Gardening

HOW IT STARTED   /   HOW IT'S GOING

I used to have a hard time keeping a house plant alive. But now I've embraced a small garden for the hot and sunny time of the year.

Gardening is a great way to balance out the gamedev lifestyle. It forces you out into the sunlight. Requires you to do some physical activity. And gives you valuable time away from screens.

As time marches on, you witness the cumulative change happening before you. Just a little bit of progress each day amounts to major change, and bears fruit in the end! Much like we hope for our gamedev projects.

Aluna Released, GDEX 2021 Next

It's been a very busy year. After a lot of hard work, it's nice to say that Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards is available on PC/Steam and Nintendo Switch!

Aluna as it appears on Nintendo's eShop

There were many aspects of Aluna's development I found rewarding. Working with established characters and creating a new adventure for them is a special kind of challenge I enjoy. And creating vast top-down worlds for the player to explore was engaging. I had to upgrade my PC just to handle our custom RPG Editor! The streaming engine can be extremely demanding when viewing an entire level at once.

Aluna's chunk-based world editing gave us a lot of options on how to lay out the levels. And I enjoyed creating 3d tile sets that could go in any direction, and rise or descend.

Here you can see a massive ziggurat constructed in our engine:

RPG Editor view of a level from Aluna

Same level zoomed in

And here is what it looks like zoomed in a bit closer. The gameplay camera is even closer in.

Reaction to the game has been positive, here is a review:

https://www.hgunified.com/gaming/review-aluna-sentinel-of-the-shards-pc.html

My favorite part of a new release is getting to watch players stream their gameplay sessions, either live or archived. People may react to different parts of the game in ways you didn't anticipate. It's exciting to see and provides a lot of late-night viewing when I can't sleep.

I meant to post more about Aluna right at release, but I've been swamped with more work since then. I decided to post now on the eve of GDEX 2021 in case any of my fellow devs are interested in what I've been up to. I plan on attending the con this weekend at the Columbus Convention Center. See you there!

Splash page for GDEX 2021, the local gamedev convention in Columbus, OH

RIP Freenode

 Welp. I think this marks the end of an IRC era.

https://isfreenodedeadyet.com/

https://www.devever.net/~hl/freenode_suicide

https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/202106/goodbye_freenode.html

See you on https://libera.chat/

Keep deving!

also never forget my admin skillz...

http://www.tylak.com/oops.jpg

Aluna Making of Interview

What a long, strange, and difficult year we have been through. We lost some great people. I can't explain it. Can't quite get to grips with it. But I want to do my best to move forward. So here goes.

Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards, has been my main focus through these times. And I'm very proud of the work we've done on this game. The game will be released soon (probably next month: April 2021). And we have an amazing "Making of" video released.

EDIT: I noticed the embedded video was not appearing on my phone's browser. So here is a direct link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH8w0jPmqN4

It's a unique title. And I'm happy that N-Fusion Interactive was able to bring it from concept to completion. That's my favorite way to make a game. :)

More updates will come. But get your Nintendo Switch and Steam PC ready to explore this extraordinary world!

This Sucks

Chelsey made me a cloth mask per CDC guidelines.

This sucks. You know what I'm talking about. But I don't want to complain too much because my personal situation is not that bad compared to what others are going through.

Actually most of my time was spent working from home before the pandemic, so I'm really thankful to be working right now. I'm also thankful for the measures taken by the state of Ohio to keep us safe. Columbus is a great place to live and we're all working together to get through this.

High Street is depressingly deserted.

So besides the outbreak, and the upcoming release of Aluna, there's even more going on! Chelsey and I moved in together. Well, mostly moved. We still have a lot of things in boxes, furniture stored in different locations, empty rooms waiting to be filled, and a dining room with no table or chairs. But there's not much we can do about it with the lock-down in effect.

Awwwwwww.

None of this seems to be bothering Izzy the cat. She's my new late-night gamedev buddy. My new alarm clock. And my new napping pal.

We're going to be okay.

Good luck everyone. Call your friends and family. Stay connected. Stay safe. Stay sane. And if you can, do some gamedev!

Aluna in Times Square!

It's not every day you get to see the game you're developing appear on a large billboard in Times Square. So this was a nice morale booster for the team as we approach the launch of Aluna.

I'm thrilled!

(..and tired, a little burned out, but also thrilled!)

Keep on deving devs! ;)

My New Game Announcement! Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards

I'm happy to say that my current game dev project, Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards, was officially announced this week. Here's how the game is being described on TheXboxHub:

"...Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards will see us given the chance to follow the exploits of Aluna, the warrior daughter of a Spanish conquistador and South American nature goddess Pachamama. After being raised in early 16th century Spain, Aluna has escaped to the New World only to realise it was in fact her true homeland. And it is here where we fall into Sentinel of the Shards to head off on a quest through Inca mythology as Aluna strives to restore the amulet her goddess mother entrusted to her."

Read more at:

http://www.thexboxhub.com/arpg-aluna-sentinel-of-the-shards-to-take-you-on-an-epic-quest-through-inca-history

https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/aluna-sentinel-of-the-shards

https://alunagame.com/

From my perspective, designing Aluna and building her game world has been a great experience and I'm excited to see players' reactions when they take control of Aluna and explore her world.

The game will be available on PC, Xbox One, PS4, and Switch!

And I would also like to mention that I will be attending GDEX "The Midwest's Premier Gaming Expo" next month in Columbus, Ohio (October 11th-13th). If you're in town, let me know!

https://www.thegdex.com