🍅Overcoming BIG CHALLENGES

TORSO TENNIS: BIG CHALLENGES

Something about this gator really speaks to me. Do you ever feel like this?

With the launch date for TORSO TENNIS approaching and a slew of spring showcases filling out the schedule, I’ve started to feel a little mounting pressure. It’s times like these that have me thinking about the Sanrio character “BIG CHALLENGES”. Life will throw obstacles your way, but you can face them with a big grin and two stubby little gator legs.

I invite you to consider this gator the next time you face something difficult in your life.

I spent a lot of this month filling out the details of how players will progress through TORSO TENNIS.

▶️ Wishlist TORSO TENNIS on Steam

My original plan was to create TORSO TENNIS as a “sandbox” roguelike, with all the content unlocked from the beginning for players to dive in and have fun with. I realized that clinging to this design constraint was holding the game back in certain ways, So I decided to implement a Challenge Menu, seen in the gif above. (BIG CHALLENGES!)

Some of the more technical limb sets and tattoos are now gated behind these challenges: reach a certain week number in the season, or win with a certain build type to unlock them. This solves a problem of “information overload” in new players (way too many items and terms flying around) and also adds a fun element of progression to the game.

New Trailer Draft

Gameplay trailers get out of date quickly. With a few major showcases coming up, I decided to finally make a second trailer for TORSO TENNIS.

Let me know what you think of this *hidden* trailer draft before I share it with the world! If you have any feedback for me, feel free to reach out.

Participating in Sport-acular Festival

Indie game publisher, No More Robots, is putting on a Steam showcase starting on April 9th and TORSO TENNIS will be part of the fun. I’ve been eyeing this milestone for a while now and have a big update for the demo planned to launch along with the showcase.

60 Games: a brief retrospective

At a local Playtest Night, I got talking with another developer and a question came up:

“How many games have you made?”

How does one even begin to answer this? Released commercial games only? Jam games included? What about prototypes? The question stuck in my head, so I spent a Sunday morning listing every game I have worked on in a spreadsheet. I decided that any interactive project I worked on with an intent to share it counts as a game, even if I did not bring it to an finished state.

Here’s the final tally: 60 games: 12 unfinished. 48 completed and shared.

My off-the-cuff guess to my friend at the event (30) was half the amount that I had actually contributed to. Crazy to think that with 48 “completed” games, I’m very close to having my very own UFO50-like collection.

TomatO50 would NOT be anything to write home about. Many of these games are “garbage style” where the goal was not to truly create something of value, but to experiment, learn, or express something.

At first, it was really empowering to see how much effort I have put into this endeavor of game development over the years, but something shifted.

Suddenly, I noticed the year 2021 had only 1 game and I almost started to feel sad about it. The temptation was to wallow in this feeling of “I didn’t really release anything in 2021”, but I know the truth: it absolutely was one of the most creatively liberating years of my life. I started work on TENDY: Robot Gardener, started streaming, learned to paint, and left my Instructional Design job to work as a Game Designer at an indie studio.

What was this “game count” even trying to measure?

At the end of the day this sort of navel-gazing should be approached as a recreational exercise. Progress is not measured by how MANY projects you make, but by the small daily efforts of working towards something.

It was still fun for me to look back and catalogue my game development journey. It filled me with joy to recount all the fun projects over the years. If you take on this endeavor, let me know how it made you feel!

Community Spotlight: Rosewater

A western point-and-click adventure and an absolute labor of love.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1226670/Rosewater/

This weekend I booted up recently released Rosewater on the Steam Deck and played for around 3 hours straight. I really enjoyed the setting, characters, and voice acting. It’s rare that a narrative-forward indie game comes out with this level of attention to detail with writing, performance, and presentation.

You play as a professional boxer who moves to the town of Rosewater trying to change into a career as a writer. Still, it’s useful to know you can fall back on the skills from your previous profession - there are some characters in Rosewater that it feels immensely satisfying to choose the “Punch” dialogue option on.

Francisco, the creator of Rosewater, was among the first indie game developers I met back at PAX in 2020 that inspired me to dive deeper into the craft of making games. I realized there were actual REAL PEOPLE out in the world creating unique and personal game projects.

I recommend checking out Rosewater if you’d like to have a relaxing time exploring, solving puzzles, and living out a wild west adventure.

Thanks so much for reading, catch you next month!

Feel free to respond to this email and let me know your thoughts.

<3 Michael