aw, ty i appreciate that. its pretty breezy so far. somehow i actually gave myself time to not only finish the thing but polish it as well. its not gonna be flawless but im confident it will deliver on the promises i have made with it
i have already laid the groundwork for the next brush burial game. this one will recieve bug fixes and potentially more outfits in the interim. but for the most part, what you see is what you get.
that is the plan; it could change. we'll see how launch goes.
i can't get into it too much, because its dependent on valve's approval process. i need to launch this at the same time as it is launched on steam. so i cannot give any assurances about the exact timing. sorry
nope 😌 some will be a surprise. though i guess they may have all appeared in gameplay footage and trailers; i havent kept track. but i havent posted them all explicitly
funnily enough, the stepdown was actually the last piece of content i made before shipping the game. i really like towns in any game, and i love writing dialogue, and i had this whole dialogue system i'd barely made use of up to that point. i wanted to add a little more character to the world and give the game some more context to the setting. but i didn't want to mess with the game's "plot" or progression or anything. it took me a few weeks to a month of work, so nothing too crazy but it was definitely an undertaking. most of that time was spent making the geometry lol--i wrote all the townsfolk's dialogue in like a day or two.
personally, i'm never too worried about whether or not a player's gonna see everything. i sort of make my levels from a standpoint of, here's the critical path, and now that i've got that done, i can start adding branches to random cool stuff. and i just repeat that process over and over. as the most extreme example, i didn't even expect all my players to see the end of the game: partially because most people don't finish games, and partially because i made act 2 so hard to beat. i figure if people wanna poke around and figure things out and see all the content i made, they'll do it, and i don't need to guide those kinds of players. in general, i don't give much thought to the playstyle that finishes all the required content as quickly as possible, except maybe in a speedrunning capacity.
i'm super proud of how the stepdown turned out. i kinda wish i could make a whole game like that--interacting with townsfolk; hanging out; low stakes stuff. maybe someday.
thank you for making this! 💚 i'm glad you enjoyed it.
i'm aware there are a few ways of cheesing through the puzzle; while that's obviously not my 'intent', i'm not too bothered by it. it's out in the world and therefore out of my hands. in the context of a playable project, my intent is irrelevant; people can play it how they please.
with the newest update, i did try to make it a little less necessary to repeat segments through the use of the jawbone (instantly clears a chamber) and the fingerbones (takes you straight to the corresponding chamber), which serve as my olive branches to those who found the repetition exhausting. of course, i've had many requests to just make it a straight shot through the chambers, which would be easy to do, but i think that invalidates the point of the act and strips away the themes i'm trying to convey.
anyway, this act is the game's most divisive moment, and i understand it has left a bad taste in a lot of players' mouths. it has led me to question whether i have made a good game by prevailing definitions, as it contains something acutely intentional but fundamentally unfriendly, punishing, and by some accounts, 'unfun' to play. but that is for the community to decide. my only move is to maintain its integrity and, if i am to make changes, do so in a way that preserves the intention of the art. i wanted a puzzle that would require deciphering a small language of cryptic signifiers. writing things down; sharing strategies. i've been told that was a bad idea in this sort of single-player game that would reach so small an audience. i have taken that to heart, and likely won't be doing the same thing in future projects. but it is an important piece of Brush Burial, and i couldn't remove it in good conscience.
this is an unpopular approach to game design: arguably foolish, short sighted, self-absorbed, and unkind. but i am willing to bear such criticisms in pursuit of my own true expression.
thank you for engaging earnestly with my clumsy and harsh little game, and i hope in the future i can present something new, more artfully and tactfully expressed.
thank you for letting me know. it may be one of two issues:
if you die or reset the level, the gem bag is emptied. this is a result of the way the save system is recorded and is not possible to fix without completely rebuilding the way the game works. an unfortunate oversight on my part.
however, the mere inability to sell gems may be due to the changes i made to their functionality before the patch. i'll investigate this and hopefully get it fixed. thank you for bringing it up; i was completely unaware of this.
to clarify: this offer is to those of you who bought the game on itch BEFORE the steam release. valve's a little picky about distribution and i don't wanna step on their toes, so if you want the game on steam, please buy it there now that it's available.
to those of you who supported the game early, though, feel free to reach out to me and we'll figure something out :)
oh that is very strange, i've never used the desktop client myself but i gave the game's page a look to see if anything looked amiss. i noticed i hadn't clicked the checkbox for the operating system (windows) so maybe that was the issue?
i'll keep investigating. i'm not sure where else to look but i'll see what i can do. thank you for posting about it!
i'm not sure what i can and can't disclose but basically i have started the process, and am learning how to actually package the game and send it in for valve to review it. i don't know how long that will take, but if they give me the greenlight the release will very soon follow.
optimistically, i hope for late november or early-mid december. but that is by no means set in stone
