Video Games
Highlights
Project Update: SOME Surveys have been sent! Smoke Test!
If you DID get one and you're having issues with the survey do not hesitate to let me know belowÂ
Project Update: Surveys coming soon!
We've submitted surveys for review, backerkit wants to check them over first before sending them out! We're currently working on getting the demo builds out as I'm sure that's what you're eagerly waiting for. I'm just running some quick bug tests on them as we included some extra content so I want to make sure its stable for you! I will update you all when the demos are distributed so you check you received it ok
- KatieÂ
edit: also good news t-shirt bundle backers but I found a way that you can pick your keychain in the survey so it won't be random anymore :)Â
Project Update: Ninja Town - May Update
Hope everyone has been doing well?
Its the first of the month and the first major official update since the campaign finished!
I have been working around with laying out the foundation for all the inventory items such as weapons, scrolls (ninjutsu/crafting), and items (power ups/runes). Making it also display on the placeholder HUD.
I have started sculpting out the terrain for Fire Town and it will be the first major town as part of Early Access. There are some mock up buildings and props positioned around the place so you can get a sense of the area, though this is far from finished. The town itself is based on Ginzan Onsen, which is a hot spring town in Japan and one of the main features is a river or canal that runs through the middle of it.
Level loading and transition is now in place which will allow me to put hints and tips on the loading screen.
All the items above can be seen in the video below.
I have basic player / NPC speech dialogue up and running as you can see in the video below.
Lastly, this is an arial view of Fire Town's current layout. The river flows from the mountain to the north east to the west of the town, buildings on both side of the river, and two farmland to the far west.
Many thanks for reading, and as always please feel free to post any comments!
Khuong
Project Update: The bonus sticker sheet, and an update on rewards!
Did you know that getting a bunch of rewards manufactured and shipped to you takes a while? Weird
I just got three boxes full of other boxes to put rewards in, a label printer and labels to ship things out, and the enamel pins have been approved and are moving to manufacturing! Once we're close to ready to start actually shipping out the rewards, I'll get the survey sorted and sent out to everyone - that's where you'll enter your address information and pay for shipping.
In the meantime - check it out! The bonus stickers by kokuhaku are finished!
Since there are only three chibi characters this time around, there was a bunch of extra room on the sticker sheet. I could have made it smaller, but it wouldn't have made printing them that much cheaper, so instead I decided to fill the empty space with little bonus stickers - included are stickers for the Petal Crash 2 and original Petal Crash logos, the Friend & Fairy logo, and little mini-stickers of each character's little pixelated head that's used for the battle bar. The new chibi stickers are the same size and style as the originals from the first crowdfund campaign, so they can be used all together! Get the whole gang together!
You might notice that Libbie's design differs a bit from her appearance in the first Petal Crash! When I first adapted Libbie to the Petal Crash style, I was primarily going off her original design appearance - she was very geometric and abstract.
I also mistook the white patterns on her feet for empty space and gave her heels when she didn't have any before. Oops.
This time around, I'm basing Libbie's design on a later illustration of Tyson Tan's for a "liberated Libbie", which makes her less icon-like and gives her a more detailed and organic appearance.
Her more detailed outfit will suit Petal Crash 2's new, expanded art style, and offer a lot more options for variety in character palettes! Libbie was so monochrome in Petal Crash Online, so having the ability to give different color options for her coat, dress, tie, hair, and other bits will open up a lot of possibilities.
I'm almost ready to show off some actual physical goods, and I'm so excited to do it! I can't wait to hold a handful of little metal Lilibris and start sorting them out to send to you all. Thanks again for supporting the future of Petal Crash!
Project Update: Livestream with the cast! Huni Bust Up!
We will also be joined by Gabriel Brown (BlackGryph0n) who plays Barnaby, and our composer, Daniel Ingram, famous for his work on My Little Pony Friendship is magic! Our voice actor for Billie, Amber May, will also be trying to find time to join, so hopefully she will be able to pop in at some point too!
Donations can be made over on their channel for voice requests and skits too, although it is not a guarantee that your request will be read, so please keep that in mind when donating! Please pop on by, it will be a fun way to celebrate the success and a chance to hang with some good people.Â
Project Update: Getting the rewards made - plus an extra surprise!
I just got access to most of the crowdfund money, so I've been busy slinging it everywhere it needs to go, including paying our collaborators and getting all the rewards manufactured! I even got it just in the nick of time to take advantage of a sale our enamel pin manufacturer was holding. Bonus!!
