Been a while since I updated. Besides working on my own thing (which now has a Steam store page, shhh) and dealing with the holiday uptick in activity at my day job, my hands are getting fucked up again. I’ve been to the doctor and the most likely problem is high cholesterol, and the cold weather certainly isn’t helping the circulation problem. Even now, typing is a chore, but everything being a chore’s just part of life, isn’t it? Also, maybe I have depression or something, but I don’t know how to go about getting a formal diagnosis.

Anyway, here’s some various interesting things.

GameMaker Pricing Changes

Hot off the presses, GameMaker has made a big announcement. In a major step away from the subscription models they stuck themselves with a while ago, they’ve walked it back somewhat. While you still need to buy into a subscription plan if you want console exports, you’ll just have to pay a one-time fee for general development. Just playing around with the engine? There’s now a free non-commercial license, and you’re now no longer restricted to just uploading to GameMaker’s walled garden platform.

This is a welcome change that makes things welcome to smaller devs. Well, unless you have console ports of course, but you can’t win them all. Given that game engine news is typically stuff like Unity wanting developers to pay for the number of installs they got that led to such a powerful backlash that they had to backpedal, news like this is great. Maybe there’s a hidden catch we don’t know about yet, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

Some indie RPGs

If you’re a fan of RPGs, November’s a good month for indie RPGs. So much so that it convinced me to release my own in December and just take my time. But well, let’s take a quick look at each one.

Darya Noghani previously worked on a funny talking animal game called Aviary Attorney, and they’ve done it again with Small Saga. Beneath London is the small creature kingdom of Rodentia. An angry mouse named Verm is on the quest to commit blasphemy to right a personal wrong. The Yellow God of Death has stolen his tail, and Verm would happily do the JRPG god-killing stereotype to get it back.

The animal world has fantasy stylings within the mundane yet existentially frightening human world, with fights against other dripped out rats contrasting against normal house cats and octopi. It’s more in line with standard RPGs, so you shouldn’t be going in with expectations of a Bug Fables-like experience, but it looks good all the same.

In Stars and Time, by Insertdisc5 is an RPG about a group of adventurers under a horrible curse. The gang is stuck in a time loop and only the leader Siffrin is aware of it. It’s hardly a good time, because constantly experiencing death and failure and repeating past events has sent Siffrin into existential despair. It seems goofy yet depressing, so surely people that complain about Earthbound inspired (citations needed) games about depression will be normal about it.

Want to get a better look at your game for yourself? In Stars and Time actually has a playable free prototype, Start Again: A Prologue, which, well, effectively acts as a prologue for the game. When I first saw it I kept thinking, “oh this looks cool, I should check it out” but uh, looks like I put it off for so long that the full game’s out now. How about that.

Now, for a game I actually played the demo for years ago, we have Andy Brophy’s Knuckle Sandwich, which is coming out on the 23rd. Knuckle Sandwich is one of those games taking place in a late capitalist nightmare, where you’re a guy trying to hustle while trying to solve a mystery. Honestly, a game after my own heart.

Knuckle Sandwich seems like a very minigamey take on the turn-based RPG genre. In the past, I’d be excited to play it. However, my hands are extremely not in the state to play an RPG like Knuckle Sandwich. I already have trouble playing Bug Fables; unless Knuckle Sandwich has got a no-minigame mode like Citizens of Space did, I don’t think it’s something I’ll be playing anytime soon. Which is a shame, because I think it looks fun, so it’s definitely on my list of things to play when I’m feeling better.

Independent Gaming Media

A while ago I was depression posting on the state of media. I certainly am still going through it with regards to the fact that most of western media’s been pro-genocide even though a majority of average joes want a ceasefire. Did you know that UNLV’s college of urban affairs that houses its journalism major is named after a guy that armed an early version of the IDF? Wack.

But stepping away from the larger media sphere, there’s interesting rumblings in games media. At least two big independent ventures have sprung up within the last few months. The Waypoint/Vice Games crew have reorganized themselves into Remap, which primarily started as a podcast venture but has recently started branching back out into written articles. Meanwhile, Aftermath’s sprouted out as another independent venture with other assorted names in games media.

These sites are primarily supporting themselves though subscription services, so you don’t have to worry about the ad hell that infests most of the internet these days. These sites follow in the footsteps of places like Defector, an independent sports (for the most part) site which focuses more on creating a sustainable living for its workers instead of chasing profits, which has led to the damnation of many media sites.

This is not to say that independent outlets don’t already exist. DEEP HELL and Kritiqal are examples of such sites. But seeing new ventures sprout out and be embraced kinda makes me feel hopeful. I don’t think I can find a space in the greater media landscape, but maybe I can carve my own space. Maybe if I put more focus into this site, I can find myself in a happy place. I don’t think I’ll ever be as big as those sites I mentioned, but goddamn I’ll try.

My 2023 resolution was to release my game this year and I’m already making good on that, so maybe I can make good on a 2024 resolution.