itch.io

there is no theme.

https://thewaether.itch.io/devourer-the-minigames

I sent you a message on mastodon

yeah it is ok as long as it fits the definitions of being a bit of an open sandbox (I said that yume nikki counts as an open world game for instance) but also don't worry if you don't get it perfectly right, you can release something anyway

this is incredible. moving and heartbreaking, and the abstracted art style and powerful imagery fits the story perfectly. it will stick with me, and I've been unable to stop thinking about it since I played it two nights ago. I know lots of people will have found catharsis and closure on their own trauma from playing it. I certainly have, and I hope you have while making it, too.

there's a lot of things I want to put into words about this game but it'd take a long time for me to truly get those thoughts in order. I played through twice making different decisions each time and noticed more and more small details and dialogue on each playthrough. it's just such a powerful work of art, I don't know how else to sum up what a complex rush of emotions this is. thank you so much for making this.

https://thewaether.itch.io/katelabs

thanks for enjoying it! and it was made in Blitz3D, which I use for everything- it's an old, dead, unsupported software, but it still works

love these graphics, feels really detailed with things like all the different plant types and the little decorations hanging from trees.

I also collected I think every signature, and tried to do every side quest. really scoured the environment for everything

lots of these ideas are things I've been wanting from the start, I especially want to add something that automatically duplicates an object connected to the original object so you can repeat it in a grid formation while it is still treated as one object. nd this would also allow for fractal-style repeating or other mathematical objects.

another thing I'm going to add is "glue" that can stick two objects together...

and then I'm going to add "prefabs" that store an object and everything glued to it as one object you can store in a file and place into any other scene!

adding re-texturing and "locking" objects in place in 2.02, and I'm gonna keep updating this more frequently now. instead of a big update infrequently, I'm going to do small, frequent updates to get each of these features in soon!

oooh, I didn't realise it worked this way. I've put 2.01 at the top

this was a good question so I asked a few people if there was enough interest in starting a discord for this game and they said yes! so I made one! it's a day old right now  https://discord.gg/Et8DqP42uq

I'm going to update it about once a year! I like the idea of importing models and things into it too, but you're right, I don't know how I'd start with that!

in a way I think the limitations kind of inspire more creativity, but at the same time I want to expand it as much as possible.

I don't have a blog post about it specifically, but I charted development on my tumblr and twitter accounts (but it'd be kind of a mess to sift through) I could def write some more hopefully, someday.

And I coded it in blitz 3D (which is what I use for everything, lol. It's very old but it's the only language I know back to front and also it produces low poly graphics really well so I stuck with it)

The environments look fantastic and I definitely had to add this to my collection of liminal space games

the movement needs a lot of fixes, though- on a slower computer,  the puzzle with the diving board is hard, where your jump height seems to be a little too low to clear the bar. would also be good to be able to turn the motion blur off.

the swimming controls are also almost unusable, it takes a while to find the way out of the first pool you plunge into, where you're kind of being knocked around like a pinball until you can get out.

this is promising so far, especially on the art side of things.

unfortunatley the software I use to code (blitz basic) cannot compile for mac :(

There's an invisible wall around the whole level and it clips into the cave slightly unfortunatley... Will fix if I have the energy to make an update. But yeah, you can save and quit in any room and you'll be in that room's centre when you reload (which I added just in case this very thing happened)

That was great. I laughed out loud a few times. The script flowed so well

It works now. Juggling with accounts but it works

presumably you can also access the stacks and hub- the only other accessible places to you would be the city and the first unlockable door. Hmmm. The only thing these rooms have in common that isn't in the others is that they play gif files on the screens in the levels. It must be having trouble with directX's movie player

Thank you. Although bear in mind I've been at this for 15 years

Good to see other people still using the software, tho..

I'm working on it... really

I'm currently working on fixing this, it's a load of hoops paypal's making me jump through. Hopefully I'll fix it this week

oh damn, I didn't realise! It seems there was something going on on the settings where I had to resubmit some information. I don't know how long it's been like that. Anyway, it's fixed now!

It's FLCL

blitz 3d. it is old. There is no evidence it ever existed. They recently re-released it for free https://blitzresearch.itch.io/blitz3d

blitz 3d. it's so old its website no longer exists. and it's also free https://blitzresearch.itch.io/blitz3d

This game made me feel a lot less alone.

@Jupiter_Hadley: I notice it was running really slowly and you couldn't figure out how to get out of the opening cutscene. (you just need to wait, although it took a long time for you)  D'oh. I probably should've taken speed into account. I hope you managed to play the actual game eventually, there's some cool things hidden in the city. Thanks for being interested!

https://amyrot.bandcamp.com/album/d-s-a-original-soundtrack There's only one album on my bandcamp right now but I put a lot of effort into it. At some point I plan to branch out into doing non-game music, and other game soundtracks. My style right now is kind of muddy and synthy, although that's just what this game's soundtrack called for, since it was set at night, and themed around the same styles of music the game is about. I also haven't been doing this for very long, and I'm also working my way towards being able to make the kind of music I've always wanted to (which would involve learning to sing...) so I decided to roll my own soundtrack as practice, as well as for its own sake.

https://soundcloud.com/amy-rot I'll post my soundcloud too, but it's not game music, it's just me clowning around with mashups, etc. It's old and not really anything I'd put front and centre to represent my style.

