying on screen or moving out of the game window, etc. I have fixed all these bugs and polished it up. The game is now the most recent updated game that will be the steam version, just without the exclusive extra steam content. So if you were one of the early buyers or purchased the game through the itch.io game page site, please download the newest updated game to get the best experience.

Now on Gamejolt:
     The Game is now also available on gamejolt.com which also includes the most recent up to date build of the game.

Get Potato Thriller From:
GameJolt
itch.io
Steam special edition (Coming Soon)

Thank you everyone once again so much for all the support and voting for my game to become available through steam. I am really excited and looking forward to releasing the steam edition in the next couple days. More updates soon.

New Vlog series - "Cookin Games"

Hello everyone. For many years I have been posting updates about my game projects and random stuff here on my blog in written format. However, vlogging (video blogs) have been around for quite a while now and is a pretty popular format especially for youtubers and even gamers. 

I believe that people like visual stuff. We enjoy actually seeing and hearing about things more then just reading text silently in our heads (I know that I am definitely a more visual type person) so I decided to create a new video series called "Cookin Games" and all this is, is just me rambling on and talking about my projects and sometimes even off topic random stuff. Its kind of like a blog podcast with a visual element in the background. So as I commentate in the background, footage of something I created like a early prototype from a game or project I am working will  also be shown. So with these two very important elements (Visual) + (audio) I think a much more special experience is created then reading text off of a blog. 

My goal with this series is to showcase some of my newest work and discuss and share it with you guys and hopefully even entertain and interact with those of you who are watching or leave feedback in the comments section. 

This is something that I have been planning on doing for a while now. Becoming more active on my youtube channel. So I look forward to creating more dev vlog videos and sharing. As for this blog, I am not replacing this blog with my youtube channel. I will continue to post updates on here as well of course. :)

I have just uploaded the very first episode. You can check it out here:

I am not really much of a youtuber and don't really have high expectations or am aiming to build like a giant youtube channel with tons of subscribers. Thats not the case at all. I just thought this would be a fun way of better interacting and posting updates. Creating silly indie games is my main thing. Apologies for the constant "umms" and "ahhhs" and sometimes long pauses. Still new to the vlogging thing. Hopefully I will improve at it.

What happened to Potato Thriller for steam?

I did not forget about this. Actually, getting my recently greenlit game Potato Thriller released on Steam is my primary focus at the moment. I have been working on it. It is all I have been working on. I am working on an updated version for steam and adding extra content and stuff to it because I want the steam edition to be special and cool. I will have more updates on that in the next blog post. I actually recorded and created the very first episode of this new vlog series about a week before Potato Thriller was greenlit on steam. So I thought I would just upload this real quick to kick off the series then get back to work on PT. But I will have more updates about that in the next post. Thanks everyone once again and more soon to come.

Potato Thriller Afterthoughts

      Hey everyone. This is a blog post I wanted to get up a couple days ago but never really got to it. Anyway, its not really an important blog post or anything like that. Its more of a post where I kind of just ramble on and talk about my afterthoughts for Potato Thriller, my most recent game.

     As many of you know, I released "Potato Thriller" three days ago. April 1st, 2016 to be exact. Potato Thriller is an indie horror game that obviously does not take itself too seriously nor is it really even intended to be taken seriously at all. However, it is something that I am actually very proud of.

      I have been posting about this game for while now here on the blog for the past couple months. Keeping updates about development and how things are going and so on. Originally this game was just going to be a simple short one level game that was a silly take on the "Silent Hills P.T." demo. It was just some random quick game I wanted to throw together in a couple days. However, as I continued to develop the game and created more and more content it eventually expanded into this huge game project that took its own direction.

     It became something that was more than just a parody of  the Silent Hills P.T. demo. While some elements have been inspired from the Silent Hills P.T. demo such as the looping hallway and a very similar level design (the looping hallway level), the game itself - "Potato Thriller" is actually nothing like P.T. at all.  It became my own original unique game which features a cast of colorful characters and a strange but somewhat interesting and sort of complicated story-line that I made up as I created the game. Gameplay mechanics changed up throughout the game. Level design became unique and different and started providing a challenge, different enemies were introduced and actually had an established A.I. to kill the player, more characters were created and tied into the story and the game actually ended up turning into a full game that had actual gameplay. It became a game that is not just another indie horror game where you walk around and wait for a jump-scare. Its not just a jump-scare game. Its a game where you could actually get killed in many different ways. A game where you could progress further into the story to learn more about what exactly is going on.

