Hi friend!
Welcome to all the new Tomato Club members who joined during MAGfest!
We’ve got a lot of fun things to discuss in this issue:
- MAGfest recap
- Progress on FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT: returning to streaming!
- The three most impactful games of 2025 (for me)
Please consider wishlisting FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT and/or grabbing TORSO TENNIS in a Steam sale starting this weekend!
MAGfest Recap
MAGfest (Music And Gaming festival) was fantastic, as always!
I had a very chill year showing TORSO TENNIS and FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT at the MIVS Showcase. I also played a lot of arcade games in the mornings before things got busy!
I did something new with my booth this year since I had a little extra space on a corner. I decided to do a “Draw a Tomato Face” station. Pick a red sticker, draw a face, and stick it anywhere on the booth. It was exciting to wake up each morning and see how many new tomato faces were placed on the booth overnight.
This MAGfest was the first time I was focused on sharing two very different games at the booth. So I decided it was time to start behaving like the studio sounds like it should behave and bring a lot of tomato.
I really like the vibe the tomato balloons gave and it was fun hearing people walk by and say “too much tomato?” and keep walking with a puzzled look on their faces. I didn’t have room for the inflated balloons on the drive home so I bestowed them upon an attendee who was leaving the expo hall.
Something about the energy of the event always leaves me buzzing with excitement on the way home, and this year was no exception. So, I hit the ground running after MAGfest and have been making a lot of great progress with FORKLIFT FLOWERPOT.
What Progress?
This month, I went back to the mystery web and added way more detail. The main mysteries are connected through “surface level clues” which I have started to populate the game’s world with. Charting things out with linked notes in Obsidian has been really great for viewing the final mystery web.
The web features Surface Level hints, which lead to Major Clues, which lead to Curiosities: the big reveals. This is all closely modeled after the way Outer Wilds works. Each Curiosity features a major narrative reveal and major mechanical reveal that helps the player reach the end of the game.
These clues will be revealed on this web after talking with NPCs or witnessing a particular change during the seasons. I’m currently scattering the clues throughout the greyboxed levels.
I have to thank so many of you for holding me accountable to last year’s goal of having Alpha ready by January. I was thoroughly embarrassed to have to tell so many people that I missed the goal.
I’m back to streaming co-working sessions every weekday on Twitch. I usually set work block timers for 20 minutes and encourage chat to work along on their own projects. Getting back into this has been really motivating for me.
Most impactful games of 2025 (for me)
1 - PEAK
PEAK really defined the summer for me. At first, the challenge seemed insurmountable and the mountain made a fool out of me so many times. But we persisted. The procedural worlds felt like there was no “correct” path. This was refreshing and made it feel less like a Video Game Level and more like something closer to actual wilderness. The joy of discovering the world with friends, testing ourselves, and pushing forward together was delightful. I found out more about myself as I weighed my options of whether to help a fallen friend or press onwards to revive them at the top. Peak is the top dog of Friendslop.
2 - Blue Prince
Blue Prince was my carrot-on-a-stick this year. I knew I would love this game, but I waited until I was done with TORSO TENNIS to dig in. When I really want to savor a game I will wait until I have finished a major milestone so I can dive in fully.
I scheduled an entire weekend to blast through Blue Prince and I absolutely loved it. For me the run-based mechanics blended well with the investigation of puzzles and kept me very engaged all the way to Room 46. I did feel a bit dissatisfied with the game after that point as the puzzles spiraled out into more obscurely hidden clues in hard to reach places.
I made a video talking a little bit about my experience with Blue Prince and other detective games: The Roottrees are Dead and Outer Wilds.
3 - Nubby’s Number Factory
This game was probably the one that most impacted my game design practice last year. At first glance, I knew this was a game I had to play. The style and vibe instantly spoke to me. I finally got the chance to dig in on a weekend where I was feeling a bit ill and it was the ultimate game to play while sick. Not too demanding as far as action goes, and plenty of fun trying to come up with gamebreaking combos and beat challenges.
Nubby dramatically altered the course of my own game, TORSO TENNIS. I was inspired by the way the items had Trigger > Action structure that were able to be force-triggered by various other bonuses. Because of this, you can get wild and out-of-control chain reaction builds that absolutely break the game. Within weeks, I reworked how limbs worked in TORSO TENNIS and made a set of tattoos that force trigger limb abilities depending on whether they are in an arm, leg, or head spot.
Thank you Nubby for being a style and design inspiration this year! This is the kind of game that just inspires you to be your weird self.
Honorable Mentions: Leap Year & Grunn
Two great games about exploration and discovery. I love games that can be completed in a single night (Leap Year) or a single weekend (Grunn)! They were really useful and inspiring for me as I make my own game focused on discovery. Leap Year in particular is packed with so many AHA moments in its short 3-5 hour runtime.
Thank you so much for reading the newsletter and following the journey! Feel free to respond to this email if you’d like to get in touch, or leave a comment on the post.
<3 Michael