I've been using Blitz 3D since I started. It's actually pretty good, but it's no longer supported and it's showing its age. I definitely want to use something new for my next project, something with similar features (3D graphics / code is all text rather than an editor / light on RAM) so I'm checking this thread to look for recommendations. (If you've got a good one, just reply to me directly)

(I've tried unity but found it too fiddly. Same goes for Unreal, and I'm trying to get to grips with monogame but I'm having lots of compatibility issues with models.)

As for everything else, I use milkshape for modelling (this is also really old, and I wouldn't recommend it per se, but it is surprisingly easy/fast to use for simple low poly models, so that's something), audacity and a korg M1 for music/sound.

Sometimes I find phrasing it as a question can make it feel like you're setting them a chore unconciously, so I tend to avoid it.

D.S.A is about a girl band who are tripping out while lost on a giant college campus: http://thewaether.itch.io/dsa

(P.S This is pretty much exactly what I wrote in press emails and it seemed to get attention for it, so I guess it's good!?)

I had this problem all the time (at one point I was considering "never finishes anything" my trademark) until I finally finished something (this year). I'd left it abandonned for about 3 years but I still thought about it a lot, and realised I was making myself depressed by just leaving it there, since it seemed like something I should've finished ages ago, and felt like a game that described me really well. If I didn't finish it, all the work I'd done and all the words I'd written would go to waste and essentially it'd just be a series in-jokes that only I knew.

So I realised I was procrastinating, and I'd just come out of an unsuccessful college course and had lost all direction and was unemployed. I was spending days just staring into space. I decided to pick it up, not think about how much was left to do, and just work on it until I lost interest again. It took a lot of pushing myself, but once I was in full swing, it became a lot easier. (I also took way too few breaks for fear of losing momentum.) Two years later it was finished.

I think it was a combination of several things- my frustration at myself, and the fact I had nothing else going for me. I'd wake up and think "why isn't this game finished yet?" every morning, and worked on it because I couldn't focus on anything else.

...I wouldn't recommend this exact method to you. It was really stressful, and I barely socialised. I didn't take many breaks. I also exacerbated my OCD a lot. It's better to balance socialising, working on the game, and playing other games/relaxing. Towards the end of development I managed to do this, and was also working on a few side projects in case I felt like a change of scenery. The side projects AND the main project both benefitted from balancing what I worked on.

I would always come up with ideas for games and was making excuses not to start. So, when I was 13, I asked my parents for Blitz 3D for my birthday, then got started with that.

I started out by making a massive kitchen-sink open-world RPG with billions of features, which I worked on for 5 years and never finished, (for some reason. Then I scrapped it and worked on smaller things. I guess it's something I just kept doing since. I enjoy it. I couldn't imagine going back to just playing games and not making them.

It changes a lot over the years. First it was Kingdom Hearts, because I'd never played a game that felt so large-scale before then- The world was also really detailed and the environments were small and tight, sort of like an adventure game. Everything about the way that game was built stayed with me in my future work.

Then it was Psychonauts, which apart from having really great, imaginative worlds, had such great writing. The plot moved forward because of the characters, not because it "had to", as was often the case with the games I played before then. There was no filler, either, and it was completely unpredictable and weird not only in terms of story, but the layout of hub worlds/collectables/quests etc. That game really showed me what games were capable of and pretty much changed everything for me.

After that, I got into indie games out of a desire to see just how much story you could cram within a small game. Iji & Cave Story were the games that represented that ideal to me the most.

Nowadays I can't pick one. It's often things I can just pick up and play whenever I feel like it. Skullgirls, Nuclear Throne, Downwell, and so on.

I love that you like it, and I experimented with a few techniques today to see if I can improve it, but they all seem to yield similar results right now. It's hard to get it to look muted and light while also well-lit. I'll keep trying over the coming months while also working on the model, and I'll post em in this thread, if I can.

I'm Kate Barrett, or "TheWaether". I recently made my first full-length game, D.S.A. And its soundtrack. I put it on itch.io, because I love it.

I also made a few other small games, like Lift Of Dreams, and almost-popular youtube sensation Grand Theft Alto.

I also make mashups and draw a lot. Usually I make whatever takes my fancy at the time, sometimes under various pseudenyms. Most of it goes on my tumblr. I spend almost all of my time working on things.

oh, also I have a twitter (@thewaether)

Thanks! And it's an unnamed game I haven't finished yet and I just work on when I'm bored. Currently it's called "Top Secret Neon Pink Planet" (and that will probably also be its final name.)

You're right about lighting, I'm meaning to experiment with it more, although that library scene has been hard to get right, since most lighting either makes it look too dark and deep, or too flat. I wanted it to be well-lit, since it's meant to be a busy, public place. (At the very least, I'm glad you could tell it was a library.)

I'll practice lighting things better over the coming months, hopefully with this game, and see what I can come up with.

I'm always seeing art styles and places I want to rip off make something like. Sometimes I'll take a walk on Google Earth or in real life, around town, and ideas for scenarios and places will come into my head. I never outright plaigarise anything, unless it was something that actually happened, or if it's too similar, I credit the original.

I also find I have more ideas the more eventful my life is. Sitting and waiting for them to come doesn't work, and a lot of my games are set on Earth, or inspired by reality.

Is it okay to post low poly/ abstract looking stuff? I tend not to go for realism but I try and make it look weird/ artsy.

And obviously these are all the same game- They're my most recent/ best stuff.

Also here's a character model I was planning to use for something:

This is probably my finest 3D art right now, but I'm planning to keep working on it.