Aside from that, Potato Thriller also turned into a game full of mystery. There is a bunch of hidden content in the game that might not even really have anything to do with the game itself. Some people might find some secrets as they play. Some secrets are harder to find than others and some secrets might never be found in the game at all. Aside from the story-line in the game, I wanted to add these hidden elements into the game. I wanted to create an experience that would make the player feel strange. Like get a "what? is this suppose to be happening?" or "is this actually part of the game?" type of response. The games story-line is one element of the game while at the same time, these secret mysterious elements hidden around may contribute to something greater then what the actual game is. Maybe the game is hiding something else? Maybe there is more to it. Will it ever be discovered? Who knows?

     Anyway, I am not really typing this post up to brag about my new game and show off. Nothing like that at all. I know my own game has its flaws. Its not perfect and not the greatest indie game out there. As a matter of fact, my game doesn't even really have the most positive feedback. A lot of people bashed the game and said that it is garbage, low quality, poorly made, etc and that is completely fine. In games, especially indie games, there is always going to be some form of negativity. Its just natural. I don't really blame those people for thinking this way either. Making this game, I kind of expected responses like this. I knew it wasn't going to really going to become this big thing. I knew that not many people would really be interested in it. Potato Thriller, is definitely not a game for everyone. Again, its not really a game that is meant to be taken seriously or take itself seriously.

When I was making this game, I wasn't aiming to be the best. I wasn't planning on creating an amazing epic game that was going to be "the next big thing in indie games". I wasn't saying to myself, "okay, I have an idea for such a cool indie game, I need to start working on it, post it to kickstarter, get funding for it, THE PEOPLE NEED THIS! etc" (off-topic, but I honestly hate kickstarter and would never ever ask for funding to create a game on any funding site.)  It's not a game that had stuff like documentation, planned game design, pre-made concept art or any early concept work at all. Its nothing at all. It was a game created with no background intentions at all. Its one of those games that was created without a purpose. A game that isn't really trying to be anything.  Its a game that I just really enjoyed putting together. Honestly, nothing was planned for this game and I just made it up randomly as I went. Its a game full of ideas. It was just a game project that I would open and close from time to time. Whenever I randomly thought of an idea, I would just throw that in the game. However, with that said, there is an established story-line in the game that explains everything. A beginning, middle and ending.

With all that said, Potato Thriller is definitely a game project I am very proud of. This is the biggest game I have ever made. I created so much content for the game and just really happy with the overall results even if its not the most appealing indie game ever, I actually did put in a lot of work and effort into creating this strange title. Even though its a really weird game I stuck to it and finished creating it. I really enjoyed making it and had fun. Again, this post isn't to brag about my game, but its more of a reminder for myself to see the milestones and accomplishments that I was able to achieve while making this game. 6 years ago, it was my dream to create video games. I knew nothing at all about making video games and I thought I would probably never learn how to create video games. Over the years I created many video games. Each game I improved more and more over the last. I was constantly learning more and more about game development. And looking back at older projects and seeing content that you created yourself is a really awesome feeling. I don't necessary make the best/good games, but I try. Making games is something that I truly love doing :)

Thanks for reading.
Potato Thriller is currently available on itch.io

Big changes being made to Almond-Hill Silent Meow, stealth gameplay

     Hey everyone. Just as the title suggests, I am making some major changes to my current horror game project. It's no surprise that I am making even more major changes to the game. I have been making "major changes" to the game ever since I started the project. But of course this is something completely normal to do during the development time of any game project. For me, I find it really interesting to look back at how the game was when it first started in its development phase to see how much has changed as more progress is made over time. At this point, I think I have made changes to almost everything in the game. I will admit, the game I am working on now is not even close to the original vision I had for it when I first started. But this is better, I like what I have planned for this project and I think all these changes I am making are for the better.