We did hit the stretch goal to get another sticker included with the physical orders, but since we ended up blowing so far past the final goals we set, I figured it'd be appropriate to include a bit of something extra as a surprise, so - surprise! I commissioned kokuhaku to do a few more chibi sticker designs, so the extra sticker is now a whole extra sticker sheet!
It's still a work in progress, but I just got the sketches and I think they're all going to be super cute! Since this sticker sheet will only have 4 characters instead of 7 like the other one, I'll also have lots of room to put in little extra things.
For now, most of my attention is on various producer-y tasks, but once there's more to share, I'll be glad to share it! Thank you all again for your support - until next time!
Project Update: Second title (spin-off) game Yomi-no-kuni
I got a second game in the pipeline, called Yomi-no-kuni. It is a charming pixel art roguelike deckbuilding game set in the land of Yomi. It will share lore and have some cross overs with Ninja Town.
I built a portion of this game last year and it has been sitting there collecting digital dust. This crowd funding campaign will be help me finish the game by allowing me to outsource the pixel art to TofuPixel (helped me with Mars Base) and other artist(s).
View Yomi-no-kuni's campaign here.
Project Update: Ninja Town Roadmap to Early Access and more!
Below is the development roadmap over the coming year, as we aim for Steam Early Access release in Feb 2025. The goal is to get the majority of the mechanics up and running, with one of the town's available for you to start from. One of the goals of Early access is to be able to have you guys play and provide feedback. In turn I can polish the game while finish adding the rest of the game content as we aim for a full release towards the end of 2025.
Roadmap from now to Q1 2025
- Fire Town - a hot spring town, and one of the four major towns.
- Character builder - design your character from a range of outfits.
- Quest content - quest content will be restricted within Fire town initially.
- Ninjutsu setup - spells design, effects and animations.
- Weapon setup - weapon design and animations.
- Elemental setup - elemental affinity setup.
- Farming setup - planting seeds, watering and harvesting crops. Each town will have unique crops suited for its geography.
- NPC Pawn functionality - build your own pawn and select their persona.Â
- Town NPC - regular NPC with daily behaviour goals/routines and can build friendship with by helping them with their work or quest(s).
- Crafting setup - crafting or dismantling items.
- Enemy setup - basic ai, combat and patrol design.
- Dungeon setup - randomly generated dungeon and loot implementation.
- Achievements - achievements (trophy) setup
- Game HUD - user interface stuff.
- Game options - load/save game, accessibility, graphics and sound options.
- Steam Early Access!
Below is a rough sketch of the world layout and you will start out in fire town, west of the world.
Project Update: We're all funded!! 🎉 What's the plan?
Thank you again for all your support! Sorry for the brief bit of radio silence after the campaign. I, uh, sort of woke up having a panic attack yesterday and had to go to urgent care to make sure it wasn't anything serious. I'm all right though!! This also happened to me just before Petal Crash came out.
I thought now would be a good time to let everyone know what our plans for development are, as well as the timeline for the fulfillment of rewards!
Development Roadmap
Early Access
- The Score Attack modes (Time Trial, Turn Trial, Chain Trial, Trash Trial)
- The Vs. mode (Including CPU opponents)
- The Puzzle Editor
- A good amount of example puzzles
- 8 playable characters (with backgrounds & stage themes)
- A complete set of animations for each character
We'll also be seeing about getting in Libbie, Baz, and the two guest characters during this phase, but they might be saved for a minor update later. Backstage Pass backers will get to play an incomplete version of the game, but Early Access will mark the point the game goes up for sale publicly.
I don't want to give a specific timeline, because I'm ALWAYS wrong when I try to, but I expect that we'll have the game in this state probably somewhere around the end of the year.
The Story Mode & Online Play
Each of these will be the focus of a major update. We may publicly release either of these in an incomplete state ahead of time, as well - like one or two stories in the Story Mode, or functional Online play without the full lobby system implemented. Backstage Pass backers will definitely get to try all of these in their in-development forms.
Adventure Mode
Console Ports
Backer Rewards
Physical Merch
Game Key
Backstage Pass
Cosmetic Rewards (Badges, gold/silver/bronze/custom costumes, etc.)
Credits & Credit Sprites
If anyone has any questions about our plans for development, don't hesitate to ask! Thank you all again - I don't know about everyone else, but I'm feeling unstoppable!
Project Update: Campaign has finished!
I will start sending out more details about the game in the coming weeks. I will also like to at least post one development progression per month (most likely more) on here and in the discord channel as well.
For anyone who missed out, you can still pre-order and support the project by visiting the pre-order page here.