Anyway, enough rambling. Let me talk about the actual changes I have decided to make. If you are following my work in progress thread over at the unity forums right here  you might have already read my latest update on the game and know the changes I am making but if you did not, I am going to talk about them right here.

Remember that demo I released a couple weeks ago? (In the blog post below this one). Well, that part of the game never happened. I am completely removing that part of the game I released as a demo because it no longer fits in with the games new plot I have come up with. If you played the demo you know that the character Leon Coffeebean is killed by this mysterious masked villain who is after Almond the cat. This was suppose to be the opening that starts the game off and begins the main story. Now with the changes I have decided to make, none of that stuff ever happened. I am actually removing the main villain character completely from the game because there is no longer a main villain. (The masked man that kills Leon in the demo)

Leon Coffeebean is never murdered. As a matter of fact, Leon Coffeebean now has probably one of the most important roles in the game and its new plot.

The new plot:
Leon Coffeebean teams up with Detective Pekoe to search for his lost cat Almond. Leon Coffeebean guides Detective Pekoe (you the player) to various places around the town of Almond-Hill. The places Leon takes Detective Pekoe are places Leon believes his cat Almond may have went to. However, the reason Leon guides Detective Pekoe to check out these places instead of checking them out himself is because Leon is afraid to enter any of these places himself. This is the reason why he asks Detective Pekoe to help him out.

Ok, enough talk about game changes. Now I will discuss what you can expect from gameplay.

When making a game I realized almost nothing ever goes as planned. You come up with this idea and then you say I am going to put this in my game. That is not how it works. Well for me at least it does not work like that. I try putting in what I planned at first and then, while I am actually creating the level or putting it together I do other things. I come up with different ideas and change things. I will do this instead of what I originally thought of. Anyway, this is what happened to me when I was working on a level yesterday. I was doing something I was planning on doing then I don't know what happened and all of the the sudden I was trying to work out stealth game mechanics. And this is a good thing, I think because I like the new ideas I thought of.

Gameplay and Stealth
So with all that said, there is going to be this stealth element added into the game. It is a horror stealth game but at the same time unique where it doesn't feel like a full out stealth game because it has other things mixed in with it. Anyway, to add in this stealth type gameplay I am working on new characters/enemies. I will try and create different enemies with different abilities for each level to keep the game fresh throughout. Earlier today I revealed the first new character/enemy that you will encounter early on in the game.

This is Patrol Doll

She is this ghostly character that shoots out these yellow beams of light from her eyes. These yellow beams represent her line of sight and if you are in her line of sight during the game you will be sent to a room called "The Feeding Room". When in this room you have ten seconds to find an exit or else a mysterious beast will feast on you. There is usually more than one patrol doll scouting the area. There is no way to defeat this character so the best thing to do is avoid her by sneaking past.


That is all I have for today's post. I think Almond-Hill is turning out great despite all the changes I am making and I can't wait to show even more in the future.

Expanding the blog, small welcome game and Unity Playmaker

Hello everyone.

Once again sorry for the lack of blog posts but I have some good news and hopefully starting soon I will  be more active here on the blog once again.

As many of you already know by now, the reason I have been barley posting on the blog is because ever since I released "Revolver Finger" for android I took a huge break from working on anymore of my game projects and started to focus on improving my skills. Mostly my 3d art skills because I want to deliver much better quality games from now on. I believe I have greatly improved in many areas since my last game release and think its almost time to get back to work. I have been planning on starting my next game project soon. I don't know when yet, but plan on getting back to developing games sometime in May. Anyway, wont say anything about my next game right now, that's kind of for a different post.

First, before I get back into developing more games, I think this blog needs a little change. So I have been planning on redesigning it a little bit and expanding it. I will be adding some new sections to it soon.One of the new sections that I am going to be adding to this blog is an all new "Welcome" page. This brings me to the next thing I was going to say.

I am going to create a welcome page in a very different way than most welcome pages. I am putting together a very small game project that will be on this welcome page. This will not be a game that is meant to be played for the purposes of playing a game or a game with replay-ability, it is going to be an extremely small game (a single short level, maybe about 1 - 2 mins long) that welcomes users to my blog and introduces me the developer. So its more of a game for promoting my blog. It is an interactive way for welcoming site visitors. So this small game will be on the welcome page and once the user reaches the end of that very short level it will open up my actual blog. Off course users will have the option to skip the whole welcome thing entirely and just go straight to my blog. I understand it would be annoying to have to play that welcome game over each time. But yeah, you may have seen similar ideas like this on sites where they have maybe a short video play or some interactive thing before it takes you to their website.

It will be just a very small, basic super mario inspired platform level. But don't expect too much from it because once again, this is not really a game project, it is just a short single level game for introducing the blog on the welcome page. Its just a small little feature I am adding that is part of the blogs "expansion". So at the moment that is what I am working on. It does not really count as a game project but more of a nice small practice project and also promotional project. Thats how I see it.

Here is some WIP screen shots: This is just a quick prototype version I put together, I created some real simple assets that are very super mario 3d land inspired as you can tell. :)
But yeah, these are not screens from the final build.

Also, here is my most recent original character I created. This will be the character you play as in the very small welcome project.

So what about actually making the next true "Samer Khatib" aka Snowconesolid game?
Ok, so after I change up the blog a bit, redesign/ tweek it a little to look better and create that welcome project I will probably then be ready to once again start working on my next true big game project. So as I said a little earlier, I plan on going back to developing games sometime in May, most likely near the end or half way through May. Well see. Maybe I might start earlier. Depends on how things go for me.

One final piece of news I want to put out there is from now on for all my future game projects I will most likely be using the popular Unity add-on/tool "PlayMaker" for developing all of my games. I just recently bought it from Unity's asset store and think its great. I am still new to it and learning how to use it but have already played around with it and so far I am impressed. For those of you who use unity you may have heard of or also use playmaker for your development. It is actually one of the most popular add-ons for unity and a lot of unity developers use it. For those of you who have never heard of it let me tell you about it. Pretty much it is a visual scripting tool. It allows you to build a game using these nodes. So pretty much you don't need you write a single line of code. I think this is a very good alternative way for developing games. If you have ever used blender's game engine, it is similar to playmaker. Blender's game engine uses logic blocks.

So why use playmaker for development?
There is a whole bunch of advantages of developing a game with playmaker instead of coding up the entire project.

First of all you save a lot more time on developing the actual game. I like coding and all but at times it is extremely time consuming and can be tedious to type lines and lines of code. I know first hand because I have three years of programming experience and coded all of my previous projects.  Playmaker allows you to rapidly develop your games saving a lot more time. This is actually the most important benefit of using playmaker over coding and is a major reasons as to why I decided to make it part of my workflow for developing games. Now, I can spend all that extra time focusing more on the art side of the game.
As a solo indie game developer, time is the most important thing because you do not have a team. You don't have some one to work on the art or the animations, the programming, etc. You need to create everything yourself and that takes up an extremely great amount of time. With Playmaker however, you can now save a ton of time you would of spent on typing lines of code and use it for something else.

Don't get the wrong idea now, I am making it sound like playmaker just magically makes the game for you. Its still programming in some way, but just visual node based programming. But yes, it does make things a lot easier and quicker.

You would think that people who buy playmaker are people who do not know how to code at all. This is not true. Actually a lot of programmers like using playmaker. If you have playmaker and know how to actually code than playmaker is a hundred times more of a powerful tool because you can code in your own custom actions for use with playmaker. I definitely plan on coding in my own custom playmaker actions for my future projects. So say for example I needed to create some kind of vehicle movement for a simulator of some sorts but playmaker's library does not have such an action. Since I know how to code, I can just write my own custom action and then add it to playmakers library so I can use it as a node whenever I want. I believe that visual programming is the future of coding. Have to keep up with the times. Although I know a lot of programmers will disagree with me.

If you are a solo dev or with a team and use unity I highly recommend using playmaker for your development. Whether you don't know how to code or are an programming pro, playmaker is an excellent tool for any skill level and is extremely effective for rapid development.

Anyway, thats all I have for now. Sorry for the huge blog post but I had a lot of things to share this time since I am not posting here as often. I look forward to getting back to developing games again real soon and hope to have some great releases